Council of Muftis head Ravil Gainutdin told reporters on 11 November that he disagrees with the preliminary conclusion of the Russian census that there are only 14.5 million Muslims in Russia, \"Izvestiya\" reported on 12 November. According to Gainutdin, there are no fewer than 20 million Muslims in Russia. Part of the problem is that the census-takers did not count all segments of the population, such as illegal immigrants. He estimated that there are no fewer than 4 million people living and working in Russia from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Aleksei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center told the daily that he also believes that Russia has significantly more Muslims than the census suggests. However, Malashenko said he does not think the issue will affect relations between different religious groups and the matter in the end is one for scholars and statisticians. The daily also reported that the number of ethnic Chechens has increased 1.5 times in recent years. According to \"Trud\" the same day, a number of unidentified experts are skeptical of the purported rise in the Chechen population. (RFE/RL)