KRASNODAR, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - Col. Gen. Gennady Troshev, who commanded the Russian army against separatists in Chechnya in the 1990s and died in an air crash in September, was buried with honors in south Russia on Wednesday.

Funerals after the September 14 disaster, in which all 88 passengers and crew were killed when a Boeing passenger jet crashed on a rail line on the outskirts of Perm in the Urals, were delayed due to forensic tests to identify the remains.

Hundreds of people, including governors of neighboring Russian regions, federal officials, and ordinary people, came to pay their last tribute to the general at a church service and a funeral ceremony in Krasnodar, the capital of the eponymous region neighboring Chechnya.

The coffin draped with a national flag was carried through the city in an armored personnel carrier. Troshev, who was 61 when the tragedy occurred, was buried at a cemetery outside the city.

Speaking at the funeral, a senior Kremlin official marked Troshev's contribution to stability in the North Caucasus.

"We are paying our last respects to a Russian hero, a patriot, a citizen and a soldier," Alexander Beglov said. "He traveled the route from lieutenant to colonel general, and won deep respect among senior commanders and soldiers. We owe to him the stabilization of the North Caucasus."

Troshev commanded federal forces during the 1994-1996 first Chechen war, and became the top commander in the North Caucasus in 2000. In 1999, he was awarded the title Hero of Russia for an antiterrorism operation in Chechnya and neighboring Daghestan.

A senior Chechen military official conveyed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's condolences, and highlighted Troshev's efforts "to protect Chechens."

A street in Grozny has been renamed in honor of Troshev on Kadyrov's order. Similar promises have been made by other regional leaders.

Troshev was dismissed by then-president Vladimir Putin as commander of the North Caucasus military district in 2002. He had publicly turned down a similar position in Siberia and served as a presidential adviser on Cossacks affairs.

Troshev, popular among troops, courted controversy during his time as commander, saying on national television that Chechen militants should be publicly executed.