ALKHAN-KALA, Russia -- Russian jets and artillery Monday strafed and bombed a small village in Chechnya's southern mountains, trying to block the path of retreating rebel forces.
The airstrikes on the area of Kharachoi killed 50 militants and wiped out two rebel bunkers, said Maj. Alexander Diordiev.Kharachoi is located in Chechnya's mountains, just south of a key rebel stronghold, Vedeno, which Russian forces were trying to capture.
After fierce fighting Sunday, the military was able to place artillery on heights around Vedeno and shelled the town Monday. Diordiev said that the rebel forces were unable to regroup and were evacuating from the village.
The Interfax news agency cited Russian officials as saying a group of rebels had tried to break through a Russian encirclement in the region of the Argun Gorge, in the south, but were driven back.
The NTV television station said Russian forces continued their bombardment of Grozny and that ground troops were edging in from three sides in hopes of funneling the rebels south toward waiting federal guns.
But there was no sign today that the rebels were preparing to leave their defenses in the city. Capturing Grozny would give Russia a major psychological victory. The city has been the target of attacks since fighting began in September.
Military doctor Oleg Zayev said on Russia's ORT television Sunday that he sees dozens of wounded troops daily from in and around Grozny. The military insists its losses have been minimal despite evidence to the contrary.
In Moscow today, acting President Vladimir Putin said the government must quickly restore vital services to Russian-controlled areas of the breakaway region. He gave "exact recommendations on supplying schoolbooks, medicines and other necessities of the social sphere to the three most badly-affected regions of Chechnya," Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Koshman said after meeting with Putin, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Koshman said he and Putin had discussed restoring electricity to the three districts, around the towns of Urus-Martan, Achkhoi-Martan and Shali. Koshman said it would take at least a month to repair power lines in the Urus-Martan region.
Chechen officials said Sunday that the Russian advance to the south was trapping civilians in cellars and sending others fleeing across snowy mountains and forests littered with corpses.
The constant air and artillery attacks that precede the advance of Russian troops have left civilians trapped in southern mountain villages, afraid to venture out amid the bombs and shells raining on the roads that lead out, Chechen officials and civilians say.
"People cannot venture out of their homes because the shelling continues around the clock," said Ramzan Bisiyev, head of the village administration in Rodina, just outside Grozny.
Bisiyev was trying Sunday to negotiate with Russian authorities for a safe corridor so civilians could leave southern Chechnya for Russian-controlled areas in the north.
"In despair, people go through the forests, along mountain passes, and come under artillery fire. A lot of dead bodies lie around those forests," said Bisiyev, who visited southern Chechnya last week.
Russian troops entered Chechnya in September after Chechen-based militants invaded a neighboring region and were blamed for ensuing apartment bombings elsewhere in Russia. Russians terrified of the kidnappings and other violence that has plagued the Caucasus region in recent years largely support the war.