A total of 473 servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces have died since the beginning of the year, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told a meeting of Armed Forces chiefs in Moscow on Thursday.

“The number of servicemen killed on duty has declined by nearly 46% -473 in the first ten months of 2006, as compared with 876 over the same period last year,” he said.

The number of servicemen killed in hazing incidents has fallen from 26 to 20 and the number of soldiers who died as a result of suicide has dropped from 206 to 167, Ivanov said.

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