Moscow Times

December 8, 1999

Election Presses Army to Take Grozny

By Simon Saradzhyan

Staff Writer

Russian troops may try to establish formal control over the Chechen capital

in time for the Kremlin to claim a major success before State Duma elections

Dec. 19, experts said Tuesday.

Taking Grozny quickly, as the military sees it, would not only boost the

fortunes of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the pro-Kremlin Unity bloc he

supports in the parliamentary elections. It would prevent a new, less hawkish

Duma from calling for a truce and peace talks with the Chechen separatists

before the military had been able to finish the job it started and claim

victory.

Russian aircraft showered Grozny with leaflets Monday warning all remaining

civilians and militants to leave the city by Saturday or face heavy bombings.

There is no question the armed forces intend to flatten Grozny with bombs,

rockets and artillery shells to pave the way for the infantry to march into

the Chechen capital, said Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Putin wants to see Russian commanders posing in front of television cameras

with a Russian flag flying over the ruins of the presidential palace in the

heart of Grozny, Pikayev said in a telephone interview.

Both Pikayev and Alexander Iskandryan of the Center for Caucasian Studies

noted that not only Putin and his supporters, but Russian commanders

themselves may want to see the fall of Grozny before a new Duma is elected.

The elections could see the Kremlin's opponents win a majority in the Duma

and try either to unseat or undermine the prime minister once the lower

chamber convenes in January, according to Pikayev.

A weakening of Putin, the strongest proponent of Russia's military campaign

in Chechnya, could force the Kremlin to stop the offensive and start talks

with Chechen rebels in what Russian commanders would see as an intolerable

humiliation, Pikayev said.

Up to 50,000 civilians remain in Grozny, but some are too old or crippled to

flee, or unable to afford a trip out of the city.

Iskandryan said civilians who fail to leave will be much more likely to be

killed by Russian bombs and shells than the Chechen fighters, who hide in

well-fortified bunkers inside Grozny and freely move in and out of the city.

Pikayev said Russian forces may use Tu-22 Backfires for carpet bombing of

Chechnya. To destroy the die-hard rebels holed up in Grozny, they could use

such powerful ammunition as aerosol bombs and special thermal-ballistic

projectiles, which create air pressure strong enough to cause lungs to

explode, he said.

Once Grozny is flattened, small, mobile units of Russian infantry may start

crawling in, stopping every time they are fired at to have aviation and

artillery wipe out the pockets of resistance they have bumped into, Pikayev

said.

This tactic would allow the military to avoid the heavy casualties that

occurred during the stormings of Grozny in the previous Chechen war, he said.

Russian commanders have said they would not storm Grozny, but they have not

disclosed their tactics.

Pikayev said units of Chechen volunteers under the command of Beslan

Gantamirov, the former mayor of Grozny and deputy prime minister of a

pro-Moscow Chechen government who was serving a prison term for embezzlement

before President Boris Yeltsin pardoned him, could be included in the taking

of Grozny for propaganda purposes.

Seizing the city would allow Moscow to put a puppet Chechen government in the

Chechen capital and claim a political victory, said Makhmut Gareyev, head of

the Military Academy of Sciences.

Control of Grozny would also give federal authorities a major bargaining chip

in negotiations that Moscow will have to start with Chechen leader Aslan

Maskhadov sooner or later, Gareyev said.

The seizure of Grozny is seen as a military as well as a political necessity,

Pikayev said. Without clearing the rebels out of Grozny, Russian troops

cannot afford to advance farther south, he said.

Both Pikayev and Iskandryan acknowledged, however, that some if not most of

the estimated 2,000 or more Chechen rebels now holed up in Grozny could sneak

out of the city in the course of bombings to return and stage night raids on

Russian troops once they are deployed in the Chechen capital.

Russian troops claim to have almost entire encircled the city with only a few

corridors left in the south, but this ring is too porous to allow them to

control the city.

Russian commanders do not have enough resources to establish full permanent

control over Grozny to guarantee the safety of a puppet government,

Iskandryan and Pikayev said.

Pikayev cited the storming of Berlin by Soviet troops in 1945. Despite as

many as 1 million Soviet soldiers encircling the city, some Nazi leaders

managed to escape.

Also, in the previous Chechen campaign of 1994-1996, Russian troops

repeatedly claimed full control of Grozny only to retreat when faced with

sudden raids of mobile groups of Chechen rebels.

"They will not be able to fully control Grozny, but they still can have a

Russian flag flying in the center of the city be shown on TV screens,"

Iskandryan said.

An inability to fully control Grozny could lead Russian leaders eventually to

claim that the city is too ravaged by war to be restored and announce that

the capital of Chechnya is being moved to Gudermes, where the population is

less hostile to Russian rule, Iskandryan said.