A year ago, hopes for an end to Russia's bloody conflict with the little, mainly Muslem region of Chechnya on its southern rim were high.
On July 31, 1995, Russia signed a deal with separatists to end the fighting that had started almost eight months earlier, when President Boris Yeltsin had sent in troops and tanks to crush independence moves.Moscow promised to withdraw its forces and the rebels said they would disarm.
One year later, peace seems as distant as ever and those favoring a military solution have the upper hand.
"During the official ceasefire which lasted practically all summer (last year), our relations with the rebels were a bit of a joke," a Russian troop commander said.
"We had weapons, they had weapons, we looked at them through binoculars, they looked at us through binoculars, we'd make signs, they'd make signs, we didn't fire and they didn't fire.
"That nonsense lasted until the assassination attempt on the commander of Russian troops," he said.
"If last year there was peace, links with the rebels, now we have a clear order to destroy them all," said the commander, in charge of Interior Ministry troops based in southeast Chechnya, who gave only his first name, Alexei.
He said the order had come shortly after Yeltsin was re-elected to the Kremlin on July 3.
The most recent attempts to revive the peace process that collapsed when top commander Anatoly Romanov was blasted into a coma on Oct. 6, 1995, took place soon before the election.
Yeltsin hosted the Chechen rebel leader in the Kremlin in May and agreed to a deal similar to last year's peace accord.
But almost as soon as the election was over, the region slid back toward all-out war.