A senior Russian military officer confirmed yesterday that forces had rolled into Chechnya, where local leaders vowed to repel the "invaders."
The armed forces' first deputy chief of staff, Colonel-General Valeri Manilov, said in televised remarks that in some areas Russian troops had already crossed the border, but denied Moscow had any immediate plans for a full-scale ground assault.
"Federal troops have crossed into Chechnya from several meters to a few kilometers," Manilov said.
PHOTO: AP
"In some areas along the Chechen border minor clashes are taking place," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying separately. "But there is no large-scale operation under way and no plans for it."
In Grozny, Chechen leaders were preparing for war.
President Aslan Maskhadov prayed at a mosque outside the capital in battle fatigues, flanked by armed bodyguards.
"We will all be as one, let us all fight together. We will drive out the bandits and destroy the invaders," he told a small congregation of worshippers.
"We did not ask for any war. Let us pray for peace."
Chechen Security Minister Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev said outside the mosque: "The enemy has violated the peace treaty and is moving into deeper Chechnya. There have been battles and casualties."
He said Russian forces had crossed the border on Friday and yesterday in the Nadterechni district of northern Chechnya, and the Shchyolkovsi and Nozhai Yurt districts in the east.
Fighting in the east had taken place near the villages of Kirov, Severnoye and Sovietskaya Rossiya. Russian troops had neared the villages of Shestoi Sovkhoz and Kargalinovskoye and were five kilometers into the Nozhai Yurt district, he said.
Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies said Russian troops had seized the village of Borozdinovka in the east. Interfax quoted Chechen officials as saying Russian forces had swept as far as 15km into sparsely populated flatlands in the north.
Meanwhile, Russian planes carried out more air raids on targets in Chechnya, prompting a fresh exodus of refugees.
A Reuters television cameraman in North Ossetia, a Russian region to the West, saw columns of Russian armored vehicles rumbling toward the border.
Top Russian officials have said troops may enter Chechen territory to set up a "sanitary zone" to prevent infiltration of Islamic rebels, whom Moscow blames for a recent incursion in Dagestan and a series of bomb blasts in which nearly 300 died.
They say Russia has a right to send troops across the border at any time, but Chechens say that violates the peace deal that ended the 1994-96 war, when Moscow pledged to withdraw.
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