GOITY, Chechnya -- The commander of Chechnya's rebel fighters conceded Thursday that Grozny has all but fallen to Russian forces and said the war had moved south of the capital, a day after President Dzhokhar Dudayev announced he was pulling out of the city.
The commander, Aslan Maskhadov, and civilians fleeing the fighting said the Russians were bombarding an arc of villages to the west, south and east of Grozny as the battle fanned out of the city to the surrounding plains.
The admission came as President Boris Yeltsin fired one of the Russian deputy defense ministers who have spoken out against the war, and as Defense Minister Pavel Grachev laid the blame for the poor conduct of the battle for Grozny on his subordinates in the field. (Story, Page 3.)
It also coincided with a fierce verbal attack on Dudayev by a top Russian commander, who said the Chechen leader should be killed without trial.
"He is a madman. He must be eliminated. There is no need to have a trial, investigate and gather evidence," said the military's chief of staff Mikhail Kolesnikov, according to Itar-Tass and Interfax.
Maskhadov arrived in the village of Goity, 10 kilometers south of Grozny and held a brief conference in a back room of the local culture club. Within an hour, he was on the road again, off to investigate reports of tanks at a nearby crossroads.
Maskhadov's job is to plug a dike being punctured by dozens of holes. He sat at a desk covered in red baize, dressed in gray fatigues and stabbed at different points on a map.
"In effect, we are pulling back to consolidate and give people access to me without being fired at by the enemy," he said as fighters craned round to hear his assessment of the fighting.
Dudayev and his information minister, Movladi Udugov, spoke on Radio Liberty late Wednesday night, apparently from Grozny, and announced they were moving their headquarters out of the city, more than five weeks after the Russian attack began.
But Maskhadov said he, and not Dudayev, was in charge of the military operation and said that the fighting was by no means over in the capital. "We still have a forward command point in Grozny," he said.
Goity, a village full of refugees, including many ethnic Russians who have escaped the cellars of Grozny, has so far avoided bombardment, but the war is now on two sides of it.
"For the last two or three days, it's been much more intensive," said one villager, who gave his name as Ruslan. "Planes are bombing day and night."
The crossroads west of Goity is the latest staging-post in Chechnya's story of misery. Fatima, a nurse, was crying -- with rage. Her village, Alkhan-Yurt, was being shelled. Her neighbor's house had been hit.
"It would be another thing if we had Dudayev's fighters, but we didn't let them in," she said. "They are destroying everything. They bombed for three or four nights. Since yesterday, they've been shelling."
Maskhadov said Argun, Chechen-Aul and Stariye Atagi to the east were also being bombed in what he called the Russians' "barbarous" war. He said the Russians had a vast superiority in weaponry, while his fighters survived only on "spirit, stamina and courage."
"Someone said I had 150 tanks destroyed near the zoo in Grozny," he said with a laugh. "If I had 150 tanks I would storm the Kremlin. When it's over I'll tell the historians how many tanks I had."
As a former Soviet army officer, he said he was amazed at the Russians' brutal tactics in which young conscripts were sent into Grozny to be slaughtered by his men.
"Grachev was in a hurry to celebrate New Year in the Presidential Palace and he sent in men who weren't ready for it," he said. "So in the end he didn't get to drink his 100 grams of vodka in Dudayev's office."
His tactic now, Maskhadov said, was a slow withdrawal so as to regroup in the mountains by spring. The snow is already melting in the plains here and mountain routes are opening up.Maskhadov again alluded to a rift with the Chechen president and said he was in charge of the fighting while Dudayev dealt with "political matters."
On Radio Liberty, Dudayev was laconic and sounded yet more unbalanced by the two-month war. "My mood is excellent," he said with his trademark high-pitched chuckle. He said he was readying for a "spring and summer" campaign.
But the Chechens will find it difficult to fight in the exposed plains and will probably have to retreat directly to the mountains. Maskhadov said they would fight on despite the odds because it was a holy war against an invader.
