At least 30, and possibly as many as 40, people died on 12 May when a KamAZ truck loaded with explosives drove into the local administration building in the Nadterechnyi Raion in northern Chechnya. Chechen administration head Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov immediately blamed the blast on fighters loyal to Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. Some 80 people died in a similar car-bomb attack on the government building in Grozny in December. In Moscow, President Putin said on 12 May that such attacks will not halt the process of establishing a peaceful political settlement in Chechnya. Putin instructed government officials to speed up the drafting of the planned power-sharing treaty between Russia and Chechnya. (ITAR-TASS)