Intense fighting was reported from inside Grozny last night, but Russian military commanders and politicians denied that an all-out offensive was under way.
Federal troops claimed to have captured the city's military airport at Khankala while Chechen sources confirmed that Russian soldiers briefly entered the area around Minutka Square near the centre of the city.
In an extremely upbeat statement, President Yeltsin's representative in Chechnya, Mr Nikolai Koshman, claimed that the Russian flag would be flying over Grozny within "a week to 10 days". This contradicted an earlier claim by Gen Vladimir Shamanov, commander of Russian forces in western Chechnya, that no attempt to take Grozny would be made for "two to three weeks".
The Defence Minister, Mr Igor Sergeyev, said there would be no storming of the city as in the previous Chechen war (1994-1996) and that "various options were being looked at".
With a general election due in Russia on Sunday it seemed most unlikely that the government of the Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, would risk the lives of soldiers, with its consequent adverse publicity, in a head-on assault on rebels who have been digging in for weeks in Grozny.
Last night's fighting appeared to be between small groups of Russian troops and Chechen fighters in strategic areas of the capital, such as the military airport at Khankala and the Minutka district.
Addressing the State Duma yesterday Mr Putin said that in one Chechen village "bandits" had killed 68 Chechen civilians.
The Human Rights Watch organisation which has been interviewing refugees from the village of Alkhan Yurt, south-west of Grozny, believes that Russian troops were involved in summary executions of civilians there.
