DEATH IN GROZNY

In Grozny, victorious Chechen defenders were mopping up what was left of the Russian ground units today,TIME Moscow reporter Yuri Zarakhovichis reporting from the city. Before today's air strikes, he says, eight dead Russian soldiers lay before the nine-story, modernistic presidential palace itself, the epicenter of heavy fighting of the last three days. Now, burned and mangled Russian soldiers are as easy to spot as the dead among Grozny's inhabitants. "We clear away the corpses of our fallen comrades, but we can't clear away all the Russian corpses," said Chechen militia man Ilyas Salatayev. "But it's not our fault. We offered the Russians the chance to stop fighting, to let them take away their dead. They turned our offer down."