Fulfilling Pledge, Chechen Leader Frees Russian POWs : Caucasus: Conflict over independence for rebel republic remains despite break in hostilities. Moscow keeps troops on alert.

The leader of the breakaway republic of Chechnya made good on a deal with Moscow on Wednesday and handed over Russian soldiers captured in an assault on his troops.

The POW release, part of a larger agreement Tuesday to pull back from military confrontation, averted war in the rebel republic. But the underlying conflict over Chechen secession remained.

On Wednesday, a Russian jet fighter roared over Grozny, the Chechen capital, a reminder that Chechen leader Dzhokar Dudayev and Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev of Russia did not end the dispute when they agreed to pull back from military confrontation Tuesday.

And thousands of Russian troops remained on alert throughout the northern Caucasus.

Dudayev has for months accused Moscow of arming and leading rebels seeking to oust him from power. He defused a crisis Tuesday when he agreed to release Russians captured last month in a rebel assault on Grozny.

Seven Russian servicemen returned to Moscow on Wednesday along with coffins carrying the remains of three soldiers. Dudayev has said seven other captives will be freed later.

Dudayev’s continued insistence on Chechen independence, first declared in 1991, makes any agreement with the Russian government unlikely. Moscow is afraid that Chechen independence would start a flood of other nationalist claims within Russia’s multiethnic federation.

While many Chechens relish independence, three years of economic dislocation and a virtual blockade by Russia have destroyed the territory’s economy.

The Chechens are a Muslim people conquered by the Russian empire after 50 years of war in the 19th Century.

The estimated 100,000 Russians in Chechnya privately admit to feeling like hostages. But without the means to move north, they are stranded.