Russian Troops Reportedly Slay Fleeing Chechens

Russia warned them to leave Grozny before fighting became too fierce, but for one group of civilians the terror came on the road.

Drunken Russian soldiers in armored personnel carriers cut them off, opened fire and crushed their cars, then hunted down the wounded as they tried to flee, witnesses and officials said.

Nine people were believed killed, but there were no bodies left at the scene to verify that. The refugees were heading for the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

The site of Saturday’s carnage in this village about 30 miles west of the Chechen capital, Grozny, testified to the violence.

Blood-covered footprints led from three crushed cars to bushes along the road, and the ground was littered with spent cartridges from a machine gun. Women’s clothes lay nearby. A half-eaten loaf of bread lay on the rear window of one car.

One investigator said a child’s footprints appeared to be next to a woman’s.

“According to the traces, they chased and killed the wounded, then dragged them away,” said an Ingush investigator at the scene, who did not give his name.

The killings underscored the breakdown in discipline in the Russian military. Some Russian soldiers have said they will defy orders to advance on Chechnya, where Moscow is trying to crush an independence movement and reassert authority. Morale in the armed forces is low, and the defense minister, Pavel S. Grachev, is unpopular.

“The commanders had orders to let the refugees pass, but these cars were fired upon and squashed,” said Khamzat Bekov, emergency situations minister in Ingushetia. “Then they tried to conceal all the traces. We cannot find the bodies, the wounded.”

Officials blamed Interior Ministry troops who patrol roads and guard the rear flank of the army.

“I travel around, and all I see is drunken soldiers and drunken officers manning the posts,” said Lt. Gen. Valery Vostrotin, Russia’s deputy emergency situations minister. “They have no discipline and they go unpunished.”