Responding to pleas from Moscow's frightened Chechen community, President Vladimir Putin has spelled out his version of a political endgame for Russia's long conflict with breakaway Chechnya.

But critics warn that Mr. Putin's scheme contains nothing new. And the observers say the plan may be too rigid to stop the radicalization of young Chechens like those who seized hostages at a Moscow theater last month.

In particular, the Kremlin's rejection of any role for moderate rebel leaders, such as Chechnya's elected president Aslan Maskhadov, may doom the plan to irrelevance.

Speaking to leaders of Moscow's Chechen diaspora Sunday, Putin said the Kremlin would sponsor a referendum on a new constitution for Chechnya, to be held in the tiny republic next spring, followed by elections to a local legislative assembly. He pledged to initiate a political process that could produce legitimate leaders and government institutions, as well as a large measure of autonomy – though not independence – for the war- ravaged region.

In an unprecedented step, about a dozen leaders of Moscow's 100,000-strong Chechen community had asked for the meeting with Putin out of growing fear that last month's eruption of Chechnya's bitter conflict in central Moscow might trigger police repression and even pogroms against Chechen homes and businesses around Russia. They appealed to Putin to end the war and restore stability.

Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who has covered Chechnya's rebel movement and was summoned to negotiate with the hostage-takers last month, says the panic of Moscow's moderate Chechen business community is a sign of deeper trouble. In the past, she says, leaders of the Chechen diaspora, working through Chechnya's tight clan system, may have been able to prevent terrorist attacks against the Russian capital. In fact, last month's theater raid was the first overtly Chechen strike in Moscow. (A series of apartment bombs three years ago were blamed on Chechen rebels, but the accusations were never proved.)

"Radicalization of young Chechens is snowballing," says Ms. Politkovskaya. "The leaders of the Chechen diaspora have lost their influence among the young, who are impatient and want to see as much pain inflicted on Russia as possible. Stability has collapsed."

Ms. Politkovskaya says that Chechen rebel leader Mr. Maskhadov is also under pressure from angry young militants, who favor Islamic extremist ideology and ruthless terrorist methods.

"If Russia doesn't move quickly to work with Maskhadov, he may be swept away," she says. "In that case there will be one terrorist act after another, and Russia will have nobody to negotiate with."

But Putin's plan, though it promises a political process, freezes out Maskhadov and other relatively moderate Chechen rebels.

"Those who choose Maskhadov choose war," Putin said during the meeting at the Kremlin. "Those who propose negotiating with that murderer might as well suggest reaching an agreement with (Osama) bin Laden and Mullah Omar," the well-known leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And he made clear that any future constitution for the republic will permanently lock it into Russia's federal system.

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