MOSCOW, Dec 31: Russian forces in Chechnya killed 73 guerillas, including a leading field commander and took 20 others prisoner in a large-scale operation, a Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

Ruslan Shilayev, said to be sixth in the hierarchy of Chechen commanders, was killed in Sunday’s operation, described by the office of the Kremlin spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, as the most successful of its kind for several months.

Shilayev headed a group of rebels that shot down an MI-8 helicopter carrying a Russian general staff commission, resulting in the deaths of two generals and eight colonels, near Grozny last September, officials said.

The rebels killed and taken wounded included mercenaries, they said.

Russia sent its troops into Chechnya on Oct 1, 1999, to put down an uprising.

Moscow claims to have pacified the republic but has been unable to prevent attacks with frequent loss of life over much of Chechen territory.

Tentative contacts between a Kremlin representative and a spokesman for rebel Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov got under way last September but have yet to develop into peace talks.—AFP