Russia Today - October 11th

BERLIN, Oct 11, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Russian troops are committing massive war crimes in Chechnya with the knowledge of their military commanders who are covering up their acts, two major German daily newspapers reported Tuesday.

The Frankfurter Rundschau and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, who carried out a joint investigation, said the troops were killing and torturing civilians and systematically looting the country.

The two papers said documents of the transitional administration set up in the breakaway republic by President Vladimir Putin showed that civilians were being arbitrarily arrested and killed.

The press reports cited the case of a young woman resident of Grozny who was shot dead in a bus on September 25 by Russian soldiers on a rampage.

They said Russian offices were also involved in robbery and in illegal traffic of Chechen oil and metal resources.

According to a Chechen government report, the newspapers said, the financial loss to the energy sector from such practices in the first six months of this year alone amounted to two billion dollars.

Tonnes of newly-installed and highly expensive aluminum electrical power equipment had been stolen by the Russian military, the report said, according to the two German newspapers.

The papers also quoted a Russian military command report according to which the Russian military are sabotaging the reconstruction of the Chechen oil industry.

In the month of September, Russian military helicopters had shot up and set ablaze several oil wells, the document reportedly said.