Yeltsin Orders Unilateral Cease-Fire in Chechyna

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin ordered his troops Sunday to end all combat actions against rebel Chechnya and announced that a phased withdrawal of federal forces will begin from areas of the breakaway republic already bludgeoned into submission.

But a simultaneous vow to continue fighting against “terrorist acts” suggested that Yeltsin’s latest endeavor to stop the war he instigated 15 months ago is little more than a repackaging of failed initiatives from the past.

Yeltsin’s campaign-season peace plan, disclosed during a taped address on national television, was prompted by his own earlier admission that he cannot win reelection if the war that has claimed at least 20,000 lives is still raging.

Trailing his Communist opponent as the June 16 presidential balloting nears, Yeltsin had vowed to craft a fresh strategy for ending the bloodshed while keeping the secessionist southern republic within the Russian Federation.

Although the beleaguered 65-year-old president proclaimed a unilateral cease-fire starting at midnight Sunday, he sought to justify the federal military assaults in Chechnya as having “promoted the necessary prerequisites for a fundamental change in the situation.”

Debated and delayed until the last minute of Yeltsin’s self-imposed March 31 deadline, the preelection initiative departs from previous policy only in its offer to negotiate through intermediaries with fugitive Chechen leader Dzhokar M. Dudayev.

Even that concession came grudgingly, with Yeltsin insisting to Russian journalists after his 20-minute address that it should in no way be interpreted as a “surrender” to a rebel leader whom he has often referred to as a criminal and a terrorist.

“This is the one new element, and it is a noteworthy change because he is now saying that the most important thing is peace,” said Nikolai K. Svanidze, the host of a popular news program on Russian Television and one of the three journalists invited to question Yeltsin after the address.

Svanidze said he doubted, however, that much will come of an offer that Chechen rebels consider too little, too late.

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Dudayev told The Times and other news organizations in an interview two weeks ago that he would spurn new negotiations with the Yeltsin regime because he had lost all trust in the current leadership and would rather see the Communists return to power.

Analysts of Russia’s volatile inter-ethnic relations dismissed the new peace plan as electioneering.

“There is nothing new in what Yeltsin suggests. It sounded even more cynical than ever,” said Dzhabrail D. Gakayev, a historian and scholar of his native Caucasus region, which encompasses Chechnya. He described the timing of the peace plan as a “100% campaign maneuver.”

Yeltsin’s latest offer mostly reiterates proposals that have been on the table since July, when the Kremlin and Dudayev lieutenants agreed to a similar cease-fire and peace talks after a deadly hostage crisis in the southern Russian town of Budennovsk.

Now, as then, Moscow has offered local elections to allow the people of Chechnya to choose their own leaders, but without specifying when the vote could be held.

The current overture also repeats that Chechnya could win an unprecedented degree of autonomy from Moscow in the course of negotiations, a move that still falls short of Dudayev’s demand for total independence.

Yeltsin was also vague in his offer of economic assistance to rebuild Chechnya’s ruined economy and its devastated capital, Grozny.

The withdrawal of Russian troops to the border of Chechnya will be carried out gradually from “tranquil areas” of the republic, Yeltsin said, referring to conquered territories and rural regions where local authorities have promised not to give shelter to Dudayev and his followers.

Sporadic fighting has plagued Chechnya since it became obvious within a few weeks of the July partial peace accord that federal authorities and rebel leaders could not agree on the republic’s status. The Kremlin insists that Chechnya remain part of Russia, while Dudayev wants secession.

Wearied and impoverished by a conflict that has inflicted its worst slaughter on civilians, Chechen residents may be more open to compromise than the guerrilla leaders. But unrelenting assaults by heavily armed federal soldiers have served to unite Chechens behind guerrillas who provide the only shield against Russian brutality.

Previous cease-fires have failed to stop the fighting in Chechnya because they, like the one announced Sunday, leave federal troops in the region vulnerable to revenge attacks by rebels that have invariably provoked a return of fire.

“We shall not put up with terrorist acts and shall respond to them adequately,” Yeltsin said in his speech, making it clear that the fighting will not really be over unless the rebels comply.

While unlikely to end the entrenched conflict before the election, the cease-fire may allow Yeltsin to create the impression of improvement and remove the issue from the forefront of his opponents’ agendas.

Even if fighting flares up or the Chechens stage another humiliating terrorist raid, analysts say Yeltsin could still find a scapegoat for the failure by firing either Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev or Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, whom he has saddled with heading a new state commission coordinating resolution of the conflict.