Russia yesterday set up a government-in-exile for Chechnya, but leaders in the breakaway republic laughed at the announcement and threatened to arrest the Russian appointees on sight.
Russian federal troops have taken the northern third of Chechnya under their control and Moscow has repeatedly aired plans to set up a "model" republic that would receive extra financial assistance in those lands.
EU officials discussed a burgeoning refugee crisis in Chechnya with senior Russian officials in Moscow yesterday, calling for dialogue between the two sides but stopping short of offering to mediate in the crisis.
"The main concern is that as soon as possible there should be a resumption of the dialogue," said Mr Chris Patten, the EU Commissioner for External Relations.
The Finnish Foreign Minister, Ms Tarja Halonen, said, however, that the EU troika, which included her Portuguese counterpart, Mr Jaime Gama, did not offer to mediate a resolution of the conflict between Moscow and Grozny.
The Russian Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, indicated that tens of thousands of refugees who have fled a month-long Russian bombardment of Chechnya would be resettled in the lands controlled by Moscow.
Grozny leaders' condemnation of the "government in exile" was swift. President Aslan Maskhadov's spokesman said the council "has no legitimacy and no authority on the territory of Chechnya".
And the deputy head of the Chechen prosecutor's office, Mr Magomed Magomadov, threatened to arrest any of the pro-Moscow parliament members should they ever step on to Chechen soil.
Meanwhile, fighting continued even as Moscow piled pressure on the Grozny government.
Heavy Russian artillery and multiple rocket-launchers pounded Chechen positions along the Terek River, which forms the boundary of the Russian-declared "security zone" in northern Chechnya, a senior Chechen military official said.
Russian troops and Chechen fighters engaged in sporadic clashes along the waterway, he said, adding Grozny's forces "still control some of the settlements in the Naurskaya district" north of the Terek.
Television pictures from Chechnya showed a charred bus filled with the bloody corpses of passengers, apparently killed in an explosion. Mr Putin had hours earlier denied in Moscow that Russian forces had attacked a busload of refugees fleeing the breakaway region.