More than 180 air sorties have been flown by Russian warplanes as Moscow seeks to regain the momentum it lost during successful rebel counter-attacks last week.

Reports have also emerged of heavy civilian casualties as Russian forces bomb the Chechen capital Grozny and fighting is reported in and around the city.

Russian news agencies said Grozny and mountain villages in the southern part of the rebel republic had borne the brunt of the latest air and artillery attacks.

Chechen fighters remain defiant. A Chechen news website, Kavkaz-Tsentr, says that Grozny is under the full control of the rebels.

"Grozny is an ideal place for street fighting; it is possible to defend it for years," Khizir Khachulayev, a rebel commander, said. "Russian soldiers will find their death here."

Mismanaging the campaign

The Russian military is increasingly being dogged by the impression that it is mismanaging the campaign.

Reports in Russia on Friday night suggested military commanders were being bribed not to shell villages and had been defrauding their paymasters by listing non-existent soldiers.

For its part, the Russian military said its planes and helicopter gunships had flown more than 130 combat missions over the 24 hours to Friday.

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Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Kukharenko said up to 60 rebels had been killed when Russian forces shelled the village of Khimoi.

Itar-Tass news agency also reported that federal troops had taken full control of Chechnya's Sharoi district, bordering Dagestan.

It said the Russians had killed several dozen gunmen and found a large quantity of military supplies.

Interfax reported that rebel commanders had agreed to surrender the area around Nozhai-Yurt, in the southern mountains.

Helicopter hit

In response, the rebels secured a propaganda coup by hitting a helicopter carrying one of Russia's top military commanders, forcing it to make an emergency landing near Grozny.

The Defence Ministry said the rudder rotor had been broken by a bullet, RIA news agency reported.

General Troshev said earlier that federal forces were preparing to step up the ground campaign in Grozny with "thoroughly trained" forces.

On the diplomatic front, the United States has rejected Moscow's criticism over a meeting on Thursday in a Washington hotel between American officials and the self-styled foreign minister of Chechnya, Ilyas Akhmadov.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said such actions suggested support for terrorists and separatists.

But spokesmen for the US State Department said Washington supported the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and saw Mr Akhmadov only as a private citizen with a role to play; they did not recognise him as a foreign minister of anything.

The dispute is just the latest in a continuing clash of views over Russia's action in Chechnya.

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