With military operations now winding down in Chechnya, the rebels have adopted partisan war tactics while federal forces regroup and prepare for a semi-peaceful life. The Interior Ministry will take command of troops in Chechnya – and there will be plenty of them to command in the still-volatile region – all of them costing money.

First Deputy Head of General Headquarters Col. Gen. Valery Manilov said Feb. 10 that permanently combat-ready battalions and regiments numbering around 50,000 soldiers would be stationed in Chechnya until a stable peace was achieved. That is about half the number of men currently in Chechnya.

The problem is, however, that no one knows exactly when peace will come. Reserve Col. and Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov thinks that large numbers of troops will be stationed in Chechnya all through this year – creating a burden for the state budget.

"Soldiers' wages alone cost 2.5 billion rubles a month, half a billion rubles goes toward fuel and 0.3 billion toward ammunition, repair and servicing. In the first two months of this year, more than 6.5 billion rubles have already been spent," Yushenkov said. "If the number of troops in Chechnya is cut by half, that still means costs of around 1.5 billion rubles a month. That means 9 billion rubles already for six months."

Yushenkov said the government is reluctant to make these figures public. They don't figure as a separate item in the budget. But attempts to keep them secret haven't worked. "They were revealed last year by the old Duma's budget commission when the 2000 budget was being discussed," Yushenkov said.

Yushenkov said the figures had undergone considerable change. In autumn 1999, Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Alexander Kosovan said that military infrastructure in Chechnya would cost only 800 million rubles. Today, that figure is 1.5 billion rubles and has to be used by the end of 2000. Military engineers are to build fortresses in Itum-Kale and Shali, and bases will be built in Kalinovskaya and Khankala.

Military Academy Professor and reserve Counter-Adm. Valery Alexin gave even higher figures. "The Defense Ministry could end up spending 18 billion-20 billion rubles on upkeep of troops alone in Chechnya – that's almost a sixth of planned defense spending for 2000," Alexin said. "The budget doesn't have this kind of money to spare, but the troops will have to be paid somehow – either through reducing the rest of defense spending, printing money, or foreign borrowing, which is unlikely, given the West's attitude towards the war."

Alexin noted that aside from direct expenses linked to the war, large sums of money are also to go to the military-industrial complex. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov does not link the 1.5-fold increase in state arms procurement to events in Chechnya, but the facts speak for themselves.

"Budget financing of the military-industrial complex was 85-86 percent of the planned level. If it weren't for the war in Chechnya, the defense enterprises would have received all the planned financing," Klebanov said late January. Klebanov said that acting President Vladimir Putin had ordered that all debts for 1999 to the military-industrial complex should be paid by the end of the first quarter of this year – an added burden on the defense budget. Klebanov said that state arms procurement for 2000 was set at 62 billion rubles.

ITAR-TASS reported late February that output of ammunition has already increased, as has output of anti-tank weapons, aviation bombs and unguided air-to-surface missiles. Experts put this increase down to better state financing and note that defense output has risen by a third compared to 1998.

Comparing these figures to planned financing for the rebuilding of Chechnya provides an even more striking contrast. In a Feb. 3 interview, government representative in Chechnya Nikolai Koshman said around 3 billion rubles would be spent on rebuilding Chechnya this year – half the sum to be spent on building four military bases in the republic.

Koshman, a builder by training, knows that this money is just a drop in the ocean. He said that at least 10 billion-12 billion rubles would be spent on infrastructure in Chechnya. This money is expected to come from natural monopolies over several years. Koshman sees no point in trying to rebuild Grozny, the Chechen capital, and noted that "we don't have the money to rebuild Grozny." The military command in Chechnya reports, however, that by April 1, at least 10,000 civilians are expected to return to the ruined city.

"War is what it is. We've destroyed plenty, but when we'll rebuild it, who knows. That's the way we Russians always end up doing things," Alexin said. And no one, it seems, is coming forward to disprove his words.

Against this background, First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov announced Feb. 28 that the government would be borrowing $3 billion from the Central Bank to service its foreign debt payments. This suggests that the government is in financial difficulty. Only recently, Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko had said that there would be no borrowing in the first quarter. "The government is borrowing money because, it would seem, all the surplus income the budget has been getting through oil sales at high prices is going to finance the war in Chechnya," said Duma deputy Yushenkov. "Putin is trying to win the military vote."