Dmitry Ryurikov, an aide to President Boris Yeltsin, told a press conference that the army blockade around Grozny, which came under heavy bombing again Friday, "may finish today or tomorrow at the latest."
The Federal Border Service, meanwhile, announced it had closed Russia's borders with Abkhazia and Azerbaijan and sealed off Chechnya's border with Dagestan.
Ryurikov said the borders had been shut to prevent "what could amount to several thousand" Moslem fighters, sent in from neighboring regions and from Islamic states outside the former Soviet Union, to join Chechen forces in fighting the Russian Army.
Viktor Zelentsov, commander of the North Caucasian Border Troops, said there may already be as many as 2,000 mercenaries from neighboring regions, Afghanistan and Turkey, fighting in Chechnya. Ryurikov added that Islamic organizations in these countries, as well as in North Africa, were collecting "millions of dollars" to finance the volunteer fighters.
General Georgy Kondratiev, Russia's deputy defense minister, said last week that he had witnessed efforts in Abkhazia to recruit volunteers.
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