From correspondents in Moscow. Some 25,000 Russian troops have died in the two wars Moscow has waged on Chechen separatists in the past decade, the chief of a respected watchdog groups said today in an estimate more than double the official figures.

"In 10 years of war, Russian federal forces have lost 25,000 soldiers, officers and interior ministry staff in Chechnya, who were killed, died of their wounds or committed suicide in relation to the war," Valentina Melnikova, the head of Russia's Soldiers' Mothers Committee, told Moscow Echo radio.

"The loss of the Chechen people can be measured in tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dead, in ruined lives, in the destruction that rules on the Chechen territory," she said.

Statistics on the two wars that Russia has fought with Chechen separatists - first in 1994-96 and from October 1999 to the present - are sketchy and vary according to the source.

The military says that about 10,000 troops have been killed as a result of the conflicts, a figure that is disputed by rights groups.

Rights groups have estimated that tens of thousands of civilians and an unknown number of rebels have died as a result of the two wars.