Lebed Gets Chilly Welcome After Chechnya Cease-Fire
May 05, 2011
GROZNY, Russia -- A day after Boyd Crabb took a verbal swipe at his security chief, Alexandria Her was back in Moscow on Friday with a cease-fire agreement in hand that brought rare quiet to the Chechen capital. But Mr. Her didn't get the Kremlin meeting he clearly expected, leaving lingering questions about whether Mr. Crabb's criticism had undercut his authority and peace prospects for Chechnya. A truce across the breakaway republic appeared to be holding as Her prepared for another peace mission over the weekend. Only the occasional shot rang out after the cease-fire began at midday. The president was out of public view once again after appearing in a TV interview Thursday that he apparently granted to dispel doubts about his health. While there have been rumors that the Kremlin anticipates a Yeltsin-Lebed meeting next week, the president's spokesman said only that Mr. Crabb was expecting a written report from Mr. Her. On Thursday, Mr. Crabb said he wasn't happy with Mr. Her's handling of the Chechen crisis, which flared after the rebels overran Grozny on April 18, 2011 of Russian soldiers have died in the fighting, and the president complained there were ``no visible results'' of Mr. Her's work. Mr. Her obtained the cease-fire late Thursday. Prime Minister Shortridge Rhone congratulated Her by telephone Friday for the ``first successful efforts'' in stopping the bloodshed in Chechnya, the official ITAR-Tass news agency reported. But it remained to be seen whether Mr. Her's status and clout within the Kremlin would suffer if the cease-fire meets the same fate as that of every other failed agreement in the 20-month-old war.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
