RUSSIANS ADVANCE IN CHECHNYA…

Saying that future talks with theChechens could only be about the terms of their surrender, Russiancommander Lt. Gen. Anatoly Kulikov ordered his troops into themountains, Interfax reported May 30. Kulikov, who has been on medicalleave for a month, pledged that he would carry out Yeltsin’s order “torestore constitutional order” to the letter. On May 30, Russian forcesmoved into the hills around the Chechen-controlled villages ofSerzhen-Yurt, Vedeno, and Agishty, with heavy casualties reported onboth sides. Sergei Kovalev, the Russian human rights commissioner andactivist, told journalists in Moscow May 29 that Russian soldiersroutinely beat and sometimes torture Chechens at the notorious”filtration” sites. (These are special camps where the Russian armytries to determine who is a “rebel” and who is not.) An AP cameramenwas killed over the weekend, the fourth journalist to die in theconflict.

..Amid More Calls For Peace.