Death Trap

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More pragmatically, a continuing military debacle in the northern Caucasus might not only push the core area of Russia back into a police state but also trigger additional declarations of independence throughout the ethnically and culturally varied Russian Federation. That could plunge the vast area stretching from the Arctic Ocean south to the Black Sea and from the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad clear across Eurasia to the North Pacific into chaos or civil war. At the most extreme, some Western analysts are whispering again a phrase last heard in 1991, when the Soviet Union was breaking up: "Yugoslavia with nukes."

It was a farfetched fear then, and may be again. But it is difficult to see any good resolution -- or even only a moderately bad resolution -- to the terrible mess that the war has become. Yeltsin has no good options, militarily or politically. He could call off the assault, withdraw Russian troops from Chechnya and begin political negotiations looking toward some expanded autonomy for the rebellious region. That is the implicit recommendation of Western governments, including the U.S., which, after weeks of embarrassed silence, are beginning to urge Yeltsin to stop the bloodbath.

But the time for Yeltsin to strike such a deal would have been before the invasion began on Dec. 11. Now it could be interpreted as a humiliating admission of defeat at the hands of rebel bands. And after the destruction of the past month, would the Chechens ever willingly rejoin Russia on any terms? Would Yeltsin dare settle for approximately the bargain he might have got without fighting? That would in effect mean confessing that hundreds, perhaps thousands of Russian soldiers had died, and the army had suffered a debacle for nothing. It is questionable whether Yeltsin could survive that.

The other option is to turn the full force of Russian firepower and numerical superiority on Chechnya, resume the assault on Grozny and persist in it until the city is conquered, however brutal and bloody. In fact, at week's end Russian shells had set the presidential palace in Grozny ablaze and troops were reportedly massing for a new offensive -- this time to be led by specially trained spetsnaz forces rather than the hastily assembled and ill- prepared conscript units.

There is no question that Grozny can be taken if Yeltsin is really willing to "go all the way to the end," as his personal secretary, Victor Ilyushin, predicts. But the price could be catastrophic, as Russians should know from the World War II battle of Stalingrad: taking a city in house-to-house fighting against a determined enemy is the most harrowing task in all warfare. And even after the Russian flag finally waved over a pile of smoking rubble, the killing might not stop. A Russian army of occupation would be subject to hit-and-run raids by Chechen guerrillas holed up in the Caucasus Mountains south of the city, as czarist armies were held off for no less than 47 years in the mid-19th century.