Russian Jets Hit Chechen Cities, Convoys

Russian warplanes repeatedly pounded the capital of Chechnya and attacked convoys on the roads of the separatist republic Monday, as top Russian officials shrugged off increasing Western pressure for a negotiated settlement there.

Russian military officials said Monday afternoon that attack planes had flown 30 sorties in the previous 24 hours, dropping 550-pound and 1,100-pound bombs on Grozny, Chechnya’s capital; Gudermes, its second-largest city; and Bamut, a rebel stronghold.

According to the officials at Russian military headquarters in Mozdok, 10 miles outside the northwest Chechen border, Russian planes also hit convoys of rebel fighters Sunday and Monday, destroying 18 cars and trucks.

But that announcement raised questions of how the pilots could distinguish civilian convoys from convoys of guerrilla fighters. There have been several cases of heavy civilian casualties in Russian attacks on convoys in recent weeks, the most recent 11 days ago, when an airstrike on a marked Red Cross convoy killed 27 people.

An Agence France-Presse correspondent in Chechnya reported that three women were killed Monday when Russian tanks fired on a convoy of cars.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin has firmly ruled out talks with the Chechens, despite the growing Western criticism prompted by mounting civilian casualties.

The Clinton administration escalated its criticism Monday, accusing Moscow of breaching its obligations, under both the Geneva Convention and the code of conduct of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to avoid untoward attacks on civilians.

“We remain extremely concerned about the indiscriminate use of force,” said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin. “Like other countries, Russia has assumed obligations under the Geneva Convention and commitments under the OSCE Code of Conduct on Political-Military Aspects of Security. The conduct of Russia’s current campaign is not in keeping with these commitments.”

Rubin tempered his criticism by repeating Washington’s support for “Russia’s right to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Nevertheless, he said: “We don’t understand the objectives of the Russian policy. The costs of this approach are too high--costs in humanitarian terms, damage to Russia’s international reputation and, in the end, making it harder to achieve a political solution.”

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin is scheduled to fly to Istanbul, Turkey, next week for an OSCE summit and is likely to face additional pressure there.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said Monday, however, that media reports of a humanitarian catastrophe in the North Caucasus region are exaggerated.

“It’s a banal scenario. Apparently, someone intends to create the impression of a humanitarian catastrophe and then exert certain pressure on Russia,” Ivanov said during a Moscow meeting with the ambassadors of the Group of 7 industrialized nations.

Up to 200,000 refugees from Chechnya have fled the bombs into the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia. Russia’s minister for emergency situations, Sergei K. Shoigu, speaking after the G-7 meeting, added that the refugee situation is difficult but not a humanitarian disaster.

Russian forces pushed into the northern part of Chechnya in early October. They now occupy the hills northwest of Grozny and have surrounded Gudermes. But in comments videotaped in Grozny over the weekend and quoted by Reuters news agency Monday, one key rebel commander, Shamil Basayev, said the main fighting lies ahead.

“The real battles have not yet begun,” Basayev said, explaining that it was difficult for fighters to resist the Russian tank advance over Chechnya’s flat northern plains.

Grozny and the southern part of Chechnya, with its narrow mountain passes, are likely to be more favorable for guerrilla operations, particularly as winter approaches.

In the run-up to next week’s OSCE summit, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has been trying to prevail upon Russia to stop bombing and come to the negotiating table. He has written to President Clinton calling for mediation to end the war and has urged the OSCE members to discuss the conflict at the summit.

But Saturday, in his most severe rhetoric yet, Putin described Chechnya as a bandit republic and said the Russian task is to liquidate it.

His comments followed Russian media reports that a number of top generals had threatened to resign because Kremlin officials, alarmed by the West’s criticisms of the war, were considering negotiating with the Chechens. Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev denied the reports.

Russia lost a two-year war over Chechen independence in 1996, and the republic has been functioning outside Kremlin control since then.

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Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.