Chechen forces counter-attacked yesterday, seizing control of a second village in two days as a leading Russian general admitted heavy losses in fierce clashes with Chechen guerrillas.
After weeks of setbacks Chechen fighters clashed with Russian infantry around Alleroi, 50 km east of Grozny and Alkhan-Yurt, a village at the south-western gates of Grozny, military officials said.
Chechen forces captured Noibyora, a short distance from Alleroi, yesterday following seizure of the nearby settlement of Novogroznensky at the weekend, military officials in Grozny said.
Russian officials insisted the settlement was now back under federal control, but admitted the pilot of an Mi-8 attack helicopter had been killed and another wounded in ongoing battles in the Novogroznensky area.
The defence ministry declined to comment on the fall of Noibyora.
The flurry of infantry skirmishes came as the OSCE leader, Mr Knut Vollebaek, arrived in Moscow to discuss a trip to the war zone and visit camps housing some 233,000 refugees who have fled the fighting in the breakaway Russian republic.
Deputy Chief of Staff, Gen Valery Manilov, meanwhile said 12 paratroopers had died near the village of Kharachoi, in the south-eastern Vedeno district, fiefdom of the leading Chechen field commander, Mr Shamil Basayev.
"Our kids were forced to fight to the end. Out of 14 people, 12 people died," he said of the November 17th clash on Russian television.
The toll is the heaviest admitted by Russian commanders from a single battle with the Chechens in the current campaign.
A rebel field commander said on November 22nd that Chechen forces had killed more than 200 Russians near Kharachoi and produced a video showing about 40 corpses in Russian uniform and two prisoners.
The Chechen thrust signalled a switch in tactics, the outgunned guerrillas until now having avoided pitched battles with Russian troops who rolled into the rebel republic on October 1st.
Russian generals have relied on massive aerial and artillery superiority to push back the rebels, rather than risk a repeat of street battles which led to disastrous losses in the 1994-1996 war between the two sides.
The accelerating Russian push has stalled around Urus-Martan, where dogged Chechen resistance has defied Russian ambitions to capture the town - which guards vital escape routes from Grozny - by last week.
Civilians desperate to flee the incessant bombardments say Russian air strikes make the roads out of the capital too dangerous.