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he also announced that expenditure on the operations over the preceding week amounted to sixty billion rubles by the Ministry of the Interior and 200 billion rubles by the Ministry of Defense.

Four hours before the deadline expired, at eight in the evening on December 17, Dudaev made his final attempt to avert war and wired the Russian leadership that he would agree to start negotiations at the appropriate level without any preconditions and to lead the governmental delegation of the Chechen Republic in person. In other words, Dudaev was again demanding a personal meeting with Yeltsin, but since Dudaev persisted in his refusal to pay any money for such a meeting to be arranged, his cable went unanswered.

At nine in the morning on December 18, the Russian forces blockading Grozny began storming the city. Front-line air units and army helicopters delivered precision blows against Dudaev s command post at Khankala near Grozny, the bridges over the Terek River to the north and also against maneuverable groups of armored vehicles. An announcement from the Temporary Information Center of the Russian High Command stated that following the destruction of the armored vehicles, the plan was for the forces blockading Grozny to advance and proceed with the disarmament of illegal armed groups on the territory of Chechnya. President Yeltsin s plenipotentiary representative in Chechnya announced that Dudaev now had no choice but to surrender.

On December 18, Soskovets, having been appointed to yet another post as head of the Russian government s operational headquarters for the coordination of action taken by agencies of the executive authorities, informed the press that in Grozny they are studying the possibility of carrying out terrorist attacks aimed at military and civilian targets in Central Russia and the Urals, and also of hijacking a civilian passenger plane.

The First Deputy Prime Minister s astonishingly detailed information was, in fact, an indication that terrorist acts could be expected within a few days.

On December 22, the press office of the Government of the Russian Federation announced that Chechens were blowing themselves up in order to throw the blame for the explosions on to the Russian army. The statement issued read as follows: Today at 10 in the morning a meeting was held under the chairmanship of first deputy chairman of the government Oleg Soskovets which was attended by members of the government, members of the Security Council, and representatives of the President s Office. The meeting discussed the situation which has arisen in the Chechen Republic and the measures being taken by the president and the government to restore constitutional legality and provide economic assistance to the population of areas which

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have been liberated from the armed formations of the Dudaev regime. Reports made by those present at the meeting indicate that last night operations to disarm the armed bandit formations continued, and bombing raids were carried out against their strongholds. The city of Grozny was not subjected to bombardment. However, the guerrillas made attempts to imitate the bombardment of housing districts. At about one in the morning, an office building and an apartment block were blown up. The residents, both Chechen and Russian, were not given any warning of the planned attack. The imitation of bombardment was undertaken in order to demonstrate the thesis of a war being waged by the Russian leadership against the Chechen people. This thesis was proclaimed yesterday in Dudaev s appeal to the international community.

In other words, the Russian government s press office attempted to blame the Chechens for the destruction by Russian forces of an office building and apartment block containing civilians.

Initiated by Soskovets, this announcement couched in Stalinist prose was made public one day before the explosion between the stations of Kozhukhovo and Kanatchikovo on the Moscow circular railroad