The war in Chechnya is more than a battle between Russia and a breakaway republic in the Caucasus, it is also a struggle for the law of the land, a group of politicians and social activists said Wednesday.


Yury Chernichenko, a member of the Federation Council, parliament's upper house, said the entire operation in Chechnya is being executed outside the law. Legislators should have been asked to declare a state of war, but were not.


"There should be a peaceful way, and a constitutional way, to resolve this conflict," he told a press conference. Whether Russia leaves the war as victors or not, Chernichenko said, it must leave. "Freedom of speech and the Russian constitution are at issue here."


Chernichenko said time will show that the recent swirl of events in Moscow, including the October murder of investigative reporter Dmitry Kholodov, will turn out to be related to the war in Chechnya.


"There is a direct link between the untimely death of Dmitry Kholodov and the events in Grozny. We'll find out about it after the next 15 years," he said.


State decision-making, said Anatoly Shabad, a deputy of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, is based on rumors and myths. "There is a certain myth about the Chechen threat, and that myth, by its very smell, is just like the myth of the Jewish-Masonic plot or something like that," he said.


Shabad told the press conference that a is rumor traveling in government circles that every Chechen citizen who shows up at rallies and protests in Grozny is paid $100. "It's amazing how the FSK (Federal Counterintelligence Service) tosses around these rumors and then starts believing them."


On the topic of money, Sergei Yushenkov, chairman of the Duma's Defense Committee, said he has heard the cost of the war in Chechnya estimated as anywhere between 400 billion and 1 trillion rubles ($116 million to $291 million).


Finance Minister Vladimir Panskov told journalists at the Duma on Wednesday that the operation in Chechnya had already cost 400 billion rubles. He said it would cost another trillion to restore the regional economy.


Several of the press conference's participants, and one journalist who recently returned from Grozny, said Russian armed forces were hitting civilian targets intentionally, meaning that the Russians were committing atrocities.


"There are war crimes being committed," said Konstantin Borovoi, the president of the Economic Freedom Party. "This should all be examined by an international military court or some sort of court. Crimes against humanity are still going on." Last week, Russian General Ivan Babichev effectively mutinied against the Russian Army by refusing to fire on Chechen civilians.


"People started this war consciously and now the question is no longer about whether to suppress the Caucasus," said human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants. The question is now about preventing people from dying."