KHANKALA. May 18 (Interfax-AVN) - A total of 2,386 Defense Ministry servicemen died in Chechnya from October 1999 to May 18, 2002 while 6,025 were injured and 28 went missing, a spokesman for the unified federal headquarters told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Three servicemen died and 15 received various gravity injuries in the past week, the spokesman said.
The Chechnya campaign started in August 1999 from rebuffing attacks of rebels subordinate to warlords Basayev and Khattab in the Dagestani autonomous republic. According to official data of the ministry, 118 of its servicemen died in Dagestan from August 8 to October 2, 1999.
The spokesman stressed that recently the servicemen were mostly injured in blasts while some of them got fragmentation and bullet wounds. It happens due to the fact that rebels stepped up sabotage and terrorist activities and permanently modernize their mine-planting system. Servicemen, who are accomplishing missions within engineering reconnaissance patrols, are often touching off landmines.