MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - Chechnya's rebels slammed Hamas on Friday, saying leaders of the Palestinian group had given their blessing to the "murder of the Chechen people" by meeting top Russian officials.

The Islamist militant group, which swept to victory in Palestinian elections in January, visited Moscow in a bid to win support from a major foreign power since it is shunned as a terrorist group by Israel and Washington.

Chechen separatist leaders said the group had sold out its principles, and showed itself as hungry for power as corrupt officials who governed the Palestinians before.

"We regret this decision of Hamas. In observing convention, the leaders of Hamas will squeeze the hand of the killers of 250,000 Muslims of Chechnya, among which are 42,000 Chechen children," said Movladi Udugov on Web site www.kavkazcenter.com.

Russian troops have fought for 11 years to crush Chechnya's separatists. Although fighting has waned, soldiers and police still die daily in clashes with rebels.

Udugov, who heads the rebels' information service, was using a casualty figure for the 11-year Chechen war several times higher than most estimates, although observers agree that savagery on both sides has killed thousands of civilians.

"Their chosen path could once again push the Islamic movement into a political dead end and ideological degeneration. In the end, Hamas risks becoming another Yasser Arafat," Udugov said, referring to the former Palestinian leader whose administration was widely criticised as corrupt.

Russia has said it will press Hamas to accept the "road map" which seeks to achieve Israeli-Palestinian coexistence and says Hamas must recognise the Israel and renounce violence.

Udugov, who represents the wing of the Chechen rebels that has conducted the worst attacks on civilians of the war, said Hamas was naive to think that the friendship of President Vladimir Putin could give the movement recognition.

"It is naive to expect that Putin's Russia can be some kind of political partner for the Palestinian people. It is not the communist party that now sits in the Kremlin, but people who have committed appalling crimes," he said.

Akhmed Zakayev, who lives in London and represents the separatists' less radical wing, said the visit showed that Hamas did not care about the cause of fellow Muslims in Chechnya.

"People justifying the murder of the Chechen people could in no way be seen as friends or comrades of the Chechens," he said in comments on another rebel Web site (www.chechenpress.info).