Russian forces have suffered more casualties in the past year in Chechnya than at any time since war resumed in 1999, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its key annual report.

The report undermines Russia's assertion that the situation in Chechnya has been considerably normalized.

The British-based think-tank's annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Russian forces «suffered 4,749 casualties in 2003-2004, the highest figure in one year since the current Chechen conflict began».

The report's editor, Sir Christopher Langton, told Reuters the figure included Russian troops killed and injured between August 2002 and August 2003. He would not comment on the source of the figure.

«I think it's interesting that the casualties would not be declining», said the Institute's Oksana Antonenko.

«I think there is a parallel with what the Americans are experiencing in Iraq: that it is not the active military phase that necessarily brings the most casualties but the period of peacekeeping and police actions».

Moscow has not issued casualty figures for its forces in Chechnya since last December, when it said more than 4,500 had died since hostilities resumed in late 1999.

The Kremlin declined to comment on the IISS report.

Casualty figures for Russian forces are a sensitive issue for President Vladimir Putin who has long maintained that the war in Chechnya is over and normal life has begun to resume.

Russian forces drove most of Chechnya's pro-independence guerrillas into the mountains in the first few months of the conflict after Putin ordered his troops back into a region they had quit in defeat in 1997.

But they have failed to restore peace and still fall pray to frequent guerrilla attacks. In the past year, Chechens have increasingly turned to suicide bomb attacks on targets both inside Chechnya and in other parts of Russia, - Reuters reported.

In this regard it should be reminded that the Chechen side quotes its own figures of the casualties of the invaders' troops in Chechnya since the war operations started back in September 1999. According to the Chechen side, the overall number of Russian soldiers and officers killed exceeds 35,000. The number of wounded flipped over 100,000 long time ago, the Chechen side says.

At the same time the casualties of the Chechen side are estimated 4,500 to 5,000 fighters killed and over 12,000 wounded. The number of Chechen peaceful civilians killed in both war campaigns since 1994 is estimated 200,000 to 250,000 people.

Department of Strategic Information,