Russia Ends Cease-Fire in Chechnya After Attack

Russian troops halted their cease-fire and withdrawal from Chechnya on Friday after the deadliest separatist rebel attack there in 16 months of war.

The bloodshed brought Russia’s defense minister to the brink of resignation and stunned President Boris N. Yeltsin at the start of a Moscow summit of world leaders.

Gen. Pavel S. Grachev, Russia’s defense minister, put the death toll in Tuesday’s ambush of a military convoy at 53, more than twice the 26 fatalities reported at the time. A Russian officer in Chechnya put the loss even higher--76 dead and 54 wounded.

The attack undermined the peace plan Yeltsin announced March 31 and his face-to-face assurances to leaders of the Group of 7 industrial nations--who arrived here Friday--that he is on the road to ending the conflict through peace talks.

Russia’s commander in Chechnya, Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, said Friday that the military is opposed to talks with the Muslim separatist leaders. He also said the bloody ambush had effectively ended the cease-fire Yeltsin ordered last month.

“Until now we . . . held back from shelling civilian objects where the rebels had established bases,” he said. “As of today, that line has been crossed. . . . As commander, I declare that we are starting a new order, which includes the toughest control over [Chechnya] and any movements.”

Under Yeltsin’s peace plan, two Russian battalions withdrew from the embattled southern republic early this week and six others were to follow. But Doku Zavgayev, the Kremlin-appointed civilian leader there, said Friday that the pullout has been suspended.

Yeltsin gave no public confirmation of the broken cease-fire or the stalled pullout, and it was unclear whether the army had acted with his approval.

He told journalists in the Kremlin that he was “shaken” by the bloodshed, which he called “a tragedy for Chechnya, for all of Russia and for the president.”

“Despite this tragedy,” he added, “I want the peace plan to be implemented, both through talks and through a rebuff of the bandits.”

“He has reaffirmed that he will do what he can to stop the conflict,” said German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, one of five leaders who met with Yeltsin on Friday. “One thing is sure: Yeltsin knows that his reelection depends on whether or not the fighting stops.”

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Today’s eight-nation summit is devoted to questions of nuclear safety, but other issues, including Chechnya, are expected to arise.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said last week that President Clinton “will convey our deep concern and disappointment about the continuing war in Chechnya.”

Doctors Without Borders, an international medical aid group working in Chechnya, called on the Group of 7 to condemn what it called deliberate Russian military attacks on civilians there, who account for most of the 20,000 to 30,000 war deaths.

But Western officials said it is unlikely that the summit will produce any joint criticism of Yeltsin or his troops, lest it hurt their host in the middle of his uphill campaign against the resurgent Communist Party in the June 16 presidential election.

Tuesday’s rebel attack is damaging enough to Yeltsin. Russia’s Communist-led parliament issued a statement blaming government “indifference” and “meager funding” that have led to a “total disintegration of the army.”

The president pointed his finger at “the military leadership” and vowed to hold them responsible.

Grachev admitted that security procedures had been violated in the movement of the Russian convoy, which was made up of 199 soldiers and 30 vehicles, that was hit by rebel grenade launchers and mine throwers near the mountain village of Shatoi. Twenty-one vehicles were destroyed, he said.

Under grilling in parliament Friday, Grachev said he was willing to resign “if you believe this disgraceful happening . . . hinges solely on my persona.”

Parliament took no action; only the president can dismiss the defense minister.

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But ultranationalist lawmaker Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky told the general: “I don’t want you to go. I want you to convince the country’s top leadership that censorship should be introduced for journalists, that none of them should be allowed [in Chechnya] and that troops should be ordered to act according to the situation. You have enough shells, enough troops to restore order.”

Zhirinovsky is one of 17 candidates seeking places on the June ballot and one of four--along with Yeltsin, former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov, the front-runner in opinion polls--who had been ruled eligible before this week.

On Friday, the Central Election Commission ruled that three other politicians--retired Gen. Alexander I. Lebed, liberal economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky and millionaire eye surgeon Svyatoslav Fyodorov--had also gathered the 1 million signatures required to get on the ballot. Yavlinsky and Lebed are prominent critics of the war, which Yeltsin started in December 1994 to crush Chechnya’s bid for independence.

The commission disqualified Artyom Tarasov, one of the Soviet Union’s first millionaire businessmen, saying many of the signatures he collected were invalid. It withheld judgment on seven other would-be candidates.