Moscow, Jan.29 (RFE/RL) - The governor of Russia's Nizhnii Novgorod region, Boris Nemtsov, met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin today and urged him to halt the war in Chechnya.
Nemtsov, who is also a member of the Russian parliament's upper house, said all of Russia's citizens were turning into hostages of the military conflict. Nemtsov asked Yeltsin in a written statement to stop the war immediately. He said the lives of "fellow citizens" were "the most valuable of all."
Local officials say they have collected one million petition signatures in the Nizhnii Novgorod region alone calling for an end to the war. There was no official reaction from Yeltsin.