September 22, 1995
Web posted at: 2:01 p.m. EDT (1801 GMT)
From Correspondent Siobhan Darrow
MOSCOW (CNN) -- It has been a week in Chechnya that could have driven both sides back to the battlefield -- a hostage-taking in neighboring Dagestan, a series of explosions at a Grozny oil refinery, an assassination attempt on Boris Yeltsin's special envoy to Chechnya.
Yet the two sides have agreed to keep talking for now.
"We are not going to war," said Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. "I can feel some people are trying to push us into fighting again, but that is not the method we will use."
A shaky cease-fire has been in place since the end of July, when the two sides signed a military pact agreeing that Russian troops would partially pull out. In exchange, Chechen rebels must disarm.
But both sides accuse each other of not living up to those promises. This week the Chechen side refused to hand over heavy weapons after a Russian threat to disarm the rebels by force.
Distrust is deep on both sides, with no solution yet to the most serious question of all -- Chechnya's future status in the Russian federation. It was Chechnya's push for independence that drove Russian forces into the breakaway region last December.
"Without political basis... lasting peace is impossible," said political analyst Alexander Konovalov. (130K AIFF or WAV sound)
As the two sides try to keep a fragile peace in place, hundreds of thousands of people wonder how they will live through the coming winter. Families live in ruined buildings with no heat or water. Some 400,000 homes are said to be in need of repair.
And while the government has begun rebuilding, restoring the people's faith will take much more than bricks and mortar.
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