WHITHER THE RUSSIAN REFUGEES?

On February 1, Vladimir Kalamanov, the Russian presidential special human rights representative for Chechnya, called for a “return” of the ethnic Russian and Russian-language populace to Chechnya. “The [Russian] state,” Kalamanov said, “owes an enormous debt to the Russian refugees, 200,000 persons, who left Chechnya before 1994 and are cast about the country having neither housing, benefits nor status…. Against such a background, the situation of the Chechen refugees is, at the least, no worse” (Vremya MN, February 1).