The Chechens' fierce belief in their right to self-determination is their greatest weapon against the Russian Army, according to Colonel Musa Mirzhuyev, chief of staff of the Presidential Armed Forces. "Our strongest quality is our love for freedom, our love for our land. We just want our own territory, now we are fighting for it."
Many Chechen fighters pointed out in interviews this week that Russian forces have no similar faith in their task. As heavy wet snow settled on the hills around the city over the last few days, muffling the sounds of war, Chechens applauded. They said the cold misery of conditions would sap the morale of the Russian conscripts, which is already low.
Near the village of Dolinskoye, scene of heavy shelling Monday, Russian tanks remained immobile on the hills around three sides of the village northwest of Grozny.
To take the village they only had to roll down the hills onto the road and Grozny would be before them. But something was holding them back, leading the Chechens to suggest that the Russians feared anti-tank grenades since one burnt-out tank lay in the village as a reminder of earlier fighting. Or perhaps, they said, the Russians were stalled because of a lack of will to fight, like the columns stalled to the southwest of Grozny.
The Russians' slow advance is helping to maintain high morale among the Chechen forces, who say they will fight for every street and home rather than abandon Grozny. But they know they are outnumbered.
The Chechen armed forces are estimated to range between 1,000 and 2,000 fighters facing a Russian force variously estimated at between 10,000 and 40,000 troops, backed by armament and dominance of the air.
"We will fight in the streets," said Mirzhuyev, 50, "and the method will be a guerrilla one. But if we cannot hold the city, we will go to the mountains," implicitly acknowledging that it would be impossible to hold the city against a massive Russian assault.
Mirzhuyev's greatest fear is Russian air power, he said. A former commander of antiaircraft defense divisions in the Soviet army, he gestured at the blasted windows of his office in the presidential palace, wrecked Monday night when three bombs landed nearby.
"Unfortunately I cannot use my expertise, we do not have the rockets and weapons," he said. A single anti-aircraft machine gun stands on an armored personnel carrier in the main square by the presidential palace.
It is on the ground, on their own terrain, that Chechens know they can wreak havoc among the Russian forces, and they have already seen the cracks in Russian morale.
"Nov. 26 was our practice run," said one fighter, Ayub Khansultanov, referring to the breakaway republic's defeat of the Russian-supported Chechen opposition offensive against Grozny which led to the current crisis. "Even if Dudayev agreed to disarm, we would never agree."
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