There would not have been a second campaign, if we had not been forced to undertake it. This is apparent. Independence was the point at issue during the first so-called Chechen campaign and eventually Russia accepted this formulation. I would even dare say now that the price was Russia’s national shame, yet we accepted it.

And what did we get? We got not an independent Chechen Republic, but a territory occupied by bandit groups and religious extremists, a territory that was used as the bridgehead for attacks on our country and for rocking it from the inside.