Chechen Fighters Nurtured by Age-Old Hostility

GROZNY, Russia —  When Russian troops look down their gun sights at Chechnya, they see only the ghetto home of criminally minded, primitive “darkies” of popular Russian legend. In Chechnya, they see only impenetrable hills, dusty roads and ruins of villages that Moscow’s tanks and aviation have destroyed.

But Chechens examining the same sites see a landscape of defiance of the Russians who have ruled them by the sword for two centuries of almost continual battle; the Chechens draw strength from this. Their villages are named after long-ago battles against the czars’ armies. Their Muslim graveyards house shrines to modern and ancient martyrs in the fight against Russia. Long experience of broken promises by Moscow has left their language with a bitter idiom--”to lie like the Soviets.”

This grass-roots hostility to Russian rule has given the southern region’s separatist leaders an inexhaustible supply of willing fighting men, ready to leave their homes when needed to take up arms against the Russians who, in December 1994, marched in to crush their dream of independence.

This month, it won Chechen separatists their biggest victory yet. A few thousand fighters, armed only with guns, grenade launchers and passion, took on the mighty Russian army--and managed to seize back the Chechen capital, Grozny. In painful contrast, it took Russian forces two months last year to capture the city.

The Chechens’ strength of purpose and sense of honor impressed Russia’s new security chief, Alexander I. Lebed, into launching a radical new peace bid after Grozny fell to the separatists. The Chechens were “wolves,” he said, people “absolutely confident that they are fighting for their freedom, people who have lost their relatives--in short, people who have very good reason to fight very seriously.”

Lebed, who unlike his Moscow predecessors and colleagues drove through Chechnya to meet separatist leaders, saw for himself the damage Russia has done. The contrast between the Chechens and the confused, underpaid, demoralized Russian troops became the basis for his moves toward peace.

“A pauper country with a doddering economy and army cannot afford the luxury of fighting a war,” he said.

In the past week, Lebed and the separatists’ military leader, Aslan Maskhadov, have talked twice and a shaky cease-fire has begun, allowing trapped civilians to pour out of Grozny by the tens of thousands. The question of removing Chechen and Russian forces from Grozny was to be discussed later.

While Lebed’s frankness won respect in Chechnya, no one expected that he would instantly bring peace. Most said they believed that powerful Kremlin forces covertly encouraging the war will outmaneuver the straightforward former soldier.

“Lebed may have learned to live with the wolves of Chechnya, but the wolves of the Kremlin will rip him apart,” predicted Adam I. Khuzgov, a Grozny resident escaping town last week.

This grim forecast may be coming true. Konstantin B. Pulikovsky, Russia’s acting commander in Chechnya--who has displayed visible anger and resentment at being forced to negotiate cease-fire details with Maskhadov--issued a 48-hour deadline Tuesday for residents to get out of Grozny along a corridor that he said Russian forces had opened.

After Thursday morning, he said, he will reserve the right to shell any rebels remaining in town--a decision that only confirmed rebel fears that Russia wants to flatten Grozny and destroy the Chechen people altogether.

Maskhadov begged Lebed to use his influence to “stop the coming madness.” Lebed is to fly to Chechnya today, and his office said he will stay for several days.

But how much can the outspoken Lebed influence events in Chechnya? That is unclear. He was, for example, crossed up last week by his own patron, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, who ignored Lebed’s demands for the sacking of Gen. Anatoly S. Kulikov, the hawkish interior minister.

On Tuesday, Lebed sought to distance himself from Russian military moves. Alexander Barkhatov, his spokesman, told Interfax news service that Lebed has “nothing to do with anything Pulikovsky says or does.”

Lebed also said in a statement that he had not been consulted on instructions issued to him by Yeltsin’s office above the president’s facsimile signature. He termed them hasty and contradictory and said they did not look like Yeltsin’s work.

But the president’s office counterattacked, saying federal authorities will not knuckle under to gun-toting rebels and that talks can go on only after rebels end a blockade of federal troops in Grozny. The office also noted that Yeltsin did not have to consult anyone before issuing instructions.

Meantime, Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov--Pulikovsky’s boss, who has stayed on vacation throughout the siege of Grozny--returned to work Tuesday pledging to “free Grozny from separatist militants.”

Between 50,000 and 250,000 civilians are still in Grozny, many old or ill. Travel is slow--broken bridges, sniping and shelling impede flight. Asked how civilians, who have spent weeks cowering in cellars without utilities, will learn about the deadline in time to leave, Pulikovsky answered: “That is not my problem.”

As for those civilians who did heed his warning and started scurrying from the capital, they walked straight into the fighting, the Associated Press reported. Russian troops were attacking main corridors out of the capital.

“They are liars, they are bandits, the Russian army is trying to kill us,” griped Irina Sadova, one refugee.

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Why Chechnaya Matters

To Russians, preserving their federation of republics is as key to Americans as keeping together the union of the 50 states. And, as Americans fought a brutal civil war to avert the break-up of the United States, Moscow has engaged in a bitter battle to ensure that Chechen separatists don’t get their way. The independent-minded Chechens, of course, have never accepted Russian rule. Their determined military resistance and large-scale, bloody hostage-takings have become a national embarrassment and shame for President Boris N. Yeltsin, offering fuel to his critics and raising major questions about efficacy of the government of a global nuclear power.