MR. YELTSIN'S UGLY WAR

By Bruce W. Nelan

BORIS YELTSIN OBLITERATED A VILLAGE last week and called it a victory. A leading Moscow newspaper described the Russian army's running battle with Chechen rebels as "10 days of pain, impotence and shame." But Yeltsin, with a flourish of newspeak reminiscent of Soviet days, simply declared himself a winner. His troops, he claimed at a news conference in the Kremlin, killed 153 Chechens, captured 28, and freed 82 hostages after besieging Pervomaiskoye, a hamlet in far-off Dagestan. "We have taught Dudayev a sound lesson," Yeltsin said, referring to Chechen separatist leader Jokhar Dudayev. Now, Yeltsin threatened, Russia will hit more rebel strongholds "to put an end to terrorism on Russian soil."

It was a bold, tough-guy pose, and it could even help the President position himself for a run at re-election in June. But if he actually launches a major new antiguerrilla offensive, it is very likely to backfire. No matter how the Kremlin portrays it, last week's action was a bloody, humiliating mess. A ragtag group of Chechen gunmen had slipped into Dagestan, seized 3,400 hostages in the town of Kizlyar, and later held off a full-scale assault by thousands of Russian soldiers, including elite special-service units. The Russians prevailed only after a furious bombardment leveled the village where the band of about 300 rebels had dug in with their 120 or more hostages.

After shrapnel-laden Grad rockets and artillery shells did their devastating work, arriving Russian forces had to sort out, as one general put it, not just bodies but "arms and legs." The Russians claimed they found no dead hostages, though 18 were declared "missing." At a Moscow press briefing, Russian generals put the losses among their units at 26 dead and 95 wounded.

From the beginning it was clear that Yeltsin's primary goal was to make certain the invading guerrillas did not get back to their base. That would have left him open to a repetition of the political blow he suffered when a similar gang raided the Russian town of Budyonnovsk last June and then vanished into Chechnya's mountains. Yeltsin has been ill, and his popularity rating is low. The political medicine he needs is an image of strong leadership, so he unleashed furious force on Pervomaiskoye. Last week's operation, says General Boris Gromov, who commanded Soviet forces in Afghanistan and is now a member of parliament, was intended "to destroy militants rather than release hostages." That was not the method of the Turkish government, which negotiated with the Chechens who hijacked a ferry at the port of Trabzon. All hostages were released unharmed.

The Russian soldiers in the field were poorly equipped, badly trained and led. Even elite special-operations troops bungled their task. Plucked from army, police, security and Interior Ministry forces around Russia, they found their radio systems did not allow them to communicate. Their overall commander, General Mikhail Barsukov, is a former Kremlin security chief best known for his loyalty to Yeltsin, not for his combat experience. The troops mounted uncoordinated assaults on the village and ended up shooting at one another. Forced to pull back, they simply opened up at long range with missiles, mortars and attack helicopters. When the earthshaking barrage began on Wednesday, a spokesman for Barsukov suggested to reporters that the hostages were all dead by then anyway.

Russians for the most part received news of these events through the filters of official spokesmen and public television. They wanted to believe the operation went well, they had no special affinity for the Dagestani hostages, and they have no sympathy for Chechen rebels. They may even have agreed with Yeltsin when he crowed that "mad dogs must be shot." But now Yeltsin and his hard-line Kremlin advisers are ready to cast aside the tentative peace agreement they worked out with breakaway Chechnya last summer.

Most Western diplomats and analysts believe a settlement that grants Chechnya some kind of special status within the Russian Federation is the only possible long-term solution. A counterinsurgency war would be expensive and bloody, and the Russian armed forces are obviously not up to the job. In any case, their commanders should have learned in Afghanistan that conventional armies do badly when pitted against highly motivated guerrillas. If Yeltsin chooses to fight, by election day in June he could be under political attack from both sides: hawkish rivals criticizing the unsuccessful conduct of the war and doves calling for negotiations.

--Reported by John Kohan/Moscow and Yuri Zarakhovich/outside Pervomaiskoye

With reporting by JOHN KOHAN/MOSCOW AND YURI ZARAKHOVICH/OUTSIDE PERVOMAISKOYE