Moscow denied troop buildup at Chechen border

The Russian Interior Ministry has denied claims by a senior Chechen government official that there's been a large build-up of Russian troops on the Chechen border.

A spokesman in Moscow said any movement of Russian troops was a routine rotation of personnel.

The Chechen official First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov who made the claim, said four-thousand Chechen border and customs guards had been placed on full alert and deployed in critical border regions.

There has been a marked increase in tension between Russia and the breakaway republic, following a cross-border attack last month by a renegade Chechen unit on a Russian military base.

Earlier this week the Russian Interior Minister, Anatoly Kulikov, called for preventative strikes against renegade bases in Chechnya.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service