"I have made the decision to make information available on all casualties among military servicemen, including those killed in operations, for the first time," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists today. "The information will be posted on the official Web site of the Defense Ministry and will be updated every month."
He said this move was being made to end false rumors.
Ivanov said the Defense Ministry was not going to gloss over reality. "We made this unprecedented step deliberately, and I hope there will be less speculation on the topic of crime and incidents in the Armed Forces," he said.
The minister said all citizens and public organizations would be able to use this information and compare their data with the Defense Ministry's official data.
"Besides, each commander in the troops will know beforehand that if an incident occurs in his unit, everybody will know about it," Ivanov said.
