GROZNY, Chechnya -- President Dzhokar Dudayev of Chechnya, speaking in his huge ninth-floor office in central Grozny and flanked by a Chechen flag and bound copy of the Koran, said Wednesday that "Everything is calm" in his republic.


It was hardly a dramatic declaration, but it came just 24 hours after the opposition Provisional Council announced from Moscow that Dudayev had been "removed from office," suggesting that a long-simmering struggle for power was about to reach a climax.


Dudayev's claim to business as usual was backed up in the streets outside the presidential palace, where a lone armored car stood guard, while soldiers wearing fatigues and trainers stood about smoking.


It looked like any other day in the life of the 3-year-old self-proclaimed state of Chechnya.


Appearing tense and angry, Dudayev said Tuesday's opposition statement was just the latest step in a carefully worked scenario manipulated by Russia. It began, he said, with an attempt on his life in late May and would end in a declaration of war by Moscow.


Dudayev dismissed the Provisional Council as a group of madmen. "If Russia continues to support these paranoid people, today or tomorrow one of them will declare himself President of Russia and another Emperor of Japan," he said.


Wednesday was a day of hectic meetings for Dudayev. He met the Chechen Council of Elders in the government's headquarters, while a separate meeting of regional leaders denounced Tuesday's opposition declaration by the Provisional Council's leader Umar Avturkhanov. The representative from the Nadterechny region where Avturkhanov is based did not attend. "He is ill" said one of the participants.


A government statement accused Avturkhanov, who now has a Chechen warrant out for his arrest, of meeting with Russian intelligence leaders Wednesday. The statement called him a "detonator who is meant to provoke conflict between Chechens."


Several citizens of Grozny, even those critical of Dudayev, said they were offended by Commonwealth Television's propaganda offensive on behalf of Avturkhanov since last weekend.


"If Avturkhanov really cared about his country he should have stayed in Chechnya and written from within," said Murat, a young journalist.


Like most of the Chechen opposition leaders, Avturkhanov is currently in Moscow and is demanding that the rebel republic should rejoin Russia.


"I don't like the mess we're in but I don't like this attempt by Russia to impose their order on us," said Nurti, a pilot.


Nurti said support for the opposition was strong in the countryside, especially in the plains and Nadterechny, but that most people in the towns and mountains still believed in Dudayev's regime.


The opposition to Dudayev is divided and badly armed. The best-armed group, led by mafia-style businessman Ruslan Labazanov, is camped outside the city recovering from June street battles.


The main grievance people have against the government is economic. Most salaries have not been paid for over a year and in Grozny the sight of unmarked Mercedes cruising past groups of beggars is particularly striking.


Avturkhanov has promised to pay the salaries of all state workers, and to bring economic stability to the republic by reconnecting its economy to the comparative wealth of Russia.


President Boris Yeltsin's press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, said recently the Russian president had received dozens of desperate telegrams from Chechnya asking for Russian help. But in the world according to Dudayev, everything is the other way around. He said his republic was the stable one.


The Chechen government newspaper reported Tuesday that Dudayev was also receiving telegrams: "Russian citizens are appealing to President Dudayev with requests for help. Dzhokar is keeping a close watch on how the complex situation in Russia develops."


Another statement accused Russia of violating the Russian-Chechen border, a mirror image of a charge Moscow had lodged against Grozny on Monday.


The North Caucasus republic declared independence from Russia three years ago. For Dudayev's regime and for many Chechens that status represents the culmination of a 200-year-old struggle with Moscow.


Government officials often refer to the long wars with Russia in the 19th century and the deportations of 1944, when Stalin shipped the entire Chechen population to exile in Central Asia.


Dudayev, sitting opposite a portrait of the Chechen warrior Sheikh Mansur, said Russia could never be trusted.


"This has again convinced the Chechen people that it is impossible to conduct negotiations with Russia," Dudayev said. "Russia understands only the brutal language of force."