It launched its current offensive three years later in response to an armed incursion into a neighboring region and bomb blasts in Moscow and other Russian cities. Moscow says its forces have established control over all Chechen territory and it has engaged in a high-profile publicity campaign to show that local services are working again. The local administration, handed back to a civilian authority, returned to Grozny last month from Chechnya's second city, Gudermes. Russian television broadcasts reports showing schools and utilities in action and elderly residents collecting pensions. But servicemen come under constant attack, particularly in mountain regions and some 3,000 soldiers and police have already died in the current campaign.
Death tolls are impossible to estimate for either rebels or civilians.
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