11.   And President Vladimir Putin and the Russian army continue to participate willingly in them.

12.   And the huge Russian army is threatening mutiny unless it is paid.

13.   And when the Russian army approached that December, they faded without even staging a fight.

14.   Are they waiting to leave Chechnya and the war, which has killed tens of thousands of Chechen civilians and humiliated the once-proud Russian army?

15.   As one expert noted in an interview on Thursday, the Russian army already is conducting one fruitless war against Islamic extremists in Chechnya.

16.   At his hearing, however, a government lawyer argued that he might have simply been a deserter from the Russian army.

17.   Basayev was the leading field commander during the war in which a bunch of poorly equipped secessionist rebels humiliated the Russian army and evicted it from Chechen soil.

18.   A Russian army spokesman in Chechnya complained Saturday that Chechen rebels had shelled Russian positions and were stockpiling arms.

19.   A new Russian army unit in the Caucasus would exceed these limits.