–RUSHAILO CONCEDES THE OBVIOUS.

Georgi Ekhov reported in a January 31 article on the website Politcom.ru that at a Kremlin meeting of the Security Council–a top advisory body to Russian President Vladimir Putin on military and foreign policy affairs–the president’s national security adviser Vladimir Rushailo acknowledged that the military, police and FSB had not succeeded in normalizing the situation in Chechnya. According to the report, Rushailo conceded that Russian forces had failed to neutralize separatist leaders or to destroy their system of command and control. He even admitted that “a significant part of the population continue to view the measures for stabilization taken by the federal center with distrust.”