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DATE=11/22/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / CHECHNYA (L)
NUMBER=2-256441
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  Russia's army chief of staff says he expects 
federal troops to capture the Chechen capital, Grozny, 
without a fight.  Moscow Correspondent Peter Heinlein 
reports Russian military planners are predicting that 
Grozny will be surrounded by the middle of next month.
TEXT:  Russia's semi-official Interfax news agency 
quotes military command sources as saying federal 
troops will have the Chechen capital encircled by mid-
December.  The cordon around the city is said to be 
80-percent complete, with only the southern approach 
remaining open.
Grozny has been heavily bombed and shelled for weeks. 
The population is said to have dwindled from 300-
thousand before the latest fighting to less than 30-
thousand. 
            /// OPT ///
Russian sources say as many as six-thousand Chechen 
fighters are entrenched inside the capital, but there 
is no way to confirm those reports.  Most 
communications links were cut by the first wave of 
bomb attacks in September.
            /// END OPT ///
Army Chief of Staff General Anatoly Kvashnin told 
reporters (Monday) the capital could fall without a 
shot, as Chechnya's second-city Gudermes and other 
towns did earlier this month.
            /// KVASHNIN ACT IN RUSSIAN, THEN FADE 
TO...///
He says -- it will be the same approach as with 
Gudermes and Achkoi-Martan and the others.  The local 
population will work things out with the bandits from 
the inside, and we will help them.
            /// OPT ///
Russian officers routinely refer to the Chechen 
fighters as bandits and terrorists.
            /// END OPT //
The immediate focus of federal troops is the southern 
rebel-stronghold of Urus-Martan, 30-kilometers 
southwest of the capital.  Interfax reports Russian 
forces are planning an offensive against the town, 
where they believe a large contingent of Chechen 
fighters is massed.
            /// REST OPT ///
The war remains largely popular with Russians, even 
among those who opposed the earlier Chechen campaign 
in the mid-nineties.  A recent poll indicates nearly 
70-percent of the public approve of the offensive. 
Nobel-prize winning author and former dissident 
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is the latest to add his voice 
in support.  In a Sunday television interview, he said 
-- it was not us who attacked.  We were attacked.
The 80-year old Mr. Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 
1994, 20-years after being expelled by Communist 
authorities.  He said we have been giving in 
everywhere.  We have to stop somewhere, because we 
have been retreating for 15 years.   (SIGNED)
NEB/PFH/GE/RAE 
22-Nov-1999 10:59 AM EDT (22-Nov-1999 1559 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.