Chechnya's Secret Wartime Diplomacy ─ Aslan Maskhadov and the Quest for a Peaceful Resolution

For the first time in English, this volume makes available transcripts and commentary from the secret correspondence between former Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, who would be killed by the Russians during the second Chechen-Russian War in March 2005. This correspondence - carried out via audio cassette due to Maskhadov's fears of revealing his geographic position to the Russians - provides revelatory insights into both men's attempts to secure Western support for a peaceful transition to an independent Chechnya.

Ilyas Akhmadov served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Chechen government from 1999 to 2005. He is the author of The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost (2010).

Nicholas Daniloff is a Professor of Journalism at Northeastern University, USA. A former correspondent for UPI and US News and World Report, he is the author of several books, including Of Spies and Spokemen: My Life as a Cold War Correspondent (2008).

Anatoly Semenov is Assistant Professor at the Defense Language Institute in California, USA.

Mark Kramer is Editor of the Journal of Cold War Studies and Senior Research Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, USA.