ABSTRACT
By mid-December the political conflict between the Russian federal authorities and the leaders of the Chechen Republic had deteriorated further and on December 11th 1994 Russian troops were sent into the republic with the objective of restoring ‘constitutional law and order’. On the day that the incursion commenced, Yeltsin made an address to the Russian population regarding the situation in Chechnya: ‘Our aim is to find a political solution to the problem of one of the components of the Russian Federation – the Chechen Republic – and to protect its citizens from armed extremism. But at present the impending danger of a full-scale war in the Chechen Republic stands in the way of peace talks and the free expression of the Chechen people’s will.’1 This proclamation implied the futility of the Mikhailov commission, which was underlined by the fact that talks between this commission and members of both the Dudayev government and Chechen opposition did not begin until December 12th, the day after federal troops had entered Chechnya.
