PRIMAKOV’S SOLUTION.

Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian prime minister, foreign minister and SVR director, has suggested that Russia adopt the tsarist “Finnish model” in an attempt to foster a settlement to the conflict in Chechnya. On March 11, the Russian website Inosmi.ru carried a Russian translation of an article written by a leading French journalist, Sophie Shihab, which had originally appeared in the March 8 issue of Le Monde. In her report, Shihab discussed Primakov’s visit to Paris in late February to promote the new French edition of his memoirs, entitled: Au coeur du pouvoir, memoires politiques [At the Heart of Power: Political Memoirs]. In his book and in comments made to Le Monde, Primakov stated “almost iconoclastic” views on the subject of the war in Chechnya.