Memorial, Caucasian Knot conduct PR-campaign in Ryazan devoted to problems of Chechen war

Approximately 18 thousand Russian servicemen have been killed, died from wounds, and went missing during the war in the Chechen Republic, i.e. since 1994, according to human rights organizations. A number of civilians who have been killed and gone missing is about 70 thousand people. Russians, Chechens, and people of other nationalities are among them. Independent experts have repeatedly caught government officials in their attempts to understate data about the number of soldiers killed in Chechnya. Moreover, Russian state structures have made no real attempts to register losses among civilians during both the first and the second Chechen wars. Thus official reliable data on the losses among soldiers, civilians and the number of killed rebels for the period from 1994 to the present time are unknown.

Many attempts have also been made to clear up the cost of the war in Chechnya. It has been established that this expenditure does not provided for in the state budget at all, and it is unknown how much money have been spent on the Chechen campaign.

If the functionaries apply so many energies to build up a whole system of tangled and lying calculations, it means they have what to be afraid of and true figures can shock society.

In view of it, the Russian public, led by the human rights community, ask the Russian government: "How many more innocent people will have to die so that the war in Chechnya will end? For how many more years Russian mothers will dread to send their sons to the Russian army? How many more Russian families will lose their close people in Chechnya? How many more children will not be born because of this war? And how much do we pay so that people continue dying in the Chechen Republic?"

The Caucasian Knot Internet agency provides informational support to the PR-campaign "How Many?" conducted in Ryazan by the International Society Memorial jointly with Ryazan human rights activists.