"God is with us," he said. "However courageous we were, we could not have resisted if God had not been with us."
The commander, Aslan Maskhadov, and civilians fleeing the fighting said the Russians were bombarding an arc of villages to the west, south and east of Grozny as the battle fanned out of the city to the surrounding plains.
The admission came as President Boris Yeltsin fired one of the Russian deputy defense ministers who have spoken out against the war, and as Defense Minister Pavel Grachev laid the blame for the poor conduct of the battle for Grozny on his subordinates in the field. (Story, Page 3.)
It also coincided with a fierce verbal attack on Dudayev by a top Russian commander, who said the Chechen leader should be killed without trial.
"He is a madman. He must be eliminated. There is no need to have a trial, investigate and gather evidence," said the military's chief of staff Mikhail Kolesnikov, according to Itar-Tass and Interfax.
Maskhadov arrived in the village of Goity, 10 kilometers south of Grozny and held a brief conference in a back room of the local culture club. Within an hour, he was on the road again, off to investigate reports of tanks at a nearby crossroads.
Maskhadov's job is to plug a dike being punctured by dozens of holes. He sat at a desk covered in red baize, dressed in gray fatigues and stabbed at different points on a map.
"In effect, we are pulling back to consolidate and give people access to me without being fired at by the enemy," he said as fighters craned round to hear his assessment of the fighting.
Dudayev and his information minister, Movladi Udugov, spoke on Radio Liberty late Wednesday night, apparently from Grozny, and announced they were moving their headquarters out of the city, more than five weeks after the Russian attack began.
But Maskhadov said he, and not Dudayev, was in charge of the military operation and said that the fighting was by no means over in the capital. "We still have a forward command point in Grozny," he said.
Goity, a village full of refugees, including many ethnic Russians who have escaped the cellars of Grozny, has so far avoided bombardment, but the war is now on two sides of it.
"For the last two or three days, it's been much more intensive," said one villager, who gave his name as Ruslan. "Planes are bombing day and night."
The crossroads west of Goity is the latest staging-post in Chechnya's story of misery. Fatima, a nurse, was crying -- with rage. Her village, Alkhan-Yurt, was being shelled. Her neighbor's house had been hit.
"It would be another thing if we had Dudayev's fighters, but we didn't let them in," she said. "They are destroying everything. They bombed for three or four nights. Since yesterday, they've been shelling."
Maskhadov said Argun, Chechen-Aul and Stariye Atagi to the east were also being bombed in what he called the Russians' "barbarous" war. He said the Russians had a vast superiority in weaponry, while his fighters survived only on "spirit, stamina and courage."
"Someone said I had 150 tanks destroyed near the zoo in Grozny," he said with a laugh. "If I had 150 tanks I would storm the Kremlin. When it's over I'll tell the historians how many tanks I had."
As a former Soviet army officer, he said he was amazed at the Russians' brutal tactics in which young conscripts were sent into Grozny to be slaughtered by his men.
"Grachev was in a hurry to celebrate New Year in the Presidential Palace and he sent in men who weren't ready for it," he said. "So in the end he didn't get to drink his 100 grams of vodka in Dudayev's office."
His tactic now, Maskhadov said, was a slow withdrawal so as to regroup in the mountains by spring. The snow is already melting in the plains here and mountain routes are opening up.Maskhadov again alluded to a rift with the Chechen president and said he was in charge of the fighting while Dudayev dealt with "political matters."
On Radio Liberty, Dudayev was laconic and sounded yet more unbalanced by the two-month war. "My mood is excellent," he said with his trademark high-pitched chuckle. He said he was readying for a "spring and summer" campaign.
But the Chechens will find it difficult to fight in the exposed plains and will probably have to retreat directly to the mountains. Maskhadov said they would fight on despite the odds because it was a holy war against an invader.
"God is with us," he said. "However courageous we were, we could not have resisted if God had not been with us."
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