PRESIDENT Yeltsin's new envoy to Chechnya, Gen Alexander Lebed, yesterday returned from a lightning visit to the edge of the war zone, full of criticism for the Russian authorities and their handling of the rebellious Caucasian region.
During his trip, he had talks with the moderate Chechen field commander, Gen Aslan Maskhadov. As a result, Russian and Chechen officers were in telephone contact with each other yesterday in an attempt to arrange a ceasefire in and around Grozny.
But the internal fighting might, only just be starting in the Kremlin after Gen Lebed's savage criticism of the Russian government and its representatives in Chechnya.
A whole new system for dealing with Chechnya needed to be worked out, he said at a press conference, suggesting that the security council which he chairs should start working on the problem on a permanent basis.
He was highly critical of the existing State Commission for Chechnya, headed by the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, and suggested that in future the premier should deal only with economic aspects of policy towards the region.
During his short trip to Chechnya, Gen Lebed visited Russian troops serving in the area and was appalled by what he saw. Conscripts at federal checkpoints were "half starved, lousy and undressed," he said. "These weakened men can hardly represent the interior ministry or the defence ministry. Partisans in World War Two were dressed better than our soldiers today."
On the ground, battles continued to rage yesterday for the seventh day running in the worst fighting since Moscow first sent its tanks and troops to Chechnya in December 1994. The Russians were reported to have stopped their air attacks over the city but civilians had abandoned the streets to the army and the rebel gunmen.
Near the southern Russian city of Volgograd, a bomb exploded on a packed train, killing a woman and injuring several other passengers. It was not immediately clear whether Chechens or the mafia were behind the attack, one of a series of unsolved terrorist incidents in Russia this summer.