DATE=12/30/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / CHECHNYA (L)
NUMBER=2-257629
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Russia is raining rockets and artillery fire
on the center of Grozny as ground forces try to
advance against Chechen rebel fighters entrenched in
the city. Correspondent Peter Heinlein in Moscow
reports a senior Russian military commander is
threatening to use more powerful weapons against rebel
strongholds.
TEXT: Chechen fighters maintain their grip on central
districts of Grozny as federal troops cautiously
advance from three directions. A rebel website
reported clashes at several points in the city, as
well as fighting at towns and villages in the
mountainous southern region along Chechnya's borders
with Dagestan and Georgia.
Rebels say they killed 70 Russian soldiers overnight,
and as many as one-thousand since the battle for
Grozny began. The state-run ITAR-Tass news agency
reported 80 Chechen fighters died in the latest
clashes.
Neither report could be independently confirmed.
ITAR-Tass reported rebel attacks on police checkpoints
in two villages in the northern region that have been
under federal control since early October. The agency
said the rebels used rocket-propelled grenades and
rifles in the attacks, but gave no information about
casualties.
Russian warplanes kept up their punishing raids,
carrying out scores of sorties over the capital and
outlying districts.
Air Force Chief, General Anatoly Kornukov, in a sign
of Russia's growing impatience with the slow progress
against the rebel fighters, said forces are
considering moving to heavier weapons. The general
did not specify what weapons he meant.
In Moscow, Russia's prosecutor general's office
summoned Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov to testify
on what it called the genocide of the region's ethnic-
Russian population. A spokeswoman said mass graves
containing about one-thousand bodies had been
discovered in territory recently returned to Russian
control.
She said the bodies are believed to be those of ethnic
Russians killed since 1991. But she had no
information on how the Chechen president might be
interviewed.
/// REST OPT ///
In another incident, Russian authorities detained
seven western journalists in Chechnya, including two
U-S newspaper correspondents. The journalists say
they were held for nine-hours and released after being
warned they would be expelled if found in the rebel
region again.
Russia has tightly-controlled media access to the war
zone. Few journalists have visited Grozny since the
early days of the offensive, and most reports about
the conflict are based largely on information from
official Russian government sources. (SIGNED)
NEB/PFH/JWH/RAE
30-Dec-1999 13:41 PM EDT (30-Dec-1999 1841 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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