74 Russian militaries perished in Georgia-South Ossetia conflict zone

Russian losses in the conflict zone of South Ossetia with Georgia make 74 persons killed, 171 persons wounded and 19 persons registered as missing.

Sandro Kvitashvili, Minister of Public Health of Georgia, has declared today that as a result of warfare after August 8 the Georgian casualties made 175 persons. The figure is not final; there is no information from Georgian villages of South Ossetia.

The ITAR-TASS reports that Russian losses have been made public today in a briefing by Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Deputy General Joint Staff Commander of Russian Armed Forces.

"Exchange of prisoners of war is contemplated by point two of the agreement, which has been coordinated between Georgia and Russia at mediation of France, which chairs the EU," said Kakha Lomaya, Secretary of the Security Council of Georgia. Mr Lomaya did not specify the date when the process can start, the "Interfax" quotes him as saying.

The Russian military command announced earlier that they were not disposed to treat the Georgian soldiers disarmed in South Ossetia as prisoners of war. General-Colonel Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Deputy Russian Joint Staff Commander, has stated that there are no prisoners of war in the course of a peacekeeping operation.

Meanwhile, the ITAR-TASS reports that Mikhail Mindzaev, Interior Minister of South Ossetia, said that Georgian militaries surrender over the whole territory of South Ossetia. As he said, so far, it is difficult to give the exact number of war prisoners, but their number reaches up to several hundreds.