Twenty-eight Chechen rebels and three Russian servicemen were killed during clashes in Chechnya's third largest city Argun, the bloodiest fighting in months, according to a new Russian toll quoted today by Russian news agencies.
Six of the rebels were killed in one building in Argun and 22 others in a suburb of the city, according to the same source.
"The special operation by federal forces against the rebels went well," said the deputy Russian chief of staff Mr Yury Baluyievsky, cited by Interfax.
Nine Russian troops were wounded, and around 20 rebels arrested, in a shoot-out yesterday, one of the fiercest gun battles seen in the war-torn republic since the end of last year.
Fighting broke out after Russian forces launched a "special operation to liquidate" two rebel groups consisting of around 50 rebels holed up in the city, 15 kilometres (nine miles) east of the capital Grozny.
Meanwhile, other clashes in Oktyabrskoye, west of Grozny, claimed a dozen lives among rebel ranks, according to Russian agencies.
The two sides' estimates of casualties have varied, often extravagantly, since Russia launched its self-styled "anti-terrorist" clampdown in Chechnya on October 1st, 1999.
But the latest fighting marked "a new stage in the war," the Russian daily Kommersantreported today, confirming federal fears of a rebel spring offensive threatened by Chechen separatist president Mr Aslan Maskhadov.
AFP