REPORT ON DRAFT OF CHECHENS INTO FEDERAL MILITARY.

The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on November 27 the words of Anatoly Khryachkov, the pro-Moscow military commissioner of the Chechen Republic, who stated that the Russian Armed Forces will have drafted 1,000 Chechen young men by the end of this autumn. “It is planned that a majority of them will be sent to serve in units of the MVD, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and in the construction and railway troops, while the most healthy and physically fit will enter military-sport units of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Republic.” Not more than 20 percent of the conscripts are to perform their service on the territory of Chechnya.

During meetings conducted at the headquarters of the Russian North Caucasus Military District, it was reported that, during the course of the present counterterrorist operation, Russian military forces have already used up “more than 70,000 rockets and artillery shells” and “more than 90,000 tons of ammunition” (Lenta.ru, November 26).