Russians Say Key Town Taken; Rebels Say Nyet

The Russian military said it took a key Chechen rebel stronghold Friday ahead of planned talks between Boris Yeltsin and the separatists’ leader, but the rebels said the town remained theirs.

Yeltsin, eager to end the unpopular war that now jeopardizes his re-election bid in the June 16 presidential vote, agreed Thursday to hold talks in Moscow. He also said he planned to visit Chechnya this month.

“The rebels fought desperately,” Gen. Mikhail Kolesnikov, Russia’s military chief of staff, told legislators in announcing the fall of the southwestern Chechen village of Bamut after five days of heavy fighting.

A rebel spokesman, however, told the Interfax news agency that Bamut - a former Soviet missile base - remained in separatist hands and that the Russians controlled only its outskirts.

The attack on Bamut, which has resisted repeated Russian offensives since the start of the 17-month war, appeared to be aimed at weakening the rebels ahead of the talks. It also could stiffen their resistance.

Russian military officials claimed some 350 rebel fighters died in the five days of fighting. They said they lost only 22 men, and tried to present the capture of Bamut as the final victory over the rebels.

“That was the last major military operation on the territory of Chechnya,” Kolesnikov said. He claimed that the rebels could only continue fighting in small splintered groups.

Separatist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev did not comment Friday on the Russian attack on Bamut, 35 miles southwest of the Chechen capital Grozny.

But Yandarbiyev sounded optimistic about what would be the highest-level talks since Yeltsin sent troops in December 1994 to stop the southern republic’s independence drive.