* The official figure for the number of Russian soldiers who died in
Chechnya between 1999 and mid-2003 is 4,705 - though the Soldiers'
Mothers of Russia organisation put the figure at 11,000.

* Thousands of Russian troops remain in Chechnya - some 38,000 were
entitled to vote in a March referendum on a constitution for the
republic - only a tiny fraction have been withdrawn.

* There are few places where they can feel totally safe. A missile
attack on a helicopter in August 2002 killed 116 - the heaviest Russian
casualty toll in a single incident since the start of the second Chechen
war in 1999.

* Their estimate for the first Chechen war, which lasted from 1994 -1996
is 14,000 dead, compared with the official 5,500. Civilian deaths in
this war are numbered in the tens of thousands.

* More than 250 people went missing in Chechnya in the first half of
2003, according to a member of the pro-Moscow government

* Another government official was quoted as saying that 1,178 people had
been killed in the first nine months of 2002, and that 654 people had
disappeared.

- From "Russia's suicide bomb nightmare",
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3020231.stm


"Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at their
neighbours."