Bloody war to continue under peace plan, warns Chechen rebel leader

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pinned his hopes for peace on a last month’s contested referendum, but observers have doubted the Kremlin’s claim that most Chechens turned out and voted to approve the constitution which sets the republic’s place as part of Russia.

“With this referendum, the Russian leader will have made the war last for two or three years more,” Mr Maskhadov said in recorded comments sent to AFP.

“The war will continue,” he said, calling the referendum a mere ‘spectacle’ that would not bring peace to the war-shattered southern republic.