20:32, 12 September 2003

Russian interior troops have lost 65 servicemen killed Chechnya this year

Russian interior troops have lost 65 servicemen killed in Chechnya over 8 months of the current year. A total of 194 have been wounded, the commander of the interior troops, General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, told reporters on Friday.

He said "statistics of the losses of participants in the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya has a tendency to decrease". The casualties of this year have been 25 percent lower as compared to the same period of the last year. Tikhomirov said interior troops lost 1,055 people killed in Chechnya since August 1999.

In its turn, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, 2,898 army servicemen died in Chechnya from October 1, 1999 to July of this year.

A total of 4,720 servicemen of Russian security agencies were killed in Chechnya over this period.

Source: ITAR-TASS News Agency