The military prosecutor's office has launched an investigation against senior army officers who have disobeyed orders to lead their men into battle in Chechnya, General Prosecutor Alexei Ilyushenko said Monday.


Ilysuhenko declined to name all the officers concerned, but said the list was headed by Colonel-General Eduard Vorobyov, deputy commander of Russian ground troops, who was removed from his duties at the end of December after refusing to take over the advance on the breakaway republic's capital, Grozny.


"Refusal to carry out an order is punishable under the criminal code. If we establish the fact of disobedience, criminal proceedings will be immediately instituted," Ilyushenko told a press conference.


"There should be no doubt about it, regardless of whether a general, a deputy defense minister or a private is concerned," he said.


Vorobyov was one of several senior officers to express open disagreement with the war in Chechnya, which has caused widespread discontent in the armed forces, as well as criticism from the general public. The initial advance into Chechnya was held up on several occasions by protests from angry villagers, many of whom received a sympathetic hearing from soldiers and officers reluctant to fire on civilians.


According to Article 249 of the Russian Criminal Code, refusal to obey an order during wartime or in military operations is punishable by 10 years imprisonment or death.


The investigation is being held by the chief military prosecutor, Lieutenant General Valentin Panichev, according to a spokesman for the military prosecutor's office.


Sergei Yushenkov, chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, named other officers under investigation as Colonel General Alexei Mityukhin, Lieutenant General Vladimir Chirindin and Lieutenant General Vladimir Potapov.


Ilyushenko strongly denied press reports that some generals had already been arrested and were being held in Lefortovo high-security prison.


"Vorobyov was questioned in Moscow, the other generals are still in the zone of conflict and they are being questioned there. Deputy head of the chief military prosecutor Lieutenant General Grigory Nosov has made a special trip there," said Ilyushenko.


"To assess their actions we must first determine what orders everyone got. But if the investigation shows that disobedience took place, they will be immediately arrested," he added.


Vorobyov was not available Monday. Nikolai Malyshev, a spokesman for the ground troops, said the general was undergoing a medical examination.


"As far as I know Vorobyov wrote a full report on his resignation and is waiting for the president's decision," he said.


In an interview last month with Izvestia, Vorobyov said he had refused to attack civilians to preserve his honor as an officer. "I love the army very much. I gave it 38 years of my life," he said.


But Ilyushenko expressed a different opinion, saying, "Who urged him to kill peaceful civilians? He is a professional. It is his problem how to fulfil the order with the least casualties."


Yushenkov said Monday the prosecutor's office had no legal basis for criminal proceedings against the officers.


But Boris Lazarev, of the Institute of State and Law, said the Chechen events could come under "solving of a domestic conflict with the use of armed forces" which was quite legal.