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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the terrorist attack in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, would not derail the Chechnya settlement process.
Terrorists cannot harm the Chechen settlement or achieve "the more sinister goal of thwarting the overall strengthening of Russia's statehood," Putin told a cabinet meeting, adding that "terrorists are trying to do so using the cruelest methods, but they will not succeed."
Eighty-one people have died so far since suicide bombers rammed two explosives-filled trucks into the Chechnya government buildinglast Friday, Interfax reported.
Moscow claims international terrorists, teamed with Chechen separatists, were behind the attack.
"Certainly they can multiply casualties, including victims from their own people, but they will never thwart the settlement process and the general strengthening of statehood," Putin stressed.
(Xinhua News Agency December 31, 2002)
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