Russia Armed Forces

When Maj. Gen. Konstantin Svidersky, commander of a strategic missile base in Siberia, learned that the security of his base was under threat, he did what any commander would do: He sent out his troops to eliminate the threat. The target? Four electric substations. The enemy? The local electric company, which had threatened to cut off power. Heavily armed commandos stormed the substations in Siberia's southern Altai region two weeks ago and forced out the employees at gunpoint.

The lookout, fortified with bricks and sandbags, is tucked beneath an abandoned house. It has a slit at ground level. Lying inside is a strip of wood with four ordinary light switches mounted on it. Everyone knows what that means. "Each of those switches controls a mine," explains Alexei, one of six elite special forces troops on sapper detail. "The fellow would sit there on those cushions and watch the street. And when someone would come down the road . . ."

Police arrested a 19-year-old Russian conscript on suspicion that he killed eight soldiers on a military train in southern Russia, news agencies said. Oleg Dovshenko was arrested at a train station in the Penza region, where he had been called up by the army, the Interfax news agency said. Dovshenko and the dead soldiers had been assigned to guard the train, which carried military hardware. Seven of the victims were shot at close range.

During more than four months of war, this town of 10,000 people seemed to be one of the safest places in Chechnya. Russian troops encircled the community and controlled the roads leading in and out. As federal forces bombed the city of Grozny 22 miles to the east, refugees fleeing the destruction found a haven here.

Just three months into the second Chechen war, indications are growing that the Russian drive to retake the rebel republic is bogging down. On Monday, after a series of audacious rebel raids on the Russians' thinly guarded rear positions, generals reported the highest one-day death toll in the conflict so far: 26 Russian troops in the previous 24 hours.

Chechen rebels challenged tighter security measures in Grozny, the Chechen capital, with hit-and-run attacks and ambushes, killing four soldiers and wounding seven in the rebellious Russian republic, officials said. Fighters opened fire with pistols on a Russian military truck at a market in Grozny, killing three soldiers, an official in the pro-Russian Chechen administration said on condition of anonymity.

Russian forces guarding the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan have stepped up security because of intensifying fighting in Afghanistan's civil war, a spokesman for the border guards said Monday. But Interfax news agency quoted "military-diplomatic sources" in Moscow as saying Russia would not help anti-Taliban forces fighting in Afghanistan and would not get directly involved.

Up a shabby flight of stairs in a rundown building here is a small, chaotic office that has become the nerve center for relatives and supporters of crewmen trapped in the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk. It's not the Russian navy's rescue center, but a private club. It's also the home of true believers, many of whom have become disillusioned this week with the military they once served. The veterans at the St.

Acting Russian President Vladimir V. Putin declared Sunday that federal forces had scored a major victory in Chechnya, taking control of the republic's war-torn capital, Grozny, after seven weeks of fierce fighting with separatist rebels. "The last stronghold of the terrorists' resistance--Grozny's Zavodskoy district--has just been seized, and the Russian flag has been hoisted above one of the administrative buildings," Putin said in a television interview.

Russian forces claimed Monday to have killed 20 Chechen guerrillas but lost a reconnaissance jet, possibly to rebel fire. The insurgents were killed in artillery and airstrikes, the military claimed. Russian forces are trying to rout Chechen rebels from mountain strongholds, but sniping and hit-and-run attacks continue. A Russian Su-24MR plane disappeared from radar screens during bad weather Sunday over Chechnya, and military officials said it may have been shot down.