Following the end of the First Chechen War, Udugov unsuccessfully ran for the post of President of Ichkeria in the January 1997 election, but got less than 1% percent of the votes (in his election campaign he was representing an unpopular radical Islamist platform).
It is believed that the Kavkaz Center is in the control of the “minister of public relations” of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Movladi Udugov.
During the often-tense subsequent talks, the Russian negotiating team was headed by Ivan Rybkin, Lebed's replacement in the post of chief negotiator, and Boris Berezovsky and their Chechen counterparts Movladi Udugov and Akhmed Zakayev.