Russia suffered one of its most serious losses in the 28-month Chechnya war Sunday when five commanders, including two generals, were killed when their helicopter was shot down over the renegade republic.
Russian interior ministry sources quoted by Moscow Echo Radio said one of the dead was the Russian Deputy Interior Minister General Mikhail Rudchenko, who oversees the southern Russian administrative region.
The attack,which initial Russian reports attributed to "an act of terrorism",was claimed Sunday by Chechen rebels in a statement faxed to AFP in Slepsovtsk in the Russian republic of Ingushetia.
"In a well-organised operation, a unit using a surface-to-air missile shot down a helicopter with high-ranking Russian officers in the region of Chelkovskoy," Islam Khasukhanov, commander of Chechen forces said.
Another claim of responsibility for the explosion was posted on a website close to the separatists: www.kavkaz.org.
Interfax news agency said a preliminary investigation of the wreck showed the chopper had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile.
The Mi-8 chopper's downing coincided with the end of the five-year mandate of separatist Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, although he has vowed to remain president as long as Russian troops occupy the breakaway republic.
However, FSB (Federal Security Service, ex-KGB) spokesman Sergei Babkin later told Interfax that "the cause of the explosion had not been established as of yet."
The crash will deliver a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had declared the Chechnya war already won, saying federal troops are only in the region for policing purposes.
The Russian interior ministry said 11 people were aboard the helicopter, which went down around 11:30 am (0830 GMT) when it was flying over northeast Chechnya. ITAR-TASS news agency quoted a source saying as many as 14 could have been killed.
Some of the most senior Russian commanders of the Chechnya campaign had been killed, according to the office of Putin's advisor on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, quoted by Moscow Echo Radio.
Apart from Rudchenko, these included his second in command, General Nikolai Goridov. Lower-ranking officials aboard the Russian interior ministry helicopter included Colonels Yury Orlenko, Yury Stepanenko, and Alexander Trofimenko.
Yastrzhembsky's office said the explosion took place some seven kilometers (four miles) from the village of Shelkovskaya, in the Nadterechny region, which fell under Russian control at the very start of the Chechen war.
It was seen as one of the few where federal troops could move about in safety without fear of rebel ambushes that are a regular occurrence in the republic's mountainous south.
If rebel forces are confirmed behind the crash, it would represent one of the most astounding attacks against Russian troops in the war, which has degenerated into hit-and-run guerrilla fighting in the past two years.
The Russian army swept into Chechnya in October 1999 on what Moscow called an anti-terrorist campaign that followed a series of bombings in Russia in which almost 300 people died.
Putin pinned those bombings on Chechen guerrillas, although no proof of their involvement has ever been made public.
The war was a political gamble for Putin, with the resounding failure of the previous 1994-96 campaign that left tens of thousands dead and Chechnya with de facto independence, but it helped him win the presidency.
More than 3,500 Russian soldiers and up to 20,000 rebels have been killed in the fighting, although those figures are disputed. The civilian toll of the war has never been reported.
(China Daily January 28, 2002)
