Chechnya Officials Agree to Truce, Raising Hopes for End to Tragedy : Russia: Kremlin insiders question whether emissaries can guarantee that Muslim fighters in the Caucasus republic will lay down arms.

Raising hopes that the mass bloodshed in Chechnya could end as early as this evening, two high-level Chechen officials agreed Tuesday to a truce proposed by Russia’s prime minister as a way out of what has become a Russian national tragedy.

But Kremlin insiders immediately cast doubt on whether the officials, who planned to report back to Chechen President Dzhokar M. Dudayev, could actually guarantee that the defiant fighters in the breakaway Muslim republic will lay down their weapons.

“Judging by the emissaries that Dzhokar Dudayev has sent to Moscow, it is clear that he does not control the situation in the republic,” Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei A. Filatov said.

An attempted cease-fire last week broke down only a few hours after it began--in part, it appeared, because word that the fighting was to stop did not reach combatants.

However, Tuesday’s truce agreement did appear to be an indication that Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, seen as one of the more dovish members of the Kremlin inner circle, was taking greater control of Russian policy on Chechnya.

Chernomyrdin had proposed an extensive cease-fire, including a ban on artillery shelling and troop movements, in a nationally televised address Monday night, then followed up with a meeting with Chechnya’s chief prosecutor and justice minister on Tuesday.

“It can be said that beginning tomorrow evening, the fighting will be stopped,” Chechen Chief Prosecutor Usman Imayev told reporters.

If the cease-fire does take effect, it could let President Boris N. Yeltsin step back from what has become a military disaster for Russia.

Although the official death toll among Russian soldiers in Chechnya is about 500, Parliament defense experts put the figure at closer to 3,000, and hundreds if not thousands of civilians are believed to have died as well.

The expense of the offensive, launched on Dec. 11 when up to 40,000 Russian troops moved into Chechnya to break its bid for independence, threatens to break this year’s national budget and hurt market-oriented reforms.

The widespread killing of Russia’s own citizens has damaged Moscow’s foreign relations, tarnished the military’s image and brought outraged protests from human rights groups.

The intense bombardment of Grozny, the Chechen capital, continued Tuesday as Russian troops maintained their campaign to take over the city center. A tricolor Russian flag was reportedly on its way to Grozny, to be planted atop the nine-story presidential palace, seat of the rebel government, in place of the green Chechen flag that has been flying there.

But Chechen militants still reportedly controlled the palace Tuesday evening, and the Interfax news agency said Chechen snipers and grenade launchers there kept the Russian troops at bay. It said Chechen military leaders acknowledged that they had taken to executing Russian scouts they caught.

The Chechens told Interfax that the fighting in general in Grozny had grown much more cruel. Russian soldiers no longer allowed themselves to be captured alive, they said, and when they did, the Chechens had begun shooting them instead of taking them prisoner.

With virtually no prospect of a quick Russian victory, Chernomyrdin’s peace initiative appeared to offer Moscow’s best hope to avoid thousands more deaths.

The very fact that he proposed the truce indicated that “new approaches to settling the Chechen crisis have prevailed in the upper echelons of power,” the Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Kremlin aide as commenting. “Chernomyrdin’s speech revealed clearly that the command of the operation (in Chechnya) is changing hands.”

The prime minister had a long way to go toward actually defusing the Chechen conflict. But Chechen Economics Minister Taimaz Abubakarov told Interfax that the cease-fire was a good start.

“Agreement on the cease-fire is the basis for working out a mechanism for regulating the conflict,” Abubakarov said.

Attempts by Moscow and Grozny to negotiate over the past weeks have broken down repeatedly as both sides set preconditions for the talks or failed to agree over logistics or the participants.

They also appeared to be impeded by lack of communication. When Russian Human Rights Commissioner Sergei A. Kovalev called a Russian commander in Chechnya at Yeltsin’s request to inform the officer of the last attempted cease-fire, he said, the commander refused to believe him and hung up the phone.

Dudayev’s exact whereabouts were unknown, but the two Chechen officials said they will get word to him of the cease-fire agreement. It may be hard to persuade the Chechen president to show up at peace talks, however; Russian intelligence officials said they have been searching for him and intend to arrest him.

Also, according to the head of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, it remained to be seen whether Dudayev controls troops outside those near the palace.