The latest orders on Chechnya by President Vladimir Putin mean he has installed direct Russian presidential rule in the region which could last for two or three years, a senior Kremlin aide said yesterday.
"Russian power has returned forever to Chechnya," the secretary of the advisory security council, Mr Sergei Ivanov, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying of a decree issued by Mr Putin.
"The President has taken upon himself full powers over Chechnya," he added. Direct presidential rule means Mr Putin would appoint his own officials to the region rather than holding elections. It also gives him a more formal direct say in the day-to-day running of Chechnya.
Mr Putin has also sent a draft law to parliament which would provide the formal legal basis for the new arrangement.
The move comes a day after one of Russia's senior commanders, Gen Valery Konovalov of the western group of Interior Ministry troops, was wounded in the head and his driver killed when his car came under automatic gunfire on a road south-west of the Chechen capital Grozny.
The incident happened on Wednesday evening, shortly after two Chechen guerrillas made a suicide attack on police headquarters in the village of AlkhanYurt, also south-west of Grozny, killing two Russian OMON police.
It was not clear how the people of Chechnya would take to the new arrangement. They elected Mr Aslan Maskhadov president in 1997 but he is now in hiding in the southern mountains of Chechnya, fighting Russia's forces.
Russia's spokesman on Chechnya, Mr Sergei Yastrzhemsbky, was quoted by news agencies as saying Mr Putin's decision would streamline the way Moscow administered Chechnya. He expected Mr Putin to nominate his own handpicked representative soon to head a local administration.
Mr Yastrzhembsky said the new administrative chief would in turn be under the control of another official, whom Mr Putin has chosen as his personal representative to head a new super-region of Chechnya and other North Caucasus regions.
The West has called for Moscow to hold peace talks with Mr Maskhadov, but Russia has said he does not have enough power to enforce any peace deal.
Mr Nikolai Koshman, head of a former Chechnya administration which had more limited powers than the new one, has been mentioned as a candidate for the new job.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International has accused Russian forces in Chechnya of regularly raping, torturing and beating civilians in detention camps.
Brutal violence was a daily occurrence despite Moscow's pledges to investigate and prosecute any alleged crimes against civilians in the breakaway region, the London-based human rights group said in a statement yesterday.
News that President Putin would shortly visit North Korea, a former Soviet ally, was greeted in Washington as a further sign the reclusive Stalinist state is lowering its barriers to the outside world.
It was also seen as a sign that Putin, eager to rebuild Russian world influence in a flurry of foreign contacts in the weeks after taking office, is keen to assert Russia's traditional influence in the strategic region.
US officials said they had no immediate confirmation of the visit. It was disclosed by a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official in Moscow as President Clinton was returning from Japan where he saw the South Korean leader.