Russia General Tells Chechens: We Won’t Shoot

The commander of one of three Russian tank columns sent to subdue the breakaway Chechnya republic said Friday that his men will not advance further or open fire on civilians regardless of what orders he receives.

“Our bosses may curse us, but we won’t shoot,” Maj. Gen. Ivan Babichev told hundreds of unarmed villagers who blocked their way 20 miles west of this rebel capital. “And please, don’t let (the rebels) shoot either. . . . We really want everything to be peaceful so the tanks will leave with flowers.”

Babichev’s emotional speech was the most dramatic sign of wavering and dissent in Moscow’s largest military operation since the disastrous Soviet war in Afghanistan--one aimed at crushing the self-declared independence of a tiny ethnic republic of 1.2 million people.

“This (operation) contradicts the constitution,” the general added. “It is forbidden to use the army against peaceful civilians. It is not our fault. We did not want this.”

The army’s sluggish, hesitant advance on Grozny prompted Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Thursday to extend to midnight tonight a deadline for Chechen secessionist fighters to surrender their weapons.

Fighting all but stopped Friday as Chechnya’s Muslim secessionist leader ordered his warriors to pull back to this capital and joined Yeltsin in calling a cease-fire.

But it was unclear whether a new round of peace talks proposed by both leaders would materialize before the midnight deadline.

Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin said Yeltsin authorized him to meet with Chechnya’s separatist president, Gen. Dzhokar M. Dudayev, but added that thousands of Russian troops closing in on Grozny, the rebel capital, “will go to the end” to enforce the ultimatum--a mission for which the troops appeared unenthusiastic.

Dudayev announced that he was ready to hold “high-level talks without preconditions” but demanded that Russia withdraw the troops, who entered Chechnya on Sunday. Lower-level peace talks broke down Wednesday when Moscow refused to pull the soldiers out.

Chernomyrdin summoned Russia’s defense, interior and counterintelligence chiefs to an evening session of the Security Council to plot the next move.

This decaying industrial city awoke Friday to a 30-minute barrage of artillery fire on its northern outskirts, then experienced a tense lull. About half of Grozny’s 400,000 residents have fled, leaving thousands of hard-core resisters behind.

“Freedom or death! Chechnya is a subject of Allah,” declared a giant chalk marker on the road into Grozny from the east.

Russia’s Interior Ministry, in an estimate that appears conservative, said 13,000 Chechens were armed for the fight--with 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 40 big antiaircraft guns and 50,000 firearms.

While portraying Chechnya as an internal Russian problem, the Clinton Administration has expressed concern about its explosive potential here in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains, a volatile, ethnically mixed area close to Turkey and the Middle East.

U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Defense Secretary William J. Perry met in Moscow with Russian leaders Friday and said the Kremlin was trying to resolve the conflict with a minimum of bloodshed.

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“I got the clear impression that they very much prefer a negotiated outcome there, if it is possible,” Gore said after talks with Chernomyrdin and Yeltsin. “We have urged negotiations. We are following it carefully. It’s immensely complicated.”

Perry said Russian defense officials briefed him on their tactics in Chechnya, but he declined to talk about them.

The occupation of Chechnya has set off a storm of protest in Russia, isolating Yeltsin with a small circle of hard-liners. Calls for peace swelled Friday, joined by the Russian Orthodox patriarch and Chechnya’s Muslim religious leader, who met in Moscow.

Perhaps to give peace a chance, or perhaps to give his troops time to position themselves for war, Yeltsin on Thursday extended the disarmament deadline by 48 hours.

Russian field commanders, while waging sporadic combat against Chechens resisting their advance, have been saying all week that they do not intend to attack the city.

While aimed at winning goodwill in a hostile place, such comments raise doubts about how much force Russia’s troops and commanders would be willing to use if peace efforts fail and they were ordered to enter the rebel capital.

Some Russian soldiers taking part in the occupation have expressed outright opposition to it.

“The mood among the (Russian) soldiers is despondent,” one tank commander told the newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda. “Once again, the army is being used to cover the sins of politicians. It is like Afghanistan for us here.”

At least 15 Russian soldiers have been killed in Chechnya this week, and 20 more are being held prisoner. Reporters have counted scores of civilian casualties in Russian shelling and air attacks.

The Russian government moved Friday to tighten its control on information from Chechnya. It ordered Russian media to carry official accounts of fighting along with their own, and warned foreigners to stay out of Chechnya for their own safety.

Goldberg reported from Grozny, Boudreaux from Moscow.