Posted on 10/16/2003 10:03:45 AM PDT by knighthawk
LONDON -- Russian forces have suffered more casualties in the past year in Chechnya than at any time since war resumed in 1999, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Wednesday in its key annual report.
The report undermines Moscow's assertion it has largely pacified the mainly Muslim region it sent troops back into after a two-year period of de facto independence.
The British-based think tank's annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Russian forces "suffered 4,749 casualties in 2002-03, the highest figure in one year since the current Chechen conflict began."
The report's editor, Sir Christopher Langton, said the figure included Russian troops killed and injured between August 2002 and August 2003. He would not comment on the source of the figure.
"I think it's interesting that the casualties would not be declining," the institute's Oksana Antonenko said.
"I think there is a parallel with what the Americans are experiencing in Iraq: that it is not the active military phase that necessarily brings the most casualties, but the period of peacekeeping and police actions."
Moscow has not issued casualty figures for its forces in Chechnya since last December, when it said more than 4,500 had died since hostilities resumed in late 1999.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the IISS report.
Casualty figures for Russian forces are a sensitive issue for President Vladimir Putin, who has long maintained that the war in Chechnya is over and normal life has begun to resume.
In the past year, Chechens have increasingly turned to suicide bomb attacks on targets both inside Chechnya and in other parts of Russia.
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