After Election, Russians Souring on Chechen War

The list of names pinned on the wall at the Perm offices of the Interior Ministry was sliced with lines in three bright colors. For people waiting for news of servicemen ambushed in Chechnya, a yellow line through a name meant good news: only an injury.

A green line meant terrible suspense: missing in action. A blue line meant someone’s son or brother, husband or friend was dead.

In solemn tribute to the 32 elite Interior Ministry police based in the city of Perm whose bodies were found Saturday in Chechnya, each of Russia’s national television networks displayed the names of the 23 who had been identified.

On the state-owned networks, such a grim honor roll would have been unthinkable just a week earlier--before Russia’s presidential election--when the media here were strongly backing Vladimir V. Putin’s campaign for president.

But with the election past, the grief expressed on the state networks Saturday was more bitter than it was for 84 elite airborne troops from Pskov who were buried just over two weeks ago.

An outspoken newsman on state-run ORT, Sergei Dorenko, described the officers responsible for leaving the Perm OMON forces exposed to a rebel ambush as “murderers.”

Amid such anguished recriminations concerning Russia’s latest military fiasco, public support for the war in Chechnya could drain away rapidly, although Putin has made clear his determination to push on.

As guerrilla fighting continues in the forested, mountainous districts in the south of the separatist republic, more Russian casualties seem inevitable. And for Putin, the prospects are stark: continued strong pressure from the West to make peace and, within Russia, increasing horror about the war as well.

Putin, however, appeared to have misjudged the mournful public mood Saturday. Wearing dark glasses and a ski suit, he was shown on the independent NTV network taking a day off from work, skiing breezily down a gentle slope in the Ural Mountains and jumping onto a poma lift.

“None of the Russian leaders, including the president, has paid tribute to the OMON servicemen who died in Chechnya,” said military analyst Alexander I. Zhilin, a retired colonel. “Today, half of the country is in tears and in mourning. And Putin is skiing in the Urals, celebrating April Fools’ Day, smiling and giving autographs.

“This is his real attitude toward the country, his people and those servicemen who die in Chechnya. Now that the election campaign is over and he has been elected, he does not want to think about Chechnya.

“The grass and green foliage will be out soon,” Zhilin continued, “which will make it incomparably easier for rebel forces to move around and attack Russian troops unexpectedly. All this will only result in higher losses and more confusion.

“The campaign in Chechnya ought to be finished as quickly as possible. Procrastination on the war erodes the morale of the armed forces, lowers their combat readiness and also encourages the enemy to resort to new, unexpected ways of waging the war.”

Russian ground troops entered Chechnya in late September, weeks after Chechen rebels bent on creating a Muslim state invaded the adjacent republic of Dagestan. Since then, more than 2,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the fighting, according to official figures, along with an untold number of civilians.

In recent weeks, Russian military leaders have claimed to have the upper hand, but fierce fighting was reported in the region of the ambush even as the bodies of the victims were being recovered.

In a telephone interview Saturday from the Perm OMON base, Alexei, a sergeant on duty who would give only his first name, said: “I feel nothing but pain and bitterness. I personally knew all of them. They were brilliant guys; reliable, honest and brave. It is such a terrible tragedy that they died.”

The sergeant said most of the victims were experienced professionals who had served in the 1994-96 war in Chechnya, which made their deaths seem even more shocking.

“Our phone lines are running red-hot. Relatives are calling in to check on their sons and husbands. The first thing we have to do now is to calm the parents of those who are alive and soothe the pain of the parents whose sons died,” he said.

The number of dead could go higher, as 10 members of the 49-strong column remained unaccounted for Saturday. Only a handful survived the attack.

The Perm troops, who were traveling in a column near Vedeno in southeastern Chechnya, were ambushed by rebels Wednesday, and a 100-man force sent to rescue them had to retreat. One serviceman in the rescue column was killed; 14 were wounded, two critically.

On Saturday, military analysts, the media and friends of the dead were all searching for an explanation of why the men had to die in a virtual repeat of an ambush in which about 20 OMON troops from Sergiyev Posad were killed last month.

The newspaper Kommersant Daily ran a scathing commentary: “It is high time that the generals themselves admitted that the matter at hand is . . . real guerrilla warfare. It has its own strategy that cannot be grasped with the help of ordinary military logic. But so far the [military] keeps repeating the same old mistakes.”

Alexei, the sergeant at the Perm base, said, “We thought that after the similar incident with the Sergiyev Posad OMON, proper conclusions would be drawn and it would teach those responsible for sending troops out in convoys a good lesson.”

The governor of the Perm region, Gennady Igumnov, speaking on RTR television, said the area was in a state of shock and grief. He said people were entitled to demand that servicemen not die because of someone’s stupidity.

“There is one wounded serviceman who has survived in this blood bath,” said the unit’s acting commander in Perm, Valery Kazantsev, speaking on NTV. “And when he is able to talk, we will possibly learn from him how it all happened. And then we will try to figure out who is to blame for what has happened.”

It took three days to find and recover most of the bodies of those killed in Wednesday’s ambush because of the rugged terrain, mines and continued rebel attacks.

The Russian side reported that some of the bodies were booby-trapped with mines.

More bad news came Saturday as Russian forces found a body that might be that of Maj. Gen. Gennady Shpigun, kidnapped in Chechnya a year ago. Forensic experts were examining the remains.

And the news service Agence France-Presse reported that Chechen spokesman Movladi Udugov had quoted rebel leader Shamil Basayev as threatening to shoot nine Russian POWs unless Russia exchanges them for a colonel accused of raping and strangling an 18-year-old Chechen woman.

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.