MOOD OF FEDERAL FORCES.

The no. 9 (February 27-March 5) issue of Moskovskie Novosti contained an article on the mood of the Russian MVD forces stationed in Chechnya. It was noted that policemen from Bryansk Oblast in Russia who had been assigned to the Shatoi District Department of Internal Affairs were threatening to go on a hunger strike and not to return home until they were paid their wages in full. In a letter to Sovetskaya Rossiya, signed by 132 of the policemen, they claimed that they were being paid for work done on only sixteen days of a given month. The rest of their wages, they implied, were being stolen by their commanding officers.