Newspoem
Russian Forces in 3-Pronged Assault
28 March 1996


MOSCOW (Reuter) - Russian forces attacked
separatists on
fronts
trying to seize control of more territory in
breakaway region before President Boris Yeltsin unveils a new peace plan Sunday. A
Defense Ministry spokesman in Moscow said planes and artillery were used in assaults,
in
and
``In
last 24
Russian aviation and artillery
continued delivering strikes against rebel positions in
vicinity of Bamut, Stary
and
said. Bamut, in
a former Soviet nuclear missile base
Russians
been bombarding
more
a year. Guerrillas are
up in
tunnels and corridors of
complex,
four bomb-proof concrete
once used to store medium-range ballistic missiles. It is regarded as one of the rebels' most important
on
lowland.
spokesman said federal forces
sealed off two villages in
and were starting to blockade
more settlements in
Russian troops
most of
lowlands, but
failed to make any big territorial gains in
mountains, despite 15
of
latest efforts seem designed to
into
populated
mountains, far from strategic oil pipelines and from
regional capital Grozny, a city of 400,000 people before
started in December 1994.

 
Chechnya
 


Chechen
three

the
 

southern, southwestern
southeastern Chechnya.
the
hours
have
the
Achkhoi
Orekhovo,'' he
southwestern Chechnya, houses
which the
have
for
than
holed
the
the
which houses
shafts
the
strongholds
Chechnya's
The
had
southern Chechnya
three
the southeast.
hold
the Chechen
they have
the
months
fighting. The
push the fighters
the thinly
southern
the
the fighting