PSKOV, Russia (AP) -- Thousands of mourners, many weeping and unable to hide their grief, paid their final respects Tuesday as funerals began for 84 army soldiers killed in an ambush in Chechnya.
Though Russia has struggled to keep casualties low in its war in Chechnya, scores of troops have been killed in recent attacks by Chechen rebels, who continue to put up fierce resistance though they have been driven from most of Chechnya's territory.At an overnight service, relatives and friends lit candles in memory of eight of the slain soldiers, whose bodies were laid out overnight in a church in Pskov, where their regiment was based. The coffins were draped with the Russian white, blue and red flag and covered with red carnations.
The 84 officers and soldiers were killed when rebels ambushed their unit in Chechnya's southern mountains two weeks ago in one of the worst defeats suffered by the military in the breakaway province. Six soldiers in the company survived the attack.
The rest of the dead, who came from other Russian regions, were to be sent to their hometowns for funerals.
Acting President Vladimir Putin, whose hard-line stance on the Chechen war has made him extremely popular, was tentatively scheduled to travel to Pskov Tuesday for the funerals.
Putin is the clear front-runner going into March 26 presidential elections, and the high casualty toll in recent weeks does not appear to have reduced his popularity.
In Pskov Tuesday, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said rebels were still holding out in the southern village of Komsomolskoye in Chechnya, which they captured from Russian troops more than a week ago, and the settlements of Ulus-Kert and Selmentauzen.
But he said the rebels had been split into small groups and would probably try to flee Chechnya soon.
"Large bandit formations in Chechnya, in our view, no longer remain," Sergeyev said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Despite their reduced numbers, there is little indication that the rebels will give up their fight, even after the capture this weekend of a major rebel leader, Salman Raduyev.
Raduyev was being questioned after being brought to Moscow on Monday. He is facing charges of terrorism for a raid on the Russian town of Kizlyar in 1997 and is suspected of involvement in two deadly railway station bombings.
Also today, a top Russian general said the Chechen capital should be moved from the city of Grozny, where few buildings were left standing after months of Russian air raids.
Col. Gen. Gennady Troshev said the ruined capital would serve as a warning that might deter future attempts to carve out independence in Chechnya.
"The city must be left the way it is," he told the newspaper Segodnya. "It will teach the future generations that before making a decision, they must think and look at the possible consequences."
Troshev said the city, which sits on a large oil deposit, was an ecological disaster zone, and that it would be too expensive to rebuild anyway.
Russia began its campaign in Chechnya in September, after rebels invaded a neighboring Russian republic. The government said it was finally time to restore order in Chechnya, which had become lawless since rebel fighters drove out Russian troops at the end of the first, 1994-96 Chechen war.