YASTRZHEMBSKY: Acting president Vladimir Putin arrived in Grozny's Severny Airport at 1:15 p.m. Moscow time today. He came on a Su-27 fighter, in the co-pilot's seat. He will attend several conferences there, as well as the ceremony of the withdrawal of a paratrooper regiment of the 98th Kostroma Division to its permanent deployment site in Kostroma.
Now about the settlements that have been in the focus of our attention of late, above all Komsomolskoye. An attempt of a group of fighters to break out of the encirclement was suppressed in the southern suburb of Kosmolskoye last night. The group had several hostages, who were released, in particular Lieutenant Colonel Zhukov and two other servicemen. The fighters lost 46 in dead, including a certain Mukhalikhov, assistant to the foreign minister of the so-called republic of Ichkeria. The southern suburb of Komsomolskoye directly borders on a gorge; in fact, it develops into that gorge. It is there that the fighters, who hide in cellars, try to escape into the mountains at night. Now the troops who are mopping up the settlement simply explode cellars. They have blown up 56 cellars.
Information about a battle outside Alkhazurovo has not been reaffirmed. The military report that small bandit groups were amassing in the vicinity of Gekhi, Grushevoye, Goiskoye and Alkhazurovo. As of noon today, no direct battles were waged in any of these areas. Sporadic shooting is registered in some places, and small bandit groups are found and liquidated. But there have been no major battles. This is information as of noon today. However, fighters continue to shoot at the entrenchments of the Joint Group of Forces, roadblocks and commandants' offices at night in settlements situated in the lowlands. They have launched a propaganda campaign designed to disrupt the elections of the Russian president in Chechnya. The bandits are concentrating in the mountains, but we have not detected a major group there.
Information from the Interior Ministry: In the past 24 hours, they held 14 preventive operations, detaining seven bandits, confiscating 11 firearms, checking over 2,500 people and more than 1,800 vehicles. On March 18, the Interior Ministry staff released conscripted serviceman Pshenitsyn (Military Unit 3641 of the Interior Troops), who was kidnapped in Argun on January 25 last year.
Information from the Ministry of Justice: There are 69 inmates in the Chernokozovo detention ward; in all, there had been 882, of whom 472 were released after a check-up, and 341 were convoyed out of Chechnya. In the city of Gudermes, the staff of the Justice Ministry, who guarded the building of the Chechen government, detained three servicemen of the Defence Ministry and delivered them to the city commandant's office. These drunken servicemen opened fire at the government's building. One of the detained was wounded. The military prosecutor office recognised the actions taken to detain these servicemen as proper and legitimate.
Information about foreign mercenaries, who fought, or are fighting, in the bandit groups, is always in great demand. Here are several documents, which I can show to you. They most probably concern Yemeni nationals. I say "most probably" because they came from Yemen. I mean two fighters who were killed. One of them is Khalad al Madani Muhammed Mukhsen bin al Hadj. According to information from bandit groups, he died on February 17. The other is Abu Abeida Alyamani Zaki Muhammed Osman, 26, who died outside the settlement of Khartani on February 15. The former mercenary died outside Serzhen-Yurt. The latter took part, as it is written here, in the jihad in Bosnia in 1995, from which he returned to Yemen where he studied under Sheikh Muqbil and Sheikh Abul Khasan al Maarabi until August 1999. Having learned about the developments in Daghestan, he left Yemen with a certain Abu Duyan, who also died in Serzhen-Yurt in December 1999.
Radical Islamic organisations launched a propaganda campaign on March 10, using different information channels, including the Internet, for holding the so-called world day of solidarity in support of the people of Chechnya on March 17. I read special instructions here on what to do at the Russian embassies, or better still at the Georgian embassies, abroad, which were placed on their web site. Naturally enough, we waited for March 17, monitoring the situation in different states, in order to see how effective that call was. I can tell you now that the effect was nil - the world community, including in Islamic states, did not show any interest in Chechnya.
Information from the Emergencies Ministry: 127,000 refugees have returned to places of their permanent residence from camps beyond Chechnya. A total of 10,540 people were settled in five temporary settlements in Chechnya. The number of those who get hot meals daily has grown, in Grozny, for instance to nearly 24,000.
Information from Nikolai Koshman's office: Measures are being taken to provide local radio stations to regional centres and cities. By tomorrow's evening, 40 cities, regional centres and villages in Chechnya will receive radio broadcasts. Wages will be paid to some categories of the social sector staff on March 20-23 and the payment of pensions and social allowances will be continued. Nikolai Koshman is dissatisfied with the progress in the issue of passports to the population in the Naurskaya district, especially the issue of new passports to young people, who will receive these major documents for the first time in their life.
Another information in connection with the forthcoming elections. All requisite equipment for voting, namely booths, ballot boxes, documents and visual aids, have been delivered to all regions in Chechnya where polling stations were established and district election commissions were formed. Election papers have been delivered, under reinforced protection, to the territorial election commissions. In view of tensions in the Shatoi and Itum-Kale regions, the elections will not be held there. The residents of these regions will be able to cast their ballots in the neighbouring Grozny rural, Urus-Martan and Achkhoi-Martan districts.
