Pro-Moscow leader says only up to 100 rebels in Chechnya
Interfax
Groznyy, 25 March: The president of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has said that there are practically no Chechens left in the ranks of illegal armed formations.
"We have trustworthy information that (Chechen rebel leader) Dokka Umarov does not practically have Chechens. According to information we have, the remains of the bandit group are people who are not residents of the Chechen Republic," Kadyrov noted, while taking questions from journalists in Groznyy.
"Individual law-enforcement agencies are talking about 300-400 militants who, they say, are in the mountains. We do not know where they take these figures. We believe that there may be 50 to 70 people in the ranks of illegal armed formations," he said.
"A crushing blow has effectively been dealt to terrorism and illegal armed formations. This problem is not that acute. We are confident that those residents of Chechnya who are remaining in the mountains, and these can only be single-digit figures, will soon return home too," Kadyrov said.
He also said that the security problem in the republic has currently moved back to the 10th-20th place.
"The republic is actually one of the quietest regions of the country and today we can even share, with other regions, expertise in this fight," he added.
(The official website of the Chechen president and government on 25 March quoted Kadyrov as saying at a presser after a joint session with the Russian State Duma's Security Committee in Groznyy that "we have eradicated terrorism, although there is a certain circle of bandits who run around neighbouring regions and appear here at times, but they do not represent any threat to us"; that there are about 500-100 rebels active in Chechnya; and that relevant federal agencies will pass an act on 31 March that will lift all restrictions on the Chechen Republic that have been in place over the last 10 years, such as absence of customs service in Chechnya.)
- Back to the Top -