Putin Aide Defends Tally in Chechnya

A Kremlin aide denied Friday that his office had issued orders to underreport troop casualties in Chechnya. Meanwhile, rebel attacks continued with a car bombing and an assault on a Chechen mayor.

Human rights groups have long accused the military of hiding losses in the 28-month-old war in the breakaway republic.

The Izvestia newspaper on Friday cited an unnamed source in the federal military command for Chechnya as saying he and colleagues had orders from Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, to report only a limited number of losses.

Yastrzhembsky denied the claim Friday, telling reporters it was “complete nonsense.”

There have been conflicting reports in recent days about casualties from rebel ambushes and mine blasts of Russian convoys.

Yastrzhembsky’s office said seven troops had been killed in incidents Wednesday and Thursday. But an official with the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya said 20 troops had been killed during that period in the province. Izvestia put the figure at 30.

Official estimates of Russian losses in Chechnya since 1999 are about 3,500 dead and more than 11,000 wounded. The Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia group estimates that the figures are more than double that, based on information from wounded troops and soldiers’ relatives.

Civilian and rebel casualties are even harder to pin down.

On Friday, a car bomb went off as a military convoy passed it in the capital, Grozny, an official with the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya said. Two officers were wounded.

Rebels opened fire on the mayor of the Chechen town of Argun, which saw intense fighting recently, the official said on condition of anonymity. The mayor was unharmed, but his driver was killed and his bodyguard was wounded.