The Defense Ministry published data on the losses in Chechnya in April. They amounted to 18 servicemen of the special forces. All these servicemen died as a result of a crash of a Mi-18 helicopter in Chechnya. The reasons of this catastrophe were completely disclosed yet.
General Leonid Krivonos, military commandant of the Chechen Republic, has reported recently that there are about 300 militants and their accomplices in the zone of the antiterrorist operation in Chechnya. However, Krivonos is convinced that “the recent clashes that have happened lately in various mountain districts of the Chechen Republic cannot be taken as growing activeness of the militants.”
Krivonos explains: “Everything is vice versa. These are the law-enforcement agencies that have grown more active in the detection, detention and, in case of resistance, the liquidation of militants. If we bear in mind that the majority of those who are still hiding in the mountains are those who have stained themselves with blood, any special operation is, naturally, connected with armed clashes.” In general, according to Krivonos, the “situation in the Chechen Republic is characterized as exceptionally stable and does not have any preconditions for aggravation.”
Recently, President of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, issued a decree on the establishment of the so-called antiterrorist commission (ATC) in the republic and announced himself its chair. The press service of the President of Chechnya stated that the decree was signed “for the purpose of implementing the state policy of counteraction to terrorism, minimization and liquidation of consequences of its manifestations on the territory of the Chechen Republic and efficient fulfillment of the federal law “On counteraction to terrorism.” Besides the heads of the local self-government bodies, the ATC also included Vladimir Kulishov, head of the branch of the Federal Security Service for the Chechen Republic (he is deputy chair of ATC), commander of the united group of forces in the North Caucasus Yakov Nedobitko, head of the main branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry for the Chechen Republic Ruslan Avtaev, military commandant of the Chechen Republic Leonid Krivonos and some other officials.
Of course, there will be work for the ATC because not only soldiers and officers of the Armed Forces but also policemen keep dying and receiving wounds from bandits in the republic. The mass media reported that a police UAZ car exploded on a mine in the Vedeno District of Chechnya recently and five policemen were wounded. A little earlier, three policemen were wounded as a result of a special operation for the detention of a group of militants at one of the islands of the Terek Rivet in the area of Stepnoe and Azamat-Yurt of the Gudermes District of Chechnya on May 18. One of the wounded, a police officer, is in especially bad condition. There were also killed and wounded among the group of the militants consisting of six people.
