A representative of the Chechen President, Mr Aslan Maskhadov, said yesterday that 298 Chechens, mainly women and children, had been killed in two weeks of Russian bombardments.
Mr Mairbek Vachagaev, speaking at a seminar in London, also gave a warning that the conflict would spread beyond Chechnya's borders unless Moscow stopped its bombing raids.
Yesterday a total of 23 people died in air raids by Russian warplanes on Chechnya, President Maskhadov's office said. "From the beginning of the bombardment two weeks ago there are 298 dead. Of these, 212 are women and children," Mr Vachagaev said, speaking through an interpreter.
He said thousands of villagers had been forced to leave their homes. "There is a migration process within Chechnya." He said Mr Maskhadov was calling up all Chechen men for military service. "The entire male population of Chechnya must be ready to defend Chechnya from Russian aggression.
"We have notified the Russians that in contrast to 1994-96, hostilities will not be confined to the territory of Chechnya," Mr Vachagaev said. But he denied Chechen involvement in the wave of recent bombings in Russia.
Four people were killed yesterday when Russian fighter-bombers attacked a column of 10 oil trucks on a road near the town of Tsotsin-Yurt, 30 km outside the capital, Grozny. Another eight people were killed in their cars when a road between Grozny and the village of Alkhan-Kala was hit by Russian rockets, the office said. Three more people were killed in separate strikes in Grozny.
Eight people were reported killed in a separate raid early yesterday when a rocket struck a car in the village of Samashki, 50 km west of the capital.
Mr Maskhadov yesterday called for urgent talks with Moscow over the escalating conflict in the Caucasus, warning he would change tactics unless Russia heeded his call.
Russians and Chechens "will soon sit down at the negotiations table" he told AFP, threatening to change his "method of resistance" to Moscow should Russian leaders stall. The embattled Chechen leader accused Russia of trying to provoke a civil war in the breakaway republic, adding that talks were the only way out of the crisis.
"Certain Russian forces are pursuing a course of instigating a military confrontation in Chechnya and provoking a civil war," Mr Maskhadov was separately quoted as saying by Interfax.
The Russians were "wasting their energy, because sooner or later they will have to sit down at the negotiating table. If they don't, I will have to change our method of resistance," he told AFP.
The Chechen president has also agreed to hold a meeting with leaders of republics bordering Chechnya in an effort to work out a joint solution for easing tension in Russia's strife-worn southern flank, the Ingush President, Mr Ruslan Aushev, told ITAR-TASS.
"We need to present the opportunity for Putin and Maskhadov to meet each other," Mr Aushev was quoted as saying. "Then we can speak about preparing a meeting between the presidents of Russia and Chechnya." Mr Maskhadov and Mr Yeltsin met only once - on May 12th, 1997 - when the two sides signed a peace agreement.