Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov defiantly enlisted Islamic warlords into his army yesterday as Russia called on the rebel republic to renounce "terrorism" or face more punishing attacks.
With aircraft pounding Chechnya in attacks which Mr Maskhadov's office said killed 19 more people, the Russian Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, called on Mr Maskhadov "to announce that he is willing to free his territory of international terrorists".
"I have never said that we will never stage a ground operation (in Chechnya)," Mr Putin later added. "We have options."
He said he expected Mr Maskhadov to dissociate himself from Islamic guerrillas in emergency talks with President Makhomed Makhomedov of the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan which witnessed two incursions from Chechen-based Islamic rebels last month.
That meeting however was later cancelled when Dagestanis blocked roads leading to the agreed meeting point.
Mr Maskhadov had previously dissociated himself from the Dagestani invasions. These were orchestrated by the Chechen warlord Mr Shamil Basayev.
Moscow accuses Mr Basayev, among other things, of masterminding a wave of bomb attacks on residential blocks in Russia which have left 292 people dead since September 4th. Mr Basayev quit Mr Maskhadov's government last year after serving briefly as prime minister.
Chechen officials told AFP that Mr Maskhadov had met Mr Basayev and his fellow rebel field commanders and given them "formal instructions" on how to defend Chechnya in case Russian troops invaded.
With increasing press speculation in Moscow that a Russian ground invasion of Chechnya is imminent, the Chechen President apparently has found himself with little alternative but to turn to the field commanders for help.
In Moscow, the Sevodnya daily reported that Russia's army had presented President Yeltsin with an invasion plan of Chechnya in which most of the breakaway republic would be brought back under Moscow's control by November. The ground assault would be launched from the neighbouring Russian republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, it said.
Separately, the Interfax news agency cited defence sources as saying that preparations for a troop invasion were "practically complete".
The Russian air attacks on Chechnya have led to an estimated 60,000 people fleeing to Russia, mainly to Ingushetia, whose government has asked for aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
In Geneva the agency said it planned to send mainly local staff from the southern Russian town of Stavropol to Ingushetia, while a spokeswoman for the UNHCR's Moscow office said talks were being held with the Russian federal authorities.
Tens of thousands of refugees huddled in tents or sat in the open yesterday.