Moscow, Jan. 31 (RFE/RL) - One of Russia's best known reformers, Yegor Gaidar, today gave his backing to an initiative to halt the war in Chechnya.
Calling the fighting "criminal and senseless,"Gaidar called on Russian citizens to sign a petition against the war.
The move comes two days after the governor of Nizhny Novgorod, Boris Nemtsov, handed President Boris Yeltsin a petition signed by one million opponents of the war from the region.
Gaidar has been an ardent critic of the Kremlin's military campaign in Chechnya. Last week he announced that he was quiting the Presidential Council, an advisory body. He did not say specifically what had prompted the decision.