Russians Continue Pounding Chechnya’s Rebel Fighters

Russian forces pounded villages in southwestern Chechnya with artillery shells and rockets Thursday, despite an informal truce reached a day earlier.

Chechen village leaders and Russian military officials met for a second day, but agreed only to reconvene “in the near future” to discuss a cease-fire, the Interfax news agency reported, citing Chechen district administration head Salam Umalatov in the village of Samashky.

In Moscow, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Spain met with President Boris Yeltsin on Thursday, three days after the European Union held up a trade deal with Moscow because of the war in Chechnya.

The officials also held talks with Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who said there was no reason for postponing the deal.

“Now the military stage is coming to an end, and there are encouraging signs of reaching a cease-fire agreement,” Kozyrev said.

Moscow now controls about half the rebel republic of Chechnya, including the capital, Grozny. In recent days, the army began a slow move against rebel forces in the south and west using artillery barrages and air raids.

On Wednesday, Chechen officials and village elders in the Achkhoy Martan district, about 22 miles west of Grozny, agreed on an informal truce in talks with Russian commanders.

The pact calls for villagers who took up arms with the rebels to form a self-defense force, guarding villages along with Russian-backed Chechen police, Umalatov said.

The Russians hope the plan will prompt moderate elements in the villages to oust more hot-headed young fighters. And many war-weary villagers are willing to compromise; Umalatov said Wednesday that six to seven of the area’s 11 villages would observe the agreement.

But fighting continued, and Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev remained defiant, telling a Lithuanian newspaper the war “can last 50 years.”

Dudayev told the Lietuvos Rytas newspaper that Russia will not stop at subduing his separatist republic.

“They will go on to wealthy Europe … then announce their claim on Poland, Yugoslavia and so on,” he said.