TWO STATE SOLUTION:

Quietly, tide of opinion turns on Chechen war: Although discussion of the war has been marginalized, many experts say Russians may not prefer it that way. (Fred Weir, 11/17/04, CS Monitor)

Every Thursday evening Lena Batenkova and a handful of other intrepid souls picket in Moscow's Pushkin Square, within sight of the Kremlin, to protest the war in Chechnya.

She's been arrested twice and often taunted for her alleged lack of patriotism, but Ms. Batenkova feels she is doing what she must to keep alive a spark of public debate over the war in Chechnya. "We are ready to picket as long as it takes, until the Chechen war is resolved peacefully," she says. "We need to talk to everyone about it."

It could appear to anyone following Russia's major media - highly influenced by the Kremlin - that Batenkova's group represents a tiny, quixotic minority. Yet independent pollster Yury Levada says that 60 percent of Russians agree with her group's central demand - that the Kremlin sit down and talk with the Chechen rebels - and that increasing numbers doubt the possibility of a military solution to the five-year-old war.

There was a great deal of nonsensical chatter at the time of Beslan about how it would steel Russian resolve to see the war through--you'll note no one ever said to where. But the Russians are no different than the Israelis and want out of their Palestine.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2004 10:04 PM