Grozny, which once held more than 400,000 people, has been reduced to a wasteland.

Russian media cast fresh doubt on the army_s optimistic reports. Russian television showed clips of soldiers firing in the crumbling ruins, with buildings licked by flame spewing black smoke, but provided no fresh reports from correspondents at the front in afternoon and early evening newscasts. Between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians are still trapped, and about 2,500 rebels are dug in, working in small groups of snipers, machine gunners and mortar grenadiers. The United Nations said refugees were now fleeing in the largest numbers for weeks. More than 200,000 have already fled. Military status reports said troops had tightened control over a number of targets in the ruined city and halted a Chechen attack near the village of Duba-Yurt at the mouth of the Argun River gorge which leads to rebel bases in the mountains. But rebels said they still had control of most of Grozny. They repeated that they had captured General Mikhail Malofeyev, vice commander of one of three fronts in Chechnya. Russia has confirmed he went missing and said he might have been killed.