BORDER GUARDS CHIEF TO BE BUDENNOVSK SCAPEGOAT?

An articlein the June 24 Segodnya suggested that Federal Border Guardschief, Gen. Andrei Nikolayev, might be made the scapegoat forthe Budennovsk hostage-taking disaster. The paper stressed, however,that under existing Russian legislation he and his men were notresponsible for guarding the internal Chechen-Russian border.Nikolayev himself recently gave an extended interview to GranitsaRossii (no. 23) in which he said that he believed his "mainjob" in the next year would be to strengthen the border betweenChechnya and Georgia. In other remarks, Nikolayev repeated earliersuggestions that it was cheaper for Moscow to guard the externalCIS borders than to guard Russia’s own. Meanwhile, the chief ofthe country’s northwest border guards district told Na strazherodiny on May 27 that the border guards were overwhelmed bya rising tide of smuggling of both people and raw materials anddesperately needed the cooperation of other law enforcement bodies.

Two Chechen Officials Remain Under Arrest in Moscow.