A statement by the General Staff: It expressed regret over the publication of the article by Valentin Razboinikov in Komsomolskaya Pravda (Feb. 15), "The Death Certificate Was False but Caused a Heart Attack." According to the General Staff, the information in that article was not true, and the article was based on false data. According to the head of the medical service of the North Caucasian Military District and the head of the District Military Hospital, serviceman Sergei Fadeyev, mentioned in the article, was never delivered to the Rostov district military hospital, and hence the hospital did not send a telegram informing his relatives of his demise. The author of the article, the newspaper's correspondent in Ulyanovsk (Razboinikov), did not see the telegram and did not properly investigate the situation. It is reported that serviceman Fadeyev is currently on leave.
RIA NOVOSTI: The Russian Information Agency Novosti...
YASTRZHEMBSKY: By the way, I noticed a piece of information carried by RIA Novosti. It says that Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev did not go to Grozny together with Vladimir Putin and is currently in the Defence Ministry building.
RIA NOVOSTI: Thank you. Will you comment on the information to the effect that the bandits are preparing a series of armed raids and terrorist acts, allegedly designed to thwart the presidential elections in Chechnya? Is it true that the bandits are going down from the mountains in small groups and concentrating in the Achkhoi-Martan, Shali and Vedeno districts?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: The concentration of the bandit groups was noticed in the settlements I mentioned at the beginning of the briefing. We constantly inform you about the bandit plans of holding subversive and sabotage acts and attacking the commandants' offices, roadblocks and the like. We have sufficient intelligence and agent information and radio intercepts, which show that the leaders of the bandit groups plan to thwart the presidential elections in Chechnya. The federal group of forces take special notice of these threats. This is why the federal forces and the troops of the Interior Ministry were the first to cast their ballots. This will enable them to be on the alert on the election day, ready to repel any provocation.
NTV: My first question concerns information about the mopping up of the village of Aldy, where peaceful civilians allegedly died. Will you comment on it, please?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: I checked this information and can tell you that a military prosecutor group worked in that settlement. They did not reaffirm the information on the involvement of servicemen of the Defence Ministry in the developments in Aldy. A group from the Grozny prosecutor office is working there, criminal proceedings were launched and the bodies will be exhumed, which is absolutely necessary in this situation. If they establish the guilty party, they will be certainly punished.
NTV: Why did Putin go on a fighter and not a civilian plane to Grozny?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: And why not? Do you know of any state protocol that would prohibit an acting president to fly on combat planes?
THE BALTIC NEWS SERVICE: Representatives of the federal forces repeatedly reported the involvement of Baltic mercenaries or volunteers, whatever, on the side of Chechen fighters in the conflicts in Daghestan and Chechnya. The question is, why did not the diplomatic offices of the Baltic states get official information about the detainment of these men, or about their dead bodies found there? Why did not the embassy of Latvia, the only embassy, which issued official requests to this effect, receive a reply yet?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: As for the second question, you should put it to the Foreign Ministry's Department of Information and the Press. As for this information in general, as soon as we get the necessary documents, we immediately forward them to you. Now for mercenaries from Russia or the CIS states. We have recently showed you the documents of a citizen of Kazakhstan, and we have information to prove that there were Baltic nationals among the dead. I think that the investigation of some persons held in Chernokozovo has not been completed yet. These citizens of Baltic states were suspected of taking part in fighting on the side of militants. As soon as we get more information about them, in particular about the woman who is suspected to have taken part in fighting as a sharpshooter, we will forward it to you and corresponding embassies.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: On February 10 this year, the Human Rights Watch sent an official letter to Acting President Vladimir Putin, asking him to investigate witnesses' information about cases of murder, looting and robbery of peaceful civilians by federal servicemen in Chechnya. What was his reaction? And what is the result of investigation, if it was held? Have criminal proceedings been launched in at least one of these cases? Was anyone arrested? I don't mean only the cases described in that letter, but also the cases, which happened after that.
YASTRZHEMBSKY: I don't know anything about that letter. As for the situation in general, we spoke several times about it. I will request information about the letter and [Putin's] reaction to it. The Main Military Prosecutor recently addressed you on the general situation. It has not changed since then. I don't think that something radical happened today, six weeks after the developments described above. If the military prosecutor office did not provide any information, I have nothing more to say.
THE AP TELEVISION SERVICE: And yet, why did Putin change his plans so dramatically to go to Grozny?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: You should remember that it is hardly admissible to openly speak about Putin's routes of travel and date of his arrival in Chechnya in conditions when direct threats were made, and exist, to the safety of the Acting President. More questions?
RTR, VESTI: To carry on the subject, I would like to ask you if Putin made the decision independently, or it was a planned trip? I mean the visit to Chechnya. Thank you.
YASTRZHEMBSKY: In principle, Putin makes all his decisions independently. More questions? Radio Liberty?
RADIO LIBERTY: Will the regime of the journalists' work be changed on the election days? Will they be allowed to cover elections in Chechnya? And how will this be done?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: You should address my staff. The list I saw last Friday includes 30 mass media. I think that people in this audience have already received permission for making this trip. On our part, we are doing our best to help everyone who wants to cover elections in Chechnya to go there. We did not deny a single request. As far as I know, everyone who filed for permission was included in one of the three groups. As for details, you should ask my staff.
RADIO LIBERTY: You said two weeks ago that the rules of accreditation and work of journalists in Chechnya would be geared to legislation.
YASTRZHEMBSKY: Quite right. I can reaffirm this now. They were inspected by the Ministry of Justice, who did not find any contradictions [between these rules and] existing provisions and laws. The rules were enforced by the Ministry of Defence in accordance with its jurisdiction.
FRANCE PRESSE: Can you reaffirm information to the effect that Putin plans to introduce the state of emergency in Chechnya after the elections?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: No, I cannot do this.
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