CHECHEN fighters tonight freed eight women and children being held among 200 hostages in a village besieged by Russian troops and armour.

General Alexander Mikhailov said the Chechens had freed four women, three children, and a teenager after a second day of tense talks in the village of Pervomayskaya.

The general said they had been taken to a military checkpoint.

``We want to get the rest of the hostages released and do not want any information to come out that would hinder this,'' he told reporters.

All the hostages were seized three days ago when heavily-armed Chechen fighters raided a hospital in another town in the Russian region of Dagestan, which neighbours war-shattered Chechnya.

The rebels are holding their captives as bargaining chips as they demand free passage back into Chechnya. They have also demanded to be accompanied by prominent Russian MPs, journalists, and representatives of humanitarian agencies.

Before the handful of women and children were freed, talks between the Chechens and Russian negotiators had appeared deadlocked as the village remained ringed by Russian troops and armour.

The rebels, who say they will fight ``to the last bullet'', have held several rounds, but with few signs of an end to the stand-off.

A member of Dagestan's local parliament, Gamid Gamidov, said negotiators were determined to do everything possible to save the lives of the bulk of the captives. But he remained pessimistic they would succeed.

``It is hard to say what will happen, but there is little hope of a successful outcome,'' he said.

President Boris Yeltsin was being kept fully briefed on the crisis, said his spokesman Sergei Medvedev.

Liberal Russian politician Yegor Gaidar earlier offered himself as a hostage to replace the women and children being held by the rebel group, which calls itself Lone Wolf.

``I am prepared to fly out immediately and have already informed the president's administration and the Federal Security Service about my decision,'' he said.

Meanwhile the sound of shelling from across the border in Chechnya could be heard as more Russian military trucks and armoured personnel carriers moved towards Pervomayskaya, taking up position about 900yd from its houses.

Special forces, some wearing white camouflage uniforms to blend in with the snowy fields, are even closer to the village.

The 200 rebels and their captives have already spent two nights in Pervomayskaya, where they arrived there from the town of Kizlyar after taking 2000 hostages in the hospital in a raid which has deeply embarrassed the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said they will not give in to the rebels. In a sign that events could take a turn for the worse, Russian troops today evacuated women and children from the village of Sovietskoye, some three miles from the siege scene.-Reuter