New Strategy: Storm Grozny

Moscow has abandoned its attempt to strangle Chechnya with a blockade of Grozny and instead has embarked on an all-out invasion of the city.


But Defense Minister Pavel Grachev told Interfax that the penetration of the Chechen capital would not be a storming in the traditional sense of the word.


Russia would not inundate the city with everything at its disposal, he said, but would rather take a steady, methodic approach toward its center.


Grachev's announcement marks the first time a senior Russian official has departed from Moscow's previously announced policy debilitating Chechnya by erecting a blockade around its capital.


His remarks to Interfax were accompanied by the publication in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Thursday of a report he read to the president's security council Monday. In the report Grachev said, "If the blockade of Grozny doesn't bring the desired results in political settlement, then we must be ready to take the city by storm."


The report then cited specific details of the storming of Grozny, including the strengthening of existing troops with reserves from the Ural, St. Petersburg and Privolzhsky military regions. The report called for the formation of storm groups on Jan.5 and completion of the operation by Jan. 15.


A Ministry of Defense spokesman, however, said the report published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta was not the report Grachev read at the security council.


"That is a falsification of our information," the spokesman said. "Those were not his words." The newspaper Friday ran a statement from the Defense Ministry denying the report, but Nezavisimaya Gazeta insisted on its authenticity.


Though Moscow initially announced it only had intentions to surround Grozny, one military analyst said Russia's goal has always been to take the city directly.


"That was always a part of the plan," said Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Strategic Studies Center, a Moscow think tank. The storming of Grozny, in fact, he said, has already begun. "There is no doubt their goal has been to take Grozny. But it will be accomplished at an extremely high cost."


Moscow is now using "smart bombs" to pummel strategic targets in Chechnya. The increased accuracy of the laser-guided bombs is intended to prevent civilian casualties, which have been high. Though figures are unreliable, hundreds of innocent bystanders have died since the invasion began Dec. 11.


Piontkovsky said Moscow officially blamed fog and poor weather for not using the high-tech bombs from the start to spare lives. But the real reason, he said, was because the bombs are very expensive.


He put little faith in Grachev's announcement that the invasion would not be a storming. "It's a semantic question," he said.


If Grachev's remarks are taken in concert with comments made by security council secretary Oleg Lobov, a fairly clear picture of the advance on Grozny emerges, a Western diplomat based in Moscow said.


This week, Lobov told a press conference that Grozny would be cleansed of illegal armed formations "district by district," according to Interfax. Lobov told the press conference that Russian troops have already crossed the city limits into Grozny and are able to "enter the town and leave it again when it is necessary for disarming bandit formations."


"If you tie them together, you get a pretty clear idea of moving gradually, rather than in an all-out assault, which would be very costly," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The difference, he said, lies between an approach that overwhelms the city with firepower from the sky and a block-by-block approach carried out on the street.