Russian troops have now moved into Chechnya from all points of the compass. No military result can be predicted for the latest Chechen war, but a clear political picture is beginning to emerge. The initial winner, in the very short term, is President Yeltsin's latest Prime Minister and designated successor, Mr Vladimir Putin. His popularity rating has soared since the Russian air force attacked Grozny in retaliation for the bombs which killed nearly 300 people in apartment blocks in Moscow and elsewhere last month.
From being a virtually unknown former KGB spy who headed President Yeltsin's staff, Mr Putin's confidence rating, in a country in which the people have little confidence in their leaders, has risen to 31 per cent. This matches support for the former prime minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, who, up to now, has been Russia's most popular politician.
But a lot of water will have passed under Moscow's Krimsky Bridge before the parliamentary elections take place on December 19th, not to mention the even more crucial vote on the presidency next summer. If Mr Putin does not gain a quick victory in Chechnya, he will lose Russia's greatest political prize.
At the moment the cards, both military and political, appear to be stacked against him. That the Chechens can fight has been proven time and again. When the Tsarist empire fought its wars of conquest against the nations of the Caucasus in the early part of the 19th century, the Chechens under Imam Shamil held out for 20 years longer than their mountainous neighbours.
In the Chechen war of 1994 to 1996, the Russian army was defeated by a loose alliance of "field commanders" united by a former Soviet air force officer, Dzokhar Dudayev. On Dudayev's death at the hands of Russian Special Forces, the command fell to Aslan Maskhadov, a former Red Army Colonel who outfoxed his former colleagues from Russia and effectively drove them from the region.
Maskhadov's undoubted military ability was important but the fierceness of the Chechen animus against Moscow also played its part. It had its origins in the fight of Imam Shamil and his forces but was given added strength by Stalin, who deported the entire Chechen nation along with its cousins and neighbours, the Ingush, from its Caucasian homeland to the steppes of Central Asia during the second World War.
Maskhadov and many of the secessionist Chechen leaders were born in exile only to return to the Caucasus with bitterness in their hearts when Nikita Khrushchev overturned Stalin's decrees.
Ironically, the Chechens were sent into their Stalinist exile in Studebaker trucks supplied by the United States as part of the war effort against Nazi Germany. Ironically too, it was a casual remark by the President Clinton, comparing the Chechen war with the American Civil War which gave a signal to the Kremlin that its last campaign had western support.
The International Monetary Fund pumped loans and credits into the Kremlin in the course of that conflict, indirectly subsidising a war in which 30,000 innocent civilians lost their lives. Sanity finally prevailed in 1996 when a gruff Russian army officer with a basso-profundo voice which resembled a roll of thunder was appointed as head of President Yeltsin's Security Council.
Gen Alexander Ivanovich Lebed succeeded where others failed. He reached agreement with his former Red Army colleague, Aslan Maskhadov, for an end to the conflict. Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya and President Maskhadov, elected with an overwhelming 65 per cent support of the people, took over as head of a de facto, though not de jure, independent state.
A treaty between President Maskhadov and President Yeltsin sealed the truce in the town of Khassav Yurt in neighbouring Dagestan, but others immediately challenged Maskhadov's moderate stance towards Russia. Not least of these was an intense field commander called Shamil Basayev who had been a scourge of Russia's forces in the 1995-1996 war.
Basayev, Salman Raduyev, the pompous and vainglorious neph ew of the slain leader, Dzhokar Dudayev, and others set themselves up as local warlords. Kidnapping and drug-trafficking raised money for arms. Hostages, including three from Britain, were beheaded pour encourager les autres. In the years since victory over the Russians, the moderate and in many cases nominal devotion of Chechens to the mystical Sufi branch of Sunni Islam began to change. In some areas, the ultrapuritan Wahhabi sect of Saudi provenance took hold. Shari'ah law was applied with its severe and public punishments.
