Analysts attribute this disinterest to the West's certainty that, whatever the outcome of the war, Western Europe will not suffer in economic or human terms. No refugees will flood across the borders. The case was different in the Balkans, where the US moved NATO forces into Kosovo, and certainly unlike Indonesia where Australian troops were sent into East Timor. Nuclear might has given Russia immunity, just as it has allowed Israel to escape the condemnations of the international community. We live in a world order where standards are grossly distorted.
Powerful nations escape the penalty for crimes they committed against humanity.
As Russia stands on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy, its ability to wage this war shows that it enjoys the implicit support of the US and Western Europe, which are pumping its coffers full of loans and donations so that it can continue massacring the Chechnyans in a bloodbath it describes as a domestic dispute. It will also allow him to carry out his plan to nominate Putin as his successor in a few months, and to preempt the communists' bid to return to power. What seems evident today, however, is that the Russians are unlikely to break the Chechnyan resistance. When the Chechnyans are planting bombs on the streets of Moscow again in a few weeks or months, Yeltsin will have not have to look far beyond his borders in search of a Bin Laden or a global Islamist conspiracy. The truth is much closer to home.