The Guardian (UK)

13 November 1999

[for personal use only]

Russia set to destroy Grozny

Russia warns Grozny's residents to evacuate city

Ian Traynor in Moscow

Russia's war in the Caucasus escalated last night when the Kremlin ordered all civilians to abandon the Chechen capital Grozny, signalling that it was poised to raze the city.

Moscow announced its biggest victory yet in the seven-week Chechen war - the capture of Gudermes, the rebel republic's second city - and said Gudermes would become the new Chechen capital.

"The city of Grozny cannot be restored," said Nikolai Koshman, a Russian deputy prime minister who is Moscow's viceroy in Chechnya. "Grozny must be blocked from all sides and its civilians should leave."

The evacuation of the city will force tens of thousands more refugees into the bitter winter cold, compounding the crisis already unfolding among more than 300,000 people who have fled or are trying to flee the Russian onslaught.

While Russian infantry moved into Gudermes and advanced to within 10 miles of Grozny, political and military leaders in Russia engaged in some of the most hostile anti-western rhetoric heard since the end of the cold war and the Soviet Union's implosion.

Ahead of a 54-country summit next week to be attended by President Boris Yeltsin, President Bill Clinton and most European leaders, the Kremlin accused Washington of plotting to keep the conflict simmering in the Caucasus, to cripple Russia and strip Moscow of control over the highly strategic region on Russia's southern flank between the Black and Caspian seas.

"The West's policy is a challenge to Russia with the aim of weakening its international position and ousting it from strategically important regions of the world, above all the Caspian region, trans-Caucasus and Central Asia," said the defence minister, Igor Sergeyev. "It is in the US national interest to have a controlled armed conflict constantly smouldering in the north Caucasus."

The tough language coincided with a battery of anti-western actions or statements that set the scene for a showdown at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Istanbul summit.

After being barred from visiting Chechnya on a fact-finding mission, the OSCE was told by Moscow that its mediation offers were unwelcome. Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, said Russia was committing "a blunder". Paavo Lipponen, the prime minister of Finland, which currently holds the European Union presidency, broke ranks with the western consensus by stating that the Chechnya conflict could no longer be viewed as Russia's internal affair.

The centre of Grozny was flattened by the Russians four years ago, but despite the exodus of the past two months it remains home to tens of thousands. The precise population at the moment is unknown.

Russia's deputy chief of the general staff, General Valery Manilov, said there would be no ground assault on Grozny. "If everything goes according to plan, the liquidation of the main components of militant formations may be finished by the end of the year."

Across the political spectrum in Moscow, there was a hardening of the nationalist conviction that the West was bent on isolating and weakening Russia.

A military newspaper reported that Moscow may send nuclear strategic bombers to Cuba and Vietnam. A key Kremlin insider said anyone not supporting the Russian military in Chechnya was a traitor. The head of the military's diplomatic service said that there was no point in engaging in dialogue with Nato about European security issues, the very agenda of the Istanbul summit.

The ultimatum to Grozny's inhabitants reflected the tactics of the hardline military officers who appear bent on indiscriminately bombarding the city into submission by the end of the year, but who are re luctant to commit ground forces to the battle for Grozny because of the heavy losses the Russians suffered during similar assaults in 1994-96.

Mr Sergeyev's cold war blast came at the end of a high-level three-day security review attended by the hawkish prime minister, Vladimir Putin, and the heads of the general staff. Mr Putin is to chair another high-level meeting on the Chechnya campaign today.

Mr Koshman's ultimatum to empty Grozny followed yesterday's conference. "Everything that has been rebuilt there has recently been destroyed or blown up," he said.