GROZNY -- Crack troops were sent to reinforce Russian soldiers in Chechnya on Wednesday as casualty figures rose on both sides in the conflict and President Boris Yeltsin ordered his generals to press ahead and re-establish Russian rule in the breakaway region.


Two crack battalions of marines will arrive in Chechnya on Thursday to give forward units more punch, Interfax said, quoting a highly-placed military source.


A motorized infantry regiment stationed in central Russia's Volga region also left for Chechnya, to replace North Caucasus military district units sent there earlier, the agency said.


Yeltsin, offering both carrot and stick to rebellious Chechen forces, said the breakaway republic would receive generous help to restore its economy after Russian troops toppled separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.


He also pledged that "Under no circumstances will the deportation of the Chechen people repeat itself," referring to Stalin's deportation of the entire Chechen and Ingush peoples to Kazakhstan and Siberia in 1944.


But Itar-Tass said Yeltsin also ordered Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Interior Minister Viktor Yerin to "spare no effort in restoring the rule of the Russian constitution on the whole territory of the Chechen Republic."


Russia sent troops and tanks into mainly-Moslem Chechnya on Dec. 11 to crush the region's three-year independence bid. Russian troops are still outside Grozny, although the dull thud of artillery fire echoed round the town Wednesday and Russian planes flew periodically overhead.


"Chechnya is subject only to God," read one banner fluttering over the town.


Officials said 15 civilians had died in an overnight bombing raid near the city's television tower. Their report, and a Tuesday report putting the civilian bombing toll at 120, could not be independently confirmed.


Russia's human rights commissioner Sergei Kovalyov has said he has evidence that 42 Chechens have died.


In Moscow, parliamentarian Valentin Kovalyov, deputy to State Duma Chairman Ivan Rybkin, said 11 Russian soldiers were killed overnight when their reconnaissance mission came under fire. Seven members of the unit were wounded and five were unaccounted for.


Chechen fighters have been digging bunkers and trenches around Grozny, ready to beat off any assault by Russian troops ordered to bring the region's separatist leaders to heel.


Volunteers, bundled against the cold, said they were ready to hole up over-night in case Russian troops moved in.


"I got my warm clothes out, bought a Kalashnikov on the market and came out here," said Akhmed, a Grozny resident standing beside a bunker in the village of Shaami Yurt about 30 kilometers west of the center of Grozny.


Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev said Wednesday that Moscow's use of force in Chechnya was proportionate to the threat and military action would go on as long as necessary.


"It is important to see that the military action and use of force ... is prompted by the activity of armed groups, which are totally intolerable in any country, and proportionate to the challenge by those gangs," Kozyrev told a news conference in Moscow.


He said Russian troops were doing all they could to limit civilian casualties. "They are moving slowly because they try to be as cautious as possible," he said.


Asked how long the operation would go on, Kozyrev said, "As long as is necessary. How long are operations in some countries to deal with organized crime?"


Kozyrev said there was growing evidence that Chechen forces were trying to use ethnic Russians as hostages and using the civilian population as a shield. He gave no details.


He said the aim of Russia's intervention was to give Chechens back the rights and freedoms which he said had been violated by Dudayev. Once the "gangs" were disarmed, the people of Chechnya would be able to decide their own fate through elections "like any subject of the Russian Federation."


A Russian government statement on Wednesday said the troops' advance had been slowed by fog and snow. Russian losses were rising.


A second statement said Russian forces were still advancing on Grozny, despite poor weather conditions.