Kremlin Contradicts General, Says Chechen Air War to Go On

The Kremlin on Monday scotched reports that airstrikes in Chechnya would cease, saying that Russian aircraft had flown dozens of missions in the previous 24 hours and that guerrilla mountain strongholds will remain targets.

Nine months into its war to suppress separatists in the republic on its southern flank, Russian officials have repeatedly said that the war is nearing an end and that only small groups of rebels remain in the southern mountains.

In comments reported Sunday, Col. Gen. Gennady Troshev, the military commander in the region, was quoted as saying that the war was all but over and that troops were “not to undertake attacks and not to carry out air and artillery strikes.”

He was later shown on ORT public television saying Russian forces would not carry out “massive” airstrikes.

“Why hit two or three people with air or artillery strikes?” he said.

Asked Monday to clarify Troshev’s comments, the Kremlin’s Chechnya spokesman, Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, said that Troshev had been misinterpreted and that strikes will continue in the mountains.

“Gennady Troshev said artillery will be used only in extreme situations and only outside built-up areas,” Yastrzhembsky said by telephone. “Aviation, as he said, is being used a lot less, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be used at all.”

The Interfax news agency quoted military headquarters in Mozdok, just outside Chechnya, as saying SU-25 attack planes had flown 12 missions in the past 24 hours to strike at rebel bases in the southern mountains and that helicopters had flown 30 missions.