Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has said none of the principal units of the Russian combined federal force will ever leave Chechnya.

They "will stay here finally, forever, what is called, irrevocably and will never leave here," Ivanov stressed in an interview with the ORT television company at the main military base of federal forces in Khankala on Tuesday.

The minister said his conversation with head of the Chechen civil administration Akhmad Kadyrov confirmed that "we have a common understanding of the fact that the military are performing specific and clearly understandable tasks here."

file://Interfax//