Nicholas Daniloff’s research while affiliated with Northeastern University and other places

This volume makes available transcripts and commentary from the secret correspondence between former Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Akhmatov and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. This correspondence provides revelatory insights into both men's attempts to secure Western support for a peaceful transition to an independent Chechnya. © Ilyas Akhmadov and Nicholas Daniloff, 2013. All rights reserved.

My greetings to you, Ilyas! This recording is addressed to you. It has been a long time since a letter or any mail came from you. It worries me. A lot of forums have taken place and what happened at them we know only from the version of the Russians. You know that there is no opportunity to use the phone, therefore it is necessary to observe the rule strictly—send a cassette once a week.

Ilyas, my greetings to you and your comrades! The letters you sent me have reached me. I’ve read them. Therefore, I want to tell you one more time. There is little hope that America, the West, democracy, even such international organizations as the UN, OSCE, PACE would address our needs. I don’t think so. And I don’t hope for this. Whoever becomes the president of the United States—government is government. Government has its own interests. Therefore, in the first place, they proceed from this assumption. The West is experiencing an energy crisis, and it is hard to understand what is happening in America. The most important thing for them is to solve their own problems. And they can use Chechnya as a tool to blackmail Russia, put pressure on it, with the aim of pulling off their own interests. Nothing more than that. Either Russia makes concessions, or in case of a totally negative reaction they [the United States and West] all shut up, especially, when Russia makes a concession.

For the attention of Xavier Solana, European High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy

My greetings to you Ilyas and your comrades! On the cassette that I recorded, I presented my understanding of the work you are doing and the way I would like to see it, especially, if the war will be coming to an end, the way I see the negotiating process. I presented it all. I cannot understand why this cassette didn’t reach you; I’ll conduct a careful investigation into it. But if this investigation is delayed, I am recording this cassette for you once more.

My greetings to you, Ilyas! This recording is directed to you. I received the letters sent by you. I read them and thought them over. You did a great job, may God be pleased with you! We should understand one thing right away: we should never assume that there is space left in big politics for such a small nation as the Chechens. All the places have already been divided among the big states. All these human rights organizations, international organizations are the same instruments for conducting the politics of the governments of big states. And nothing else.

My greetings to you, I1yas! The cassette you sent me reached me, I listened to it. The documents with the account of the work done in the far-off state [the USA] earlier also reached me. I said on the previous cassette that it was a very important and elegantly done work. May God be pleased with you! What else should be done is only known to God, none of us know what He has in store for us.

Ilyas, my greetings to you and your comrades! The only reason I am sending you this cassette is to make you people realize the situation we have here, its political and military aspects. I thought that it would be good to have this cassette when you discuss the situation here in regard to what is happening in the outside world.

Ilyas, my greetings to you and your comrades! I have received your documents about the work you have done, and what had planned to be done. I’ve studied these documents thoroughly. I understood everything you wrote completely. I highly appreciate these documents and your work. Good job, a great achievement. With God’s blessings, moving little by little, there is every reason to believe it will end up in the most unexpected manner for us. I have this feeling. That meeting there, in the United States, and what they said, what you told them, the propositions that were made, all this seems very reasonable to me. With God’s blessings, it seems to me that we approximately understand their approach, what is on their minds, the tracks of their thoughts. And it is a very good thing that we both share the same concepts and the same position in this regard!

My greetings to you, Ilyas, and your comrades! Your letters have reached me. I understand everything that you stated in them. If the OSCE were located here, it would have been much easier. It is necessary to make utmost efforts to find a possibility to get them here. If the OSCE is here, then there’s an opportunity for a journalist to come and make public the brutality that the Russians engage in, and they think that nobody knows about it, but this also becomes known. This is the only reason, and there’s no other, why they don’t want the OSCE’s presence here.