Official statistics on Russian casualties resulting from the Samashki operation on April 7-8 vary considerably. The first media1 reports mentioned Russian losses that resulted from a military operation carried out on a wider scale than that used to take of Samashki: «Today, according to information provided by military sources, forces are finishing up an operation begun yesterday in the area of Samashki and Bamut. Russian losses, according to this report, were sixteen killed and about forty wounded.»
Vasily Panchenkov, deputy head of the MVD Internal Troops’ command press service, reported to Obshchaya Gazeta correspondent Igor Filimonov that «there were no losses among federal forces on April 6 and 7. It is true that two APCs and one tank were put out of action, and fifteen soldiers were injured. But the press center has no information concerning this operation.»2
The head of the MVD Public Relations Center, V.Vorozhtsov, however, reported on April 12 that thirteen3 people on the Russian side were killed during the Samashki operation, a figure he later repeated in an interview with an Obshchaya Gazeta reporter.4
MVD summaries put Russian losses resulting from fighting in Samashki at fourteen men.5 Petrovka 38, the newspaper of the Moscow City Main Department of Internal Affairs, quoted the same figure: of the fourteen dead, ten were soldiers serving in the internal troops, two were from the Moscow OMON, and two were from the Moscow regional OMON.6 Forty-four Russian troops were wounded.
In response to an inquiry by Duma deputy T.V.Zlotnikova, Gen. Kulikov reported that federal troops casualties at Samashki were fifteen dead and fifty wounded. Maj. Gen. P.T.Maslov, head of the Internal Troops Operations Department, cited the same figures at the May 29 hearings organized by the parliamentary commission.
The Conclusions published by a part of the commission’s members in July 1995 estimated losses at 16 dead and 52 wounded.
The authors of this report are aware of the names only two deceased Russian servicemen: Moscow OMON militia captain Viktor Adamishin and militia sergeant Maxim Teplov.