At the end of a chaotic week in Moscow it is not at all clear whether Gen Alexander Lebed's bid to bring the Chechen war to an end is likely to succeed. Despite his success in brokering a ceasefire, and reports last night that he had secured the support of President Yeltsin, he has in the past been left without the political backing he requires if a lasting peace is to be achieved.
The uncertainty has all the hallmarks of a power struggle between the military, the several factions around the president and those who support endings the war. Coming so soon after the presidential elections, the crisis - if it is prolonged - must put at risk the domestic and international goodwill the elections generated.
Complete confusion surrounds the conduct of the war on the Russian side, and who bears operational responsibility for it. It is shared between several different ministries, operating as a joint force. This gives maximum leverage to those who wish to prolong the war for ideological reasons or because they have an interest in doing so. Despite the unpopularity of the war among the mass of the population, it would be a mistake to underestimate either of these factors. To many of the military top brass and Russian nationalists, the terms Gen Lebed has secured for a ceasefire look very much like a humiliating defeat or surrender. And seasoned observers of the Russian scene underline how powerful the military industrial complex remains, providing motives to continue the war - especially with President Yeltsin's health so uncertain, not to mention his own ambivalent attitude towards the war.
Mr Yeltsin may be playing his own game here by waiting to see whether Gen Lebed can pull off his audacious attempt to bring the fighting to an end, before finally deciding to support him. Likewise, Gen Lebed has himself got a political agenda and is well able to dramatise his entries and exits from the Chechen theatre of war. Centrist politicians such as the prime minister, Mr Chernomyrdin, are also manoeuvring for advantage. The very fact of such confusion and opportunism is typical of the end games of other wars, and one can only hope that this is the case here. Not all the confusion is to be found on the Russian side, moreover - there are war and peace parties and incessant factionalising on the Chechen side as well.
All the more reason to spell out some of the basic reasons why this war should be brought speedily to an end. It has been highly destructive of life and infrastructure and has propped up the worst elements of chauvinism in Russian political culture. The Chechens assert the right to secession, which contradicts the new Russian constitution and sets off fears that the Russian Federation could unravel just as the Soviet Union did.
But the commitment of successive leaders to such a ferocious and destructive war including Mr Yeltsin for most of the time when he is not fighting election campaigns means that there has been little opportunity to test the willingness of the Chechens to settle for less than full secession. Although the western countries have been reluctant to spell out very clearly that the fighting should come to an end if Russia is to continue to receive support, a failure to make such progress in coming days should trigger a reconsideration of this policy.