#7
Boston Globe
31 December 1999
[for personal use only]
Russians mired in mud, slowed by rebel snipers
Artillery, tanks counter Chechen gunmen
By David Filipov
STARAYA SUNZHA, Russia - What does it take to blow up a building?
That was the problem facing Russian Colonel Yury Bukharin and his men on the
front lines of the battle for Grozny, capital of the breakaway region of
Chechnya.
Over a two-hour period Wednesday, Chechen rebel snipers in the nine-story
apartment building on Grozny's northeast outskirts had already killed one of
Bukharin's men and wounded four, halting his unit's effort to push further
toward the center of the city.
A few hundred yards from the snipers, Bukharin barked orders over his
walkie-talkie from his makeshift headquarters in a ruined house in the Grozny
suburb of Staraya Sunzha.
Moments later, the big Russian guns in a field behind the village opened
fire. A Russian T-80 tank rumbled down a lane strewn with wreckage and fired
a salvo at the building. Heavy machine guns and mortar let loose in every
direction. The nine-story building still stood. Then came the response - the
deceptively harmless-sounding pop-pop-pop of a sniper's rifle.
The exchange epitomized the difficulty of Russia's weeklong assault on
Grozny, the rebels' largest remaining stronghold in the flatlands that make
up two-thirds of Chechnya. Russian commanders once said they would capture
the city by New Year's, but no one is saying that now.
The Russian tactic of shelling Grozny's fortified buildings and sending in
lightly armed infantry to mop up is designed to limit Russian casualties and
slowly decimate the insurgents. But it is arduously slow, costly, and hard
work.
''They said it would be easy, that we'd go in, and if we met any resistance,
we'd go back out, and the artillery would take care of it, but it's not like
that,'' a Russian police commando said to an infantry officer.
''We fired 250 rounds yesterday, and 60 so far today,'' replied the officer.
''I don't know what else to tell you.''
''What does it take to take out a nine-story building?'' asked the commando.
His unit was ordered to go back into the city and creep around, looking for
rebels. He and about 20 other men put on their helmets, scrambled onto an
armored troop carrier, and sped off.
Before they left, Denis Parshin, an officer in a commando unit from Murmansk,
scrawled out a note to pass on to his parents: ''I'm alive, I'm well, and I'm
storming Grozny. Happy New Year.''
The Russians captured Staraya Sunzha on Christmas day, in fighting that
turned entire blocks of houses into hollow ruins. The streets are rivers of
mud, trees have been cut and razed by shells and bullets. Villagers cut up
the remaining trees for firewood. There is no heat, light, or gas.
The Russian guns here fire almost constantly, even though many of the
estimated 40,000 civilians in Grozny are trapped in the northern outskirts.
''The rebels are not letting civilians out; we are waiting for the
civilians,'' said a deputy commander of a pro-Russian Chechen militia who
would only give his first name, Mayerbeck.
Armored personnel carriers with soldiers in battle gear roared up and down
war-ruined lanes. The militiamen rushed across open streets, firing rounds
toward the high buildings of Grozny to distract snipers. A few others led a
cow out of a courtyard toward the Russian headquarters. A few Chechen
villagers started to complain about their treatment at the hands of the
Russians, but a few words from Bukharin quieted them down.
''This is all a big spectacle,'' said one woman.
Bukharin offered some guests hard candy and soldiers' rations of oatmeal and
canned meat. In the adjoining room, Chechens suspected of being rebel
fighters stood against the wall, their hands and legs spread out.
Bukharin's men are confident they will eventually overwhelm their
adversaries, but they are concerned the Chechen rebels are going to try to
break out.
''These Santa Clauses are going to try to fly tonight,'' he said with a grim
smile, pausing to order another salvo on his walkie-talkie.
Outside, Russian soldiers milled around the muddy ruins with pro-Russian
Chechen militia, wearing white armbands to distinguish themselves from the
rebels. Bukharin repeated the official line that the loyalist Chechens have
been useful allies for their knowledge of the area, but it is clear the
Russians and the loyalists do not fully trust one another.
Bukharin would not even speak to Mayerbeck, despite their nominally equal
rank. At one point, a Russian and a loyalist Chechen, both armed to the
teeth, got in a shoving match.
''Don't you push me,'' said the Chechen. ''We have to work together.''
''You have your work, and we have ours,'' snapped the Russian.
The center of Russia's campaign is in Grozny, and the soldiers were tense
along the road leading into the capital from the northwest, territory
captured at the beginning of the conflict in October.
''We get shot at every night,'' said Alexander, a riot police officer from
Vladivostok who was manning a checkpoint on the road leading from the Chechen
town of Znamenskaya into Grozny. Here, some soldiers were replacing phone
lines wrecked during the fighting. Others were digging trenches. The rebels,
the soldiers said, sneak across Russian territory and launch hit-and-run
attacks.
''We should just drop a few hydrogen bombs on the place and be done with
this,'' Alexander said. ''Otherwise, this war will go on forever.''
But his and other police patrols waved journalists through. In the towns
along the way were rows of fresh graves. There were more than 40 in
Goragorsky, just over Chechnya's western frontier, the site of a fierce
two-day battle in October.
At the town of Tolstoy-Yurt, behind the low ridge that runs just north of
Grozny, the Russian artillery barrage was intense. At one point, journalists
counted 60 rounds fired in a minute.
At a small street market, vendors sold special New Year's cakes with
Christmas tree designs on the icing.
Convoys of armored vehicles rumbled along the Grozny road. Trucks full of men
and supplies made their way toward the fighting; trucks with their canvas
flaps closed tight rumbled out. The passage of many tanks has ruined the
pavement and strewn clay and mud along the road, making the driving
treacherous. A large Russian military truck lay on its side; its driver had
apparently lost control in the muck.
The Russian forward positions start at the checkpoint outside Staraya Sunzha.
Two young draftees stopped a car and asked for food. One of them greedily
grabbed a pack of cigarettes.
''We are standing here in a ring around the city, waiting for the order to go
in,'' said Vladimir, a soldier from Novorossiisk who has been fighting the
rebels since they invaded the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan in
August.
Vladimir, who also fought in Russia's 1994-1996 war in Chechnya, has signed a
contract to fight through February. He makes decent pay for Russia - $120 per
month plus $30 for each day spent in the battle zone - but Vladimir is not
happy about it.
''I want out of here now,'' he said. ''But we're spending New Year's in the
trenches.''
A mortar round went off nearby. The pro-Russian Chechens agreed to escort a
group of journalists into Staraya Sunzha, but only to the front line in the
village center. The Russian forces still do not fully control the area.
''This place is not safe,'' said a Russian police officer who gave his name
as Sergei. He said the rebel fighters were mostly not Chechens, but
mercenaries from other countries. Every Russian officer tells this story, and
the list of nationalities gets longer at each checkpoint.
''We're fighting Turks, Poles, Balts, Arabs, Ukrainian women snipers with
small caliber rifles, Scots in kilts, blacks from Africa, scared 16-year-old
boys, what have you,'' Colonel Bukharin said with a big smile. He told his
troops to guard against possible breakouts by the rebels.
Outside headquarters, a Russian soldier in battle gear called his mother on a
journalist's satellite phone and told her he was all right. He hung up and
grabbed his assault rifle and moved off to join the other men going off
towards the city.
''That's that, now I'm off to fight,'' he said, and then he was gone.
