1.   For a world that has watched the Russian military offensive with revulsion, the Russian tricolor flag that now flies over Grozny seems a symbol of shame.

2.   He has mismanaged the contraction of Russian military forces, leaving a demoralized, undisciplined army, and endorsed the brutal Russian offensive against Chechnya.

3.   Instead of concrete talks about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan there are now inconclusive exchanges about ending the Russian offensive in Chechnya.

4.   Maskhadov appealed to the West to speak out against the Russian offensive.

5.   More than six months after the Russian offensive in Chechnya, the war drags on, with Chechen fighters driven out of towns into the mountains.

6.   News of the Russian offensive, though, cheers him.

7.   Other officials said its urgency was sparked by reports that a Russian offensive on Grozny, the Chechen capital, could start Thursday.

8.   Since the Russian offensive began in December, military units have several times kept bombing civilians after Yeltsin announced he had instructed them to stop.

9.   That gives Putin the powerful advantage of campaigning as an incumbent at a time when his popularity is surging because of the Russian military offensive in Chechnya.

10.   The Chechens by all accounts have been unable or unwilling to try to halt the Russian offensive.