Basayev, always more devoted to Islam than other field commanders in the Chechen war, became with his followers increas ingly detached from the rule of Maskhadov. On August 7th, Basa yev and a force of rebels invaded the neighbouring Muslim territory of Dagestan also in the Russian Federation. His second in command, a Saudi Arab known only as "Khattab" gave a Wahhabi flavour to the invasion.
Russian forces attacked targets inside Chechnya as part of their response. In apparent retaliation, apartment buildings in Moscow and elsewhere were blown up by mysterious assailants as their residents slept. Three hundred innocent people died in these exceptionally cowardly attacks last month.
Russia's air force, in a strategy uncannily similar to that of NATO in Yugoslavia, began a bombing campaign in Chechnya. Oil refineries, bridges and the region's general infrastructure were destroyed in air raids which Moscow described as attacks on rebel targets. Hundreds of civilians died and up to 50,000 refugees left Chechnya for other areas of southern Russia.
This weekend Mr Putin made two further moves. One was military and regarded as sensible. Russian armoured divisions moved into Chechnya in a tactical operation to help cut the region off from the rest of the Russian Federation without committing themselves to a full-scale invasion.
The other was political, inexplicable and absurd. Mr Mas khadov was denounced as a false president and Mr Putin declared the Chechen parliament of 1996 to be the true and valid government of Chechnya. This parliament was elected in an overtly rigged poll. Its president, Mr Doku Zavgayev, and the parliamentary deputies had become the laughing stock of the region for taking up residence in Grozny airport in order to ensure a quick getaway in case things got hot.
President Yeltsin and Russia's government gave recognition to Mr Maskhadov as the legitimate president of Chechnya in the Khassav Yurt accord of 1996. Mr Putin has moved to overthrow that agreement and install in its place a Soviet-style regional puppet government which has little local support.
Reaction in Russia by politicians opposed to Mr Putin has been cautious. With an election looming and strong emotional support for revenge against the Moscow bombings, opponents of the Yeltsin-Putin camp have been quiet.
Reaction in Chechnya so far has been calm and calculated. Mr Maskhadov has called for talks with Russia and a political settlement.
At the same time he has called on the "field commanders" to unite in defence of Ichkeria, as Chechens call the territory. His deputies have announced that a volunteer army of 50,000 fighters has been formed. One has said that 25,000 will defend Chechnya while another 25,000 will launch operations within Russia itself.
Recent history will have warned the Russian authorities that this type of threat from Chechen sources should be taken seriously. Although Russia's armed forces may have learned many lessons from their own experiences in Chechnya and the NATO campaign they excoriated in Yugoslavia, there is no doubt that a united Chechen force can pose a very serious challenge to anything Russia can throw at it.
The political future of Russia may now depend on the Chechen crisis. Mr Putin's response to the Moscow bombings has enhanced his status in the short term. A tactical victory or two by the Chechens, particularly within Russia proper, could destroy his current gains.
Gen Lebed, on the other hand, has lost whatever little ground he had, by insinuating that Chechen or other Caucasian terrorists may not have committed the bombings in Moscow, hinting that supporters of President Yeltsin carried them out for political gain. Even in Russia where the most bizarre conspiracy theories gain currency, and on occasions are actually proved to be true, all politicians of sound mind have rejected the theories posited by Gen Lebed.
There is the outside chance, however, that as the man who solved the last Chechen war, Gen Lebed may gain favour if and when Mr Putin's policy fails. In the meantime, the Fatherland-All Russia coalition of Moscow's mayor, Mr Yuri Luzhkov and the astute former prime minister Mr Primakov, lies quietly in wait to take power from Mr Yeltsin's supporters in the forthcoming elections.
Mr Yeltsin himself has been silent. Further open support for Mr Putin could be counter-productive. As president, after all, Mr Yeltsin has presided over economic and social collapse, crony capitalism, the first Chechen war in which innocent Russians as well as Chechens lost their lives.
On the positive side, from the pro-Yeltsin point of view the conflict has at least taken the spotlight away from a series of Kremlin-linked financial scandals which make recent events in Ireland look piffling in comparison.