Americans 'still alive in Russia'

MOSCOW (Reuter) - A number of Americans seized by Soviet authorities at the end of the Second World War and sent to prison camps may be still alive in Russia, a senior government official said.

General Dmitry Volkogonov's remarks gave a new spin to the search for missing Americans which intensified since President Boris Yeltsin said in Washington in June that some US PoWs could still be alive in the former Soviet Union.

Gen Volkogonov told the newspaper Izvestia about 39 people with US passports and of Slav origin had been captured or otherwise ended up on Russian territory in 1945. Many were sent to camps after surrendering their US passports and accepting Soviet citizenship. 'There is reason to assume that a number of them are still alive and are living at the moment on the territory of the former USSR,' he said.