Nearly 13,000 Russian Soldiers Have Died In Second Chechen War

Valentina Melnikova of the respected Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers told Agence France-Presse last week that her organization now estimates at nearly 13,000 the cumulative total of Russian servicemen who have been killed in the second Chechen war. She emphasized that unlike Russia’s Defense Ministry, “[w]e count not only those who died in battle… but also those who later die of wounds in hospital…Also counted are those who die or kill themselves during the [first] year after their army service.”

The federal government’s own official death count for the second war has not been publicly announced since December of 2002. At that time it stood at 4,572.