DATE=8/26/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / CHECHNYA BOMBS (L)
NUMBER=2-253143
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Russia's Defense Minister, Igor Sergeyev, has
denied that Russian jets carried out strikes in
breakaway Chechnya against Muslim insurgents who were
retreating from neighboring Dagestan. V-O-A Moscow
Correspondent Peter Heinlein reports the minister's
comments contradict earlier statements by lower level
officials.
TEXT: Russia's semi-official Interfax news agency
Thursday reported that military planes carried out air
strikes overnight near a village in the breakaway
Chechnya region. Interfax quoted local residents as
saying several head of cattle had been killed, and
some villagers wounded.
The defense ministry's temporary press center in
Dagestan at first confirmed that bombs had fallen
inside Chechnya. A spokesman told inquiring reporters
that "federal forces retain the right to strike
concentrations of separatist fighters wherever they
are."
In an interview with a Moscow radio station,
Chechnya's deputy prime minister said the air strikes
targeted two Chechen villages where Dagestani refugees
were being sheltered.
However, those reports prompted a terse denial from
Defense Minister Sergeyev himself. In comments to
Interfax, the minister said flatly that "no airstrikes
were delivered on Chechen territory Wednesday." There
was no explanation of the apparent contradiction.
But a subsequent check at the Dagestani press center
found the spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Gubri,
had revised his account of events.
/// GUBRI ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
He says, "We have attacked rebels in the areas
bordering Chechnya. This is true. But we have not
bombed Chechnya itself."
However, Russian military officials did confirm
earlier accounts of strikes across the border. Those
took place during the two-and-one-half weeks of
fighting with Chechen-led rebels along the Chechnya-
Dagestan frontier this month. But they said no more
attacks are planned in the breakaway territory.
/// OPT /// Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
Thursday declared victory in what he called "stage
one" of the fight against the Muslim insurgents. He
reminded cabinet ministers that the insurgents had
been driven from Dagestan within the two week deadline
he set shortly after he took office.
/// OPT // PUTIN ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
/// OPT /// He says, "As we planned, we managed to
carry it out within the shortest period of time and
with minimal losses."
/// OPT /// However, reports from the region
indicate continuing scattered clashes in Dagestan,
within a few kilometers of the Chechen border. ///
END OPT ///
Russia withdrew its forces from Chechnya in 1996 after
a humiliating defeat in a war against Chechen
separatists. Chechnya claims independence, and its
leaders maintained official neutrality in the conflict
between Russian forces and insurgents in Dagestan,
even though the rebel commander is a renegade Chechen
warlord, and the fighters were believed to be based in
camps in the breakaway region. (Signed)
NEB/PFH/JWH/KL
26-Aug-1999 11:22 AM EDT (26-Aug-1999 1522 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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