One or two things are crystal clear about the crisis in Chechnya; the rest is darkness and confusion. Few doubt that a military solution - meaning the crushing of the rebels by Russian might - is impossible, and that the marshalling of forces and the bombardments of Grozny that gathered momentum for most of yesterday, have more to do with pride and obduracy in the war faction in Moscow and among some senior commanders in the field, than with military realities.
The Chechen troops have inflicted considerable damage on the Russian war machine, and like all partisan fighters they reserve the right to melt away, regroup and return to battle as and when they will. The strategy inevitably means that it is the civilian population - the old and the very young that bears the brunt of Russian fury and arouses the compassion of the world. The reports yesterday of streams of people leaving the city, and of others, exhausted after the months of fighting and determined to stay, underline the major humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding day by day. According to the figures of the International Committee of the Red Cross, about 130,000 refugees have fled from Grozny in the last week, butt almost as many are still there, unable or unwilling to meet the deadline before the threatened intensification of the bombardment today.
If the futility of the Russian assault and the scale of the human crisis are clear, so is the extent of the political catastrophe in Moscow. Chechnya has precipitated to the surface the power struggle which President Yeltsin's ill health was bound to foment and has raised the stakes. Mr Yeltsin's own attitude to the separatists has been equivocal. He has alternated between a military and a political solution.
There is no certainty that he wants, or is able, to honour his election promise to end the war in Chechnya, though that course has widespread support in Russia and is urgently demanded by the international community. His appointment of Gen Alexander Lebed, a moderate as far as the war is concerned, as security chief, and as the negotiator of a settlement with the Chechens, must be weighed against his inability to resist the powerful forces that oppose Gen Lebed, either because they want to contain an ambitious rival or, more obviously, because they are bent on pursuing the war. In the murky tradition of Kremlin politics, it is entirely possible to believe Gen Lebed's accusation that Mr Yeltsin's order to him to "restore the status quo ante" and expel the insurgents from Grozny was a forgery, or alternatively to accept that it was a genuine reflection of what the president really wants. Either way, it demonstrates Mr Yeltsin's disturbing irrelevance at a time of great uncertainty and danger.
Whether, by coming to Moscow at this stage, he can impose his authority and insist on a policy of conciliation is doubtful. What little evidence there is suggests that the proponents of war are more deeply entrenched than the advocates of peace, more especially at command level in the armed forces which show signs, at least around Grozny, of being beyond the control of the more moderate political decisionmakers. Gen Lebed himself must move cautiously because of the lack of a power base in national politics. His confidence last night that a new ceasefire negotiated with the separatists will hold, has still to be tested against the weight of experience militating against it.