Escape Window Is Slowly Closing on Chechen Capital

Russia attempted to negotiate the peaceful exodus Saturday of as many as 50,000 civilians from Grozny, the Chechen capital, as federal forces prepared to launch a blistering artillery and aerial assault on the city.

Russian warplanes dropped leaflets on Grozny last week warning civilians to flee by Saturday or be taken for terrorists and die in massive shelling and bombing assaults. No timetable for an attack has been announced, but Russia says its troops have the city surrounded.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai P. Koshman told reporters Saturday that Chechen rebels holed up in the city are using the civilians as a “human shield” and refusing to let them pass to safety through corridors in the Russian lines.

“We know that the civilian population is in dire straits there, and militants prevent them from leaving the city,” said Koshman, who is also Moscow’s envoy to Chechnya.

Only about 1,000 civilians have left Grozny since Russia issued its warning, officials said. With the passage of the deadline for evacuating the city, Russia’s next move remained unclear.

Despite criticism from U.S. President Clinton and European leaders, Russia has insisted it will not waver from its course of exterminating what it calls “terrorists” in Chechnya. Russian forces have repeatedly bombed and shelled Grozny in recent weeks, killing hundreds of civilians, Chechen officials say.

With the expiration of the deadline, however, Koshman said Russia does not intend to attack civilians in the capital.

“We will not strike at the human shield,” he said.

Koshman estimated that about 45,000 to 50,000 peaceful residents remain in Grozny despite a lack of electricity, gas and water. Russian officials earlier estimated that 6,000 Chechen fighters also are in the war-torn city.

Emergency Situations Minister Sergei K. Shoigu, who visited the region Saturday, offered a somewhat different scenario. He said he expected to set aside a six-hour period each day when no bombs would fall on Grozny and civilians would have a chance to escape.

“Today we will announce a time corridor when people will be able to leave in the coming days,” Shoigu told reporters in the devastated village of Alkhan-Yurt outside Grozny. “Most likely it will be from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.”

No announcement followed Shoigu’s remarks, however.

Human Rights Watch charged Saturday that Russian troops went on “a devastating rampage” in Alkhan-Yurt last week after capturing the village, looting houses and executing numerous civilians who attempted to stop them. The New York-based organization, which is closely monitoring the war, said it based its charges on interviews with refugees from the village.

“Russian troops in Alkhan-Yurt are killing civilians and looting their property with what appears to be complete immunity,” said Holly Cartner of Human Rights Watch. “It’s a shocking case of Russian forces’ intentional violation of international law.”

While the remarks of Shoigu and Koshman appeared aimed at defusing international anger over Chechnya, neither official has authority over the military--and on Saturday the military was not revealing its plans.

Putting on a show for Russian television cameras, Shoigu posed in Alkhan-Yurt in front of 13 trucks and buses waiting to take evacuees from Grozny to refugee camps, while he made what one newscaster described as a futile attempt to telephone Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov to arrange for the release of the civilians.

Shoigu, a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, is heading a pro-Kremlin slate of candidates in parliamentary elections scheduled for Dec. 19. Maskhadov was reported to have escaped from Grozny through the Russian lines earlier in the week.

Koshman, at a news conference in Moscow, predicted that Grozny will be in Russian hands “within a week”--coinciding perfectly with the parliamentary elections.

The deputy prime minister reassured the public that the government has no intention of storming Grozny, the scene of a bloody defeat for Russian soldiers when they attempted to take the city from rebels during the 1994-96 Chechen war.

“Nobody is directing tanks and armored personnel carriers there,” Koshman said. Instead, he explained, Grozny will be liberated through “special operations, which Chechen volunteers, special army units and other servicemen will carry out.”