 Six Russian soldiers were killed and 17 injured in the latest 24 hours of violence ending on Wednesday, pro-Russian officials in the war torn republic told AFP. Most of the incidents involved remote controlled mines and other explosions in the southern mountains of Chechnya where most of the rebels are based, and around the war-ravaged capital Grozny. Fighting in the breakaway republic endured from late 1994 to 1996, before erupting anew in October 1999 after a wave of apartment block bombings in Russia that killed hundreds. The official Russian death toll was reported late last year at around 4,500 troops, although a committee of soldiers' mothers estimates the true toll may be three times higher because the Moscow figure does not include people who died of their wound in hospitals outside Chechnya. |