RUSSIAN troops fought fierce battles with Chechen rebels for an eighth day yesterday but the two sides agreed on a truce to evacuate hundreds of wounded civilians from Grozny.
The ceasefire, due to start across the southern region from midday (7.00 Irish time) today would provide welcome relief for tens of thousands of civilians, some of them wounded, cowering in the city's basements with little food and no water.
Aid agencies have been calling for "humanitarian corridors" to be set up so civilians can leave and receive medical care.
The acting commander of Russian troops in Chechnya, Gen Konstantin Pulikovsky, and the rebel chief of staff, Mr Aslan Maskhadov, met at the village of Novye Atagi 25 km south of Grozny at the end of an eighth day of fighting in the capital.
"At the talks in Chechnya an agreement was reached to halt military operations across all Chechen territory from 12 o'clock tomorrow and provide all the necessary humanitarian corridors," Russian Television said, quoting the chief rebel spokesman.
Fighting is to stop by midday men will be pulled back on both sides and dead and wounded will be exchanged, Interfax news agency quoted rebel sources as saying.
The rebels launched their raid a week ago, seizing much of Grozny and running rings around Moscow's forces who arrived in December 1994 to put down a three year independence drive.
Throughout the day mortar bombs shells and rockets crashed down on the city and refugees had to run a gauntlet of bullets and explosions to flee their homes.
Despite an army statement on Monday that Russian forces had halted air strikes, helicopter gun ships rocketed positions close to where women and children were struggling to cross a river.
"Please tell them to open a corridor," pleaded Ms Ruisa Sukhanova, as she fled with her baby across a railway bridge. "There are thousands of people trapped back there.
Sukhoi warplanes flew over a southern suburb, sending up a huge black cloud when a bomb apparently hit an oil storage area. "There's your ceasefire for you," another woman said.
Representatives of Chechnya's pro-Moscow authorities accused the army of firing on civilians and stopping thousands of them from leaving Grozny, home to 400,000 before the conflict began.
More than 30,000 people have died since then and hundreds, possibly thousands, are thought to have been killed in the heaviest fighting for 18 months.
"Tens of thousands of people are trapped on the outskirts of Grozny without food supplies and with a catastrophic lack of medicine," a statement by a Chechen mission in Moscow said.
The tentative peace process was set in motion by Mr Alexander Lebed, President Boris Yeltsin's new envoy to Chechnya, who on Sunday made a lightning visit to the war zone to meet Mr Maskhadov and returned to Moscow on Monday saying he was optimistic a ceasefire could soon be arranged.