KHANKALA. Nov 22 (Interfax-AVN) - Lieutenant General Alexander Belousov, deputy commander of the Moscow military district, has arrived in Chechnya to help commanders of the district's units within the unified federal group to organize the units' withdrawal from the republic, a spokesman for the groups headquarters said on Thursday.
A directive on step-by-step reduction of the group signed by Russian Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Kvashnin envisages withdrawal of all motorized rifle and artillery units of the district, as well as their armament and materiel, the spokesman told Interfax-Military News Agency. The first to be withdrawn are reinforced battalion-size task forces of the 245th motorized rifle regiment stationed in the town of Mulino in the Nizhny Novgorod region and of the 6th motorized rifle regiment stationed in the city of Kursk.
The withdrawal is supposed to end on December 6. It would not affect the combat capabilities of the federal forces in Chechnya, the spokesman added.