Russia Calls Halt to Chechnya Drive : Europe: Peace talks in breakaway republic are set for today after prime minister grants major concession to rebels who hold hostages at hospital. 200 captives released.

The top Russian commander in Chechnya ordered a halt to all military activity in the breakaway republic Sunday in a major concession to the Chechen guerrillas who continued to hold hundreds of hostages inside a barricaded hospital here.

Peace talks on Chechnya’s future were also set for the Chechen capital, Grozny, at 9 a.m. Moscow time today.

In return, the renegade Chechen commander, Shamil Basayev, released 200 hostages, mostly pregnant women, mothers and children. The latest release in this southern Russian city brought the total number of freed hostages to about 400.

The developments were the result of an unprecedented deal between Basayev and Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, who had five direct telephone conversations Sunday in an attempt to settle the days-old hostage crisis.

In a startling departure from Russian officialdom’s customarily secretive working style, Chernomyrdin permitted television crews to sit in his office and broadcast his end of the conversations with Basayev on national television. President Boris N. Yeltsin did not appear to be involved in any of the hostage negotiations.

The safe-passage arrangements for Basayev to leave the hospital compound that he and his forces seized Wednesday, however, were not completed by nightfall Sunday. Basayev announced that he would stay in the hospital until morning and release no more hostages, even though he had earlier promised to free all women, children and elderly and all sick or wounded hostages.

Gunfire was heard coming from the hospital compound early today, and it was unclear whether the negotiated settlement was breaking down.

In their last conversation, Basayev told Chernomyrdin that Russian soldiers were shooting at him and were inside the hospital compound in violation of an agreement to stay out.

“I am not to blame for your side’s not fulfilling the conditions,” Basayev told the Russian. “I even agreed to additional concessions because you intervened personally. . . . I found nine women about to give birth and let them go. It is enough for today.

“We will spend the night here and then let them go.”

If Basayev had hoped to score humanitarian points by allowing some of the hostages to leave, his plans were thwarted by the hair-raising tales told by some of the released captives. Natalia Ageikina, 18 years old and six months pregnant, was struck by two bullets when the Chechens forced her to stand in front of one of the hospital windows waving a white flag during a Russian assault Saturday.

As the woman lay on a stretcher at a first-aid clinic waiting to be transferred to a hospital, she said she had been hit in the shoulder and under the arm.

“The Chechens led a number of women to the windows, lining us up close together, stuck a rifle between two of us and started to fire at the Russians,” Ageikina said. “Meantime, a couple of Chechens were hiding between the windows, prompting us to tell the soldiers not to fire. And we did, because we knew if we didn’t they would kill us.”

Ageikina said the Russian decision to try to storm the building was a good one, despite hostage casualties during two failed assaults.

“Otherwise, they would not have left anyone alive there anyway,” she said. “I think if there were only men left inside, they should just blow the whole building to hell” in hopes of bringing at least some hostages out alive.

Ageikina said she plans to raise her baby to despise Chechens.

Chernomyrdin appeared intent both on freeing as many hostages as possible and on dislodging Basayev and his men from the charred hospital.

Keeping his side of the bargain struck early Sunday morning, Chernomyrdin went on television promising that Russia would cease military operations in Chechnya and negotiate for a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Simultaneously, the Chechens were to release all children, women and elderly and sick or wounded hostages. The agreement presumably meant that Basayev could take an unspecified number of healthy male hostages with him for protection.

Chernomyrdin also promised to supply either helicopters or buses for Basayev’s gang and an unspecified number of hostages to leave, reportedly for Basayev’s hometown, Vedeno, in the southern mountains of Chechnya.

Six buses and two refrigerated trucks to carry the Chechen corpses were parked outside the hospital compound, and Russian officers said a number of helicopters had been flown to the Budennovsk stadium Sunday evening and were standing by.

But Basayev said he did not want to travel after dark, and he spurned an attempt by Chernomyrdin to send local officials into the hospital compound in exchange for the captive women. Contrary to Russian reports that the Chechens had only about 60 fighters inside the compound, Basayev said he had 127 men and insisted on departing with one hostage for each of his guerrillas.

In early morning telephone conversations today, Chernomyrdin insisted that the deal called for the release of all hostages. He said lawmakers and journalists could accompany Basayev’s convoy but only as volunteers. As of 8:30 a.m. local time, negotiations were deadlocked.

Basayev also demanded that his convoy be accompanied by four members of the Duma, or lower house of Parliament, including human rights champion Sergei A. Kovalev, as well as by some journalists.

Basayev claimed to be still holding “thousands” of hostages. Chernomyrdin put the number at 700, and the Russian Interior Ministry said there were still 1,000 hostages.

More than 100 people have been killed and at least 130 wounded since the Chechens invaded Budennovsk on Wednesday demanding an end to the brutal 6-month-old Russian military campaign in Chechnya.

Among the dead in Budennovsk was Natalia Alyakina, a Russian journalist writing for the German magazine Focus. Her editors in Munich said Russian soldiers fired on a car carrying her and Gisbert Mrozek, her German journalist husband, after waving it through a checkpoint near the town Saturday.

Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency said Interior Ministry officials suggested she might have been shot by Chechens. But Mrozek reported that the post commander admitted that Russian soldiers fired two shots in error.

Today’s peace talks in Grozny are to be held at the office of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe, which held one round of unsuccessful peace talks last month. Russian officials have said they will discuss setting up a dividing line between Russian and Chechen troops but will not compromise on the status of Chechnya as an inalienable part of Russia.

In contrast to Chernomyrdin, Yeltsin was nowhere to be seen on the Russian airwaves Sunday. Instead, he released a statement saying, “The tragedy should unite us in the desire to help the victims and defend Russia from the threat of terror and blind revenge.”

Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Moscow and Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.