A decade ago, no one in Russia would have dared speak of the physical extermination of a whole race. But today Russian strategists and journalists are seriously discussing using thermonuclear weapons against Chechnya. PNS commentator Andrei Piontkowsky, who holds a doctorate in applied math, heads the Center for Strategic Studies, a Moscow-based think-tank, and has written widely on nuclear security issues.

At a seminar I attended recently in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, several participants discussed, in all seriousness, the possibility of using thermonuclear weapons in Chechnya.

I spoke against this, arguing such an act would be absurd and suicidal, but I could not shake off a feeling of unreality. My own arguments seemed crazy and unworthy, because it was dishonorable just to be taking part in such a discussion.

On the front page of Russia's most popular newspaper I read, "Chechnya should be presented with an ultimatum: Either they cease all military action on Russian territory, or they face the physical extermination of the whole republic using strategic air strikes, biological weapons, psychotropic gases, napalm and everything at the disposal of our once powerful army."

The paper went on, "And if the Russian government were to threaten Jordan with missile strikes, the Jordanians would find a way of suppressing their bloody Khattab."

On television, a popular political commentator was describing, with a radiant smile and shining eyes, how Chechen towns would be destroyed as footage of artillery and air attacks played behind him.

No one likes the Chechens. Typical -- and understandable -- is the call by Vitaly Tretyakov, editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaya gazeta, for a "swift" and "aggressive" reaction to the "outrageous and totally inhuman bombing of an apartment block in Moscow."

But there are things we don't want to think about, things we erase from our memory and consciousness. As I write, it is not yet clear who is responsible for the explosions in Moscow. On the other hand, everyone knows who is responsible for hundreds of "outrageous and totally inhuman bombings of apartment blocks" in Chechen towns from 1994-96 when tens of thousands of civilians were killed in air strikes and artillery attacks. Their deaths were no less terrible than those of the residents of the buildings just blown up.

Bombs are still falling on Chechen villages. Are we any different from terrorists in the eyes of Chechens? We must not deceive ourselves with myths about "pinpoint strikes on terrorist bases."

Something new and irreversible has happened to us. Ten years ago, no one in Russia would have dared speak of the physical extermination of a whole race. Hitler's fascism brought much more grief to our country than any Khattab, but even during the harshest period of the war, no one in Russia thought the physical extermination of the German people was a desirable goal.

Communism was an inhuman system in practice, particularly in its early stages, but its appeals for social justice and internationalism, however hypocritical, had a therapeutic effect. With the collapse of communist ideology, post-Soviet man found himself totally alone in a hostile and godless world.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says "we should not confuse the bandits at work in Chechnya with the Chechen people, who are also their victims," and parliamentary speaker Gennady Seleznev says he is firmly against "responding to every bombed building in Moscow by bombing five in Chechnya." A war against terror must not be turned into a war against a people. We lost the 1994-96 Chechen war for that very reason. We won the war in Dagestan this August because it was a war on the side of the people, in defense of the people.

To win the war against the bandits and terrorists in Chechnya, we must state the aims and tasks of our Caucasus policy clearly to ourselves and to the Chechen people -- to ensure the security of our borders and to destroy the centers of terrorism and the slave trade in Chechnya.

We must persuade a majority of the Chechen people to support these aims. To achieve this we must give president Maskhadov a chance. We must not threaten Chechnya daily with physical extermination of its residents, but announce our willingness to discuss the status of Chechnya with its legitimate government.

Russia's great civilization must not slide towards genocide.

The issue here is not world public opinion. As a matter of fact, there would not be any problem with "world public opinion." In 1996, at the height of the senseless bombardment of Chechnya, President Bill Clinton, on a visit to Moscow, compared Boris Yeltsin to Abraham Lincoln who had battled for the unity of the country. Today Western politicians, particularly in private, talk of Russia's role as a "shield defending civilization from the barbarian hordes".

Here we face the danger not just of a booby-trap, but of geopolitical catastrophe. With every call for the "physical extermination of the Chechen people," with every "error" in pinpoint attacks -- and "errors" are inevitable, and result in tens of thousands of deaths -- we are not only creating thousands of new potential suicide bombers who will come into our cities. The "final solution of the Chechen question" will focus the opposition of the whole Islamic world (not just fundamentalists) on Russia.

We--Russians and Chechens--have gone too far down the road of mutual animosity and mutual atrocities. There are only two options left to us. Either we live apart, or we die together in the name of the great principle of Territorial Integrity.