Yesterday I was watching television. I saw there our acting president who called Salman Raduyev "an animal". I would say more precisely, he called so "the man looking like Raduyev" whom we have seen during last week on all the TV channels. I don't know how did you feel about that, but I was jarred by these words. And not because I felt hurt for Raduyev. I don't care a damn for Raduyev, as Chechen authorities, for instance Maskhadov, apparently don't care for him. I was jarred for another reason. I felt at that moment that the acting president called me "an animal". He called so all of us - and what is more, he absolutely sincerely considers all of us "animals", all those who on March 26 will go to vote for him, because it's for us, cruel and cowardly animals he takes us for, this man began and wages now a bloody, cruel, criminal and absolutely senseless war in Chechnya.

I don't know whether parents of the 84 boys from the Pskov landing division who were recently buried in Pskov, will go to vote for Putin. The boys who were not only deprived of life but who for a week were deprived of the right to be reckoned fallen in battle!

I know, this is not a preelectorial rally. Maybe somebody will think it is out of place to speak about what I'm speaking. But the war is going on, and this is a preelectorial war! In a week, exactly in a week we will know what percentage of us, citizens of this country, have the right to call themselves citizens and what percentage should be called animals. I repeat, I don't know what percentage of electors will vote for Putin in Pskov... But I know exactly what I do want. I do want as much people as possible to remember next Sunday near ballot-boxes: this war is Putin, Putin is the war!

And I do know exactly whom I will vote for on March 26. I will vote against the war, I will vote for the freedom, for the rule of law and the civil society. I will vote for the only one candidate who takes an antiwar stand - for Yavlinsky. Not because I am a supporter of "Yabloko", I don't like many things in this party. But because my vote will never be given to a man who began the war with a preelectorial aim, the war to annihilate a whole people, the Chechen people. Because Yavlinsky is the only one politician in our country who had not fear to speak openly from an antiwar, antimilitarist position. And I hope, in a week you will act in the same way.

What is happening in Chechnya now - isn't just a mistake, isn't just a war. It is a real crime, a war crime, a crime against humanity. The author of this crime has a name and a surname - it is Vladimir Putin. And there is a victim of this crime - all the Chechen people, or more precisely, the people of Chechnya. I can see here, in the crowd before me, a green flag of the independent Chechnya. I'm looking at this flag and I feel that today it is my flag. I don't care a straw for the independence, I don't believe in one of the most bloody miths of the twentieth century, the mith of "the right of peoples to self-determination". But I feel that today I am a Chechen. Here we all are Chechens. I am a Chechen because today the army of my country kills the Chechens, old men, women and children. In the same way I am a Jew when the Jews are killed. I was a Bosnian Muslim when the Serbs were destroying Sarayevo. I am an Albanian when Miloshevic is carrying out genocide in Kosovo. I was a Georgian when Abkhaz separatist

s, Russian air forces and Basayev's bandits were exterminating the Georgians in Sukhumi and Gagra. Today I am a Chechen and I want to see here before me my Chechen flag side by side with flying flags of my Radical Party - a yellow Gandi's profile against a blue background. Raise higher the Chechen flag, don't hide it, it is a symbol of the victims of genocide!

So what can we do to stop this war? You know our comrade Dima Neverovsky, he gave the answer to this question , he gave it to himself and to the others. It is a very simple answer: "The war in Chechnya? Without us, please!". He conscientiously objected and is kept in the prison for four months already. What is more, from the prison cell he launched an appeal to all his fellow victims, Russian conscripts, willing to convert them into companions in struggle: don't participate in the war crimes of the regime, don't participate in the crime war, object to the conscription to the Russian army! That's why we brought here today our slogan, and we repeat it so that everybody may hear it, so that it were heard in the trenches of the North Caucasus: "Soldiers, go home!".

But what can we do now and here, today, at this square? I want to ask you three things, three very simple things which are within everyone's powers.

The first. Please sign the petition against the Chechen war. The petition and all the collected signatures will be handed to Putin. We will hand them in order to declare: we are not animals, we have our own opinion and we will make the regime to listen to our voice! Here, to the left and to the right I can see the placards above the heads "Collection of signatures against the Chechen war". Under these placards there are our tables where you can sign the petition.

The second. Please, help us to collect as much signatures as possible under this petition. Take the forms from the tables, take them away, fill them in and collect signatures of your friends, colleges and relations. Let them be as much as possible!

And, at last, the third. Please, give your support to our antiwar initiatives, not only a moral and political support but a financial one too. Any public and political activity requires means. An antiwar campaign isn't an exclusion, I hope everybody understands this. We need money for leaflets, newspapers, stickers in the metro, flags, placards ans transparencies. We need money to inform as much people as possible about out position, in order to induce them to join us. That's why there are transparent donation boxes on our tables. Donate as much as you can. One rouble, two, five, ten, fifty. Remember, each rouble thrown into the box means one new sticker in the metro. Thanks to these stickers the moscovites knew about this rally.

So let's act, let's fight, let's work. For we have one aim: to demonstrate to the regime that we are citizens and not animals!