Chechen Rebels, Russians Clash in Foothills

Russian forces and Chechen fighters clashed fiercely Saturday as Russian troops tried to take key rebel bastions in the south of the mountainous territory, Russian news agencies said.

Itar-Tass news agency said the stronghold of Vedeno, which has been the headquarters of separatist leader Dzhokar M. Dudayev, had been seized and the Russian flag hoisted.

This was quickly denied by the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow, which said the village, 20 miles southeast of the capital, Grozny, had merely been sealed off by Russian forces.

Russian troops, using warplanes and artillery, have been striving for weeks to push Dudayev’s fighters out of Vedeno, which is set in wooded foothills and is seen as a gateway to the mountains.

Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov, while denying Vedeno had been captured, told Interfax that Russian units had seized the small villages of Oktyabrskoye and Elisanzhy.

The multiplicity of the reports by Russian news agencies indicated that there had been heavy fighting throughout Saturday as Russian forces tried to press forward with their offensive.

Russian forces, sent to the Caucasus region last December to crush its three-year drive for independence, have gradually driven Chechen forces out of the lowlands and are pushing toward the rebels’ mountain bases.