Hasavyurt, August 31, 1996. Aslan Maskhadov and Alexander Lebed sign peace agreements. Photo from the archive AP The tragic death of Alexander Lebed responds with a sudden pain. This is a strange nostalgic feeling. Longing for times when people still committed actions. When the politicians were large. The general stood out even against their background. It was an unusually bright, fantastically gifted person.

Voting in Ingushetia. Photo AP About the victory of the deputy plenipotentiary of President Murat Zyazikov over Alikhan Amirkhanov, it was somehow sparingly, without details and nuances. It was as if an event completely ordinary and completely predictable. Sensation, meanwhile, is evident. It’s not a matter of victory itself - deep down in it, few doubted it, with some curiosity, expecting that the Kremlin would still come up with in a hopeless situation.

$450 million missing case closed. On April 29, the court sentenced the former head of the Main Directorate of the Military Budget and Financing of the Ministry of Defense, Colonel General Georgy Oleinik, to three years of general regime. The convict was taken into custody right in the courtroom. The general did not look confused. The verdict of the Moscow military garrison court did not surprise him at all.