Russia Revolts

One American was killed in the fiery Moscow battles between Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin's backers and his opponents--a 26-year-old lawyer from Louisiana who died trying to save another man's life, friends said Tuesday. Terry Duncan, a graduate of the George Washington University law school who had come to Moscow recently to set up a small law firm with a college buddy, was shot in the head Sunday night in the battle over the Ostankino television center on the north side of town.

For no particular crime, Russian soldiers beat Uvayes Batalov every day for nearly a month. They starved him, jolted him with electricity and locked him for days with other prisoners in a specially overheated railroad car with little water. "The guards came to the door and said, 'Do you want some fresh air?' " recalled Batalov, a 26-year-old Chechen construction worker who was unarmed at the time of his arrest. "We said, 'We do, yes!' So they came in and beat us with clubs. Later they came back.

His name was Sergei, a young riot cop sitting on a curb in the shadow of the White House, the long besieged Parliament headquarters. His hands were bloody and his eyes teary. In a daze, he said that he had just carried away from the front lines the body of his wounded commander, who had taken a shot in the back from opponents of President Boris N. Yeltsin during Sunday's riots.

In a dangerous sign that Russia's conflict in the mountainous region of Dagestan has spread to neighboring Chechnya, Russia's Interior Ministry on Saturday confirmed its military bombed a village and exchanged gunfire at a police outpost in the breakaway republic. Russia's massive offensive against a group of Islamic rebels in western Dagestan continued through the night for the first time, and Russian officials claimed to have gained control of several strategic positions.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin met with his defense and security chiefs to review Moscow's campaign against Islamic militants in the republic of Dagestan. Russia has yet to dislodge the rebels despite two weeks of attacks. The meeting in Moscow came after Russian forces chalked up some victories in Dagestan, where they are battling rebels who crossed over from neighboring Chechnya and who are seeking an independent state in the region.

Hundreds of Chechen rebels battled with Russian forces on the edge of Chechnya's southern mountains Tuesday, as Russian jets and ground forces battered the breakaway republic's capital, Grozny. "We are turning up the heat in the mountains," said Lt. Gen. Gennady Troshev, Russia's commander on the eastern front. "They just don't know where to run."

A column of Russian armored vehicles probed deep into Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on Wednesday, clashing with rebel defenders just hours after Moscow again rejected international mediation of its conflict with the breakaway southern republic. The Russian incursion, reported by Western news agencies citing local witnesses, appeared to be the largest and deepest probe so far into the besieged city, which has been under attack for months.

Russian forces hammered the capital of Chechnya with savage barrages of artillery and rocket fire Thursday as Moscow rejected Chechen pleas for talks to end the fighting. Western diplomats increased pressure on Moscow to seek peace. Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said Russia was "prepared to end the military actions even tomorrow," but only if Chechen rebels surrender--a condition the Chechens won't accept. Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov appealed to Russian President Boris N.

Russian warplanes repeatedly pounded the capital of Chechnya and attacked convoys on the roads of the separatist republic Monday, as top Russian officials shrugged off increasing Western pressure for a negotiated settlement there. Russian military officials said Monday afternoon that attack planes had flown 30 sorties in the previous 24 hours, dropping 550-pound and 1,100-pound bombs on Grozny, Chechnya's capital; Gudermes, its second-largest city; and Bamut, a rebel stronghold.

Russian troops dug into trenches near the border with Chechnya on Monday, while Russian jets bombed suspected guerrilla encampments inside the breakaway republic. The armed forces were carrying out the government's two-pronged strategy to prevent further incursions by Islamic militants from Chechnya into southern Russia: creating a cordon outside the republic and striking rebel formations and equipment inside.