AS Russians wait to hear details of President Yeltsin's peace plan for Chechnya, the army launched offensives in three areas of the breakaway region.
The defence minister, Gen Pavel Grachev, has hinted, however, that hostilities are likely to continue after Mr Yeltsin announces his plan on Sunday, saying that only "major operations" will be halted from March 31st.
The increased level of military activity and the expected ceasefire are both linked to Mr Yeltsin's campaign for a second term as President of the Russian Federation.
The Chechen war is one of the major issues in the election campaign in which, according to opinion polls, Mr Yeltsin trails the Communist leader, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, by 10 percentage points.
It is believed that up to 40,000 civilians have been killed in the 15 month conflict, which has included mass hostage taking by the Chechen rebels and at least one massacre of unarmed civilians by Russian forces.
In a report on human rights in Russia, the US State Department has claimed that most of the atrocities against Chechen civilians have been committed not by soldiers of the Russian army but by men, known as Kontraktniki, hired on contract by the Russian authorities to replace ill trained and badly equipped young conscripts who had been mown down by the Chechens.
For ordinary Russians preparing to go to the polls in June, the uphill struggle by Russia to tame the Chechens has been yet another reminder of their country's fall from its superpower pedestal and accounts for a considerable proportion of the erosion of support for Mr Yeltsin.
While the peace plan, if successful, may strengthen Mr Yeltsin's chances, the real battle will be on economic issues in a country in which living standards for the vast majority have fallen dramatically.
Western governments and organisations are supporting Mr Yeltsin's chances of re election.
