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Russia loses key commanders as helicopter downed over
Chechnya
January 28, 2002
AFP
Russia suffered one of its most serious losses in the 28-month Chechnya war when five commanders, including two top generals, were killed when their helicopter was shot down over the renegade republic.
Initial Russian reports attributed the explosion to "an act of terrorism," signaling involvement from Chechen rebels.
A claim of responsibility for the explosion was posted on a website close to the separatists, www.kavkaz.org.
Interfax news agency said a preliminary investigation of the wreck showed the chopper had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile.
The Mi-8 chopper's downing coincided with the end of the five-year mandate of separatist Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, although he has vowed to remain president of the republic.
However, FSB (Federal Security Service, ex-KGB) spokesman Sergei Babkin later told Interfax that "the cause of the explosion had not been established as of yet."
The crash will deliver a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has declared the Chechnya war as already won, saying federal troops are only in the region for policing purposes.
The Russian interior ministry said 11 people were aboard the chopper, which went down around 11:30 am (0830 GMT) when it was flying over Chechnya's northern Nadterechny region.
ITAR-TASS quoted a source saying as many as 14 could have been killed.
Some of the most senior Russian commanders of the Chechnya campaign had been killed, according to the office of Putin's advisor on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, quoted by Moscow Echo radio.
These included deputy interior minister General Mikhail Rudchenko, who oversees the southern Russian administrative region, and his second in command, General Nikolai Goridov, who was earlier identified as General Davydov.
Other lower-ranking officials on board the Russian interior ministry helicopter included Colonels Yury Orlenko, Yury Stepanenko, and Alexander Trofimenko.
Yastrzhembsky's office said the explosion took place some seven kilometers (four miles) from the village of Shelkovskaya, in the Nadterechny region, which fell under Russian control at the very start of the Chechen war.
It was seen as one of the few where federal troops could move about in safety without fear of rebel ambushes that are a regular occurrence in the republic's mountainous south.
If the crash was caused by rebel forces, it would represent one of the most astounding attacks against Russian troops in the war, which has degenerated into hit-and-run guerrilla fighting in the past two years.
The Russian army swept into Chechnya in October 1999 on what Moscow called an anti-terrorist campaign that followed a series of bombings in Russia in which almost 300 people died.
Putin pinned those bombings on Chechen guerrillas, although no proof of their involvement has ever been made public.
The war was a political gamble for Putin, with the resounding failure of the previous 1994-96 campaign that left tens of thousands dead and Chechnya with de facto independence.
In this second campaign, the rebels were quickly forced out of their capital Grozny, which was shelled for some three months before being stormed by Russian forces, who avoided the heavy casualties they suffered in taking the city in the first war.
But supported by mercenaries from abroad, the guerrillas regrouped in the mountains in the following months and have since attacked Russian positions apparently at will.
More than 3,500 Russian soldiers and up to 20,000 rebels have been killed in the fighting, although those figures are disputed. The civilian toll of the war has never been reported.
Putin's popularity remains high despite his failure to keep the promise of a lightning, decisive campaign in the republic.
He has been helped by more favorable Russian media coverage of the war, with NTV television -- the only network reporting independently from the region -- being taken over by a government-aligned company last year.
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