Russian troops infiltrated the suburbs of the Chechen capital yesterday, Russian media reported, while Chechen forces claimed to have bombarded a Russian base in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia.
Small groups of Russian reconnaissance soldiers penetrated three areas in Grozny's western suburbs, and exchanged gun-fire with Chechen fighters, Russian media said.
Later, correspondents for the NTV and ORT television stations at the scene said that after fierce fighting federal forces had entered the villages of Piervomayskaya and Pobedinskoye, about eight kilometres (five miles) from the city.
Russia's army command was quoted by the military news agency AVN as saying troops were ready to attack Grozny in the coming hours. Chechen authorities admitted a small advance by Russian forces, but denied they had entered Piervomayskaya.
Chechen officials said their artillery based at Bamut in the west of the republic had bombarded a Russian military camp a few kilometres across the Ingush frontier. They said 38 Russians were killed and about a hundred injured. Ingush President Ruslan Auchev confirmed the attack in an interview, but the Ingush press agency put the toll at only one dead and three wounded.
In London, Russian charge d'affaires, Mr Alexander Kramarenko, said Russia was not seeking to reconquer Chechnya but was fighting to defend democracy. According to Mr Kramarenko, Chechen warlords have since 1996 plundered the republic and undermined the Chechen president.
In Moscow the government was keeping up a confident front, brushing off international criticism that momentarily intensified after Thursday's attack on a Grozny market which killed more than 280 people.