January 23, 2000
Web posted at: 12:56 p.m. EST (1756 GMT)

In this story: Russian military leader dies in Grozny Air war tops 100 sorties TV station punished for reporting Russian losses Chechnya opens embassy in Kabul RELATED STORIES, SITES

From wire reports

MOSCOW -- Russian forces hammered Chechen rebel positions in the mountains of southern Chechnya and in the shattered capital of Grozny on Sunday, making little headway in a grueling weeklong drive to storm the city.

Chechen President Aslan Maskhavov's wife denied on Sunday reports that her husband had been wounded in the protracted fighting, contradicting Russian Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, who said on Saturday that the president had been wounded in fighting in Argun Gorge, near Grozny.

VIDEO CNN's Steve Harrigan talks with a Russian soldier who traded his bandana and rifle for black leather and beer. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD The battle for Chechnya

Kusama Maskhadov, the president's wife, had been staying in Nazran, in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, where over 200,000 Chechens who have fled the fighting are living in refugee camps.

Russian military leader dies in Grozny

Chechen and Russian leaders have consistently made widely conflicting claims of gains and losses in the four-month war. Russia, however, appears to have confirmed on Sunday reports that one of its main military leaders was missing in action and probably killed in Grozny.

A senior Kremlin aide said the body of Maj. Gen. Mikhail Malofeyev, who went missing last week, had been found, Interfax news agency reported.

The agency quoted Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to Acting President Vladimir Putin in charge of information about Chechnya, as saying the body of Malofeyev had been recovered in a Grozny area where he was killed in battle.

Russian air war tops 100 sorties

Despite severe winter weather, Russian warplanes and helicopters flew more than 100 sorties Sunday over Chechen targets, Interfax reported from Russian headquarters in Mozdok, outside Chechnya. Russia easily took the lowlands of Chechnya in the beginning of the war, but has run into firece resistance in Grozny and the rebel strongholds of the southern mountains.

In Grozny, Russian troops had taken complete control of a bridge over the Sunzha River, which bisects the city, but were still fighting for the central Minutka Square.

The reports were a sign of the grindingly slow progress troops have made since beginning an all-out onslaught on Grozny a week ago. Russians have reported several times that they held Minutka and the bridge.

The Russian military had earlier tried to avoid direct fighting in Grozny, where troops suffered disastrous losses in the 1994-96 war with Chechnya. That war essentially cost Russia control of the republic. Russia again invaded Chechnya in September after Chechen rebels made incursions into the republic of Dagestan.

On Saturday, pro-Russian Chechen militia men raised a Russian flag over Grozny's residential district No. 6, one of several neighborhoods of high-rise apartment blocks on the city's edges. But the center still remains in Chechen hands.

The pro-Russian militia's leader, Bislan Gantemirov, said territory in the city often changes hands several times a day.

Grozny, once a leafy southern Russian town of more than 400,000 people, has been reduced to a torched wasteland. Russian television now churns out apocalyptic footage of troops firing amid rubble, blasting buildings to bits.

TV station punished for reporting Russian losses

Official daily Russian military death tolls are still in the single digits, but many Russian media now openly say they doubt the truth of the casualty reports.

Some Russian newspapers have begun openly challenging the army's rosy reports as inaccurate, but the three main television networks, which rely on the military for access to video, had previously kept close to the official line.

One TV network that deviated from state reports is Russia's main commercial television station NTV, which said on Sunday it had been kicked out of the military's journalists' pool for showing an interview with a Russian officer describing significant losses.

In a live report from the republic of Dagestan, east of Chechnya, NTV correspondent Yuri Lipatov said military spokesmen had accused him of spreading lies and said they would no longer provide the network with information or take its crews to Russian positions.

NTV, the only one of Russia's three main television networks not linked directly to the state, had broadcast an interview with a Russian army officer who described an attack on a Russian column earlier this month in which many soldiers were killed.

Chechnya opens embassy in Kabul

In another development, one week after the Taliban, the ruling party of Afghanistan, gave official recognition to an independent Chechnya, the breakaway Russian republic opened its embassy in Kabul, a radio station reported Sunday.

The Chechen ambassador to Afghanistan is likely to be Zelimkhan Banderayev, the man who headed the Chechen delegation seeking official recognition for the republic fighting the Russian military, Radio Shariat reported.

The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has criticized other Muslim countries as well as the United Nations for failing to help Chechnya.

Russia accuses the Taliban, which rules 90 percent of Afghanistan, of sending manpower and military aid to the Chechen insurgency.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.