FEWER RUSSIANS SUPPORT CHECHEN WAR.

On March 14, Associated Press writer Judith Ingram reported the results of a poll released earlier that day by the well-known Russian polling institute ROMIR: “Of 2,000 people surveyed in February, 37 percent said they supported the war and 48 percent said they did not. In September [2001], 46.5 percent of respondents expressed support for the war and 41.1 percent opposed it” (AP, March 14). On March 20, Ekho Moskvy Radio, for its part, reported: “A total of 41 percent of Russians are not happy with media coverage of military actions in Chechnya. This figure was given by a representative of the Defense Ministry at a meeting of an organizing committee on the role of the mass media in the moral education of the people” (BBC Monitoring Service, March 20).