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Terror in Chechnya: Russia and the Tragedy of Civilians in War
A riveting history of Russia's crimes in Chechnya
Terror in Chechnya is the definitive account of Russian war crimes in Chechnya. Emma Gilligan provides a comprehensive history of the second Chechen conflict of 1999 to 2005, revealing one of the most appalling human rights catastrophes of the modern era--one that has yet to be fully acknowledged by the international community. Drawing upon eyewitness testimony and interviews with refugees and key political and humanitarian figures, Gilligan tells for the first time the full story of the Russian military's systematic use of torture, disappearances, executions, and other punitive tactics against the Chechen population.
In Terror in Chechnya, Gilligan challenges Russian claims that civilian casualties in Chechnya were an unavoidable consequence of civil war. She argues that racism and nationalism were substantial factors in Russia's second war against the Chechens and the resulting refugee crisis. She does not ignore the war crimes committed by Chechen separatists and pro-Moscow forces. Gilligan traces the radicalization of Chechen fighters and sheds light on the Dubrovka and Beslan hostage crises, demonstrating how they undermined the separatist movement and in turn contributed to racial hatred against Chechens in Moscow.
A haunting testament of modern-day crimes against humanity, Terror in Chechnya also looks at the international response to the conflict, focusing on Europe's humanitarian and human rights efforts inside Chechnya.
Terror in Chechnya is the definitive account of Russian war crimes in Chechnya. Emma Gilligan provides a comprehensive history of the second Chechen conflict of 1999 to 2005, revealing one of the most appalling human rights catastrophes of the modern era--one that has yet to be fully acknowledged by the international community. Drawing upon eyewitness testimony and interviews with refugees and key political and humanitarian figures, Gilligan tells for the first time the full story of the Russian military's systematic use of torture, disappearances, executions, and other punitive tactics against the Chechen population.
In Terror in Chechnya, Gilligan challenges Russian claims that civilian casualties in Chechnya were an unavoidable consequence of civil war. She argues that racism and nationalism were substantial factors in Russia's second war against the Chechens and the resulting refugee crisis. She does not ignore the war crimes committed by Chechen separatists and pro-Moscow forces. Gilligan traces the radicalization of Chechen fighters and sheds light on the Dubrovka and Beslan hostage crises, demonstrating how they undermined the separatist movement and in turn contributed to racial hatred against Chechens in Moscow.
A haunting testament of modern-day crimes against humanity, Terror in Chechnya also looks at the international response to the conflict, focusing on Europe's humanitarian and human rights efforts inside Chechnya.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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November 24, 2022
• This book about Russia’s war in Chechnya achieves a larger purpose than chronicling Russia’s human rights abuses, when read in 2022: it demonstrates the Russian war playbook. In Chechnya, as in Ukraine, the purpose of the war is first and foremost restoration or in Putin’s mind, preservation of the empire. Although the following quote is 20 years old it is perfectly applicable today: “Putin sought to counter what he interpreted as a crisis of identity in Russia by resurrecting a national identity based on pride and an all-powerful state. "This is not just about restoring the honor and dignity of Russia,, he said to the soldiers. "It is rather more important than that. It is about putting an end to the breakup of the Russian Federation.””
• The methods used to restore “honor and dignity of Russia” today are no different than they were in Chechnya then: indiscriminate shelling of civilians, torture via “filtration points”, rape, and looting of everything that the drunk and sadistic soldiers could get their hands on. There are even parallels to today’s invasion of Ukraine with the fine details, as in Chechnya the Russians also bombed a maternity hospital and food markets.
• Russia even then cynically and capably used the language of the west to justify its own war. Whereas the audience at home was told plainly that the Chechens are a lower race to the Russians (much as the Ukrainians are little Russians), and that they must be tortured into submission, abroad the message was about a fight against international terrorism, which resonated with the post 9/11 West. So today, any Russian speaker who pays attention to the people in power understands that this is a purely imperial invasion, whilst the useful idiots (many of whom populate silicon valley), believe that this is because of some legitimate geopolitical security concerns.
• The book explains how Russia, which is to say Putin and his inner circle, evaded any, even token or superficial, responsibility for their genocidal war. At every step the Russian Federation was able to stifle any kind of international rebuke, whilst at home it violently oppressed independent reporting. It’s not surprising at all that after Chechnya, and after Crimea, that Putin reasoned he could use his band of incompetent and poorly equipped soldiers to shell and torture another civilian population, and cram a sham referendum down their throats.
Most of the following quotes from the book may as well have been lifted from the newspapers in 2022
• International indifference with respect to Chechnya increased after the September 11 attacks in the United States. Dismay at the backsliding in Russia's democratic transition was eclipsed by President Putin's support in the international war on terror. "After September 11, Chechnya ceased being a post-Soviet phenomenon, wrote Akhmed Zakaev, "and became an issue between the West and the Islamic world. We did not seek this role, it was bestowed on us by the West's policies." Although Putin explicitly reproached the West for not backing his "antiterrorist operation" in Chechnya in the immediate aftermath of September 11,41 the United States and Europe did eventually align themselves with a government that was conducting a "dirty war. And Western governments clearly traded on Chechnya. Yet the United States could not maintain its claim to moral leadership while it traded its acquiescence in Russia's human rights violations in Chechnya for Russia's acquiescence in America's human rights violations in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, and the outsourcing of torture to Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. Nor can we dismiss the degree to which human rights discourse was and continues to be appropriated by the as Russian government in a manner that strips the language of rights of any validity.
Yet the first Chechen war was instrumental in establishing the patterns of violence that were later refined beginning in Seprember the aftermath of the indiscriminate airpower cha struck Grozny winter of 1994, two actualities entered Chechen life. One as random detainment and the filtration point. The other was torture
• The Russian government had learned from the first war. It now managed to streamline and orchestrate a highly polished propaganda machine that sought to counter the civilian testimonies coming over the border in the west and the south with its own language of "precision strikes," "'humanitarian corridors," and "safe zones" for the civilian population.
• discussion of an ethnic war, there was a consonant rise in nationalist rhetoric, and the two levels of political manipulation were radically reframed under Putin's administration in the lead-up to the presidential election on March 26, 2000. This nationalism sanctioned a strong revival in classic racial prejudice against Chechens, which already had a long history in Russian society. Putin sought to counter what he interpreted as a crisis of identity in Russia by resurrecting a national identity based on pride and an all-powerful state. "This is not just about restoring the honor and dignity of Russia,, he said to the soldiers. "It is rather more important than that. It is about putting an end to the breakup of the Russian Federation. That is the main task, Russia is grateful to you. " Putin made it clear that he was not going to tolerate any "humiliation to the national pride of Russia."
• The most well-known instances were the attack on Centralnii market in Grozny, the strike on the mosque at Kalinina, and the attack on a Grozny maternity hospital on October 21, 1999; the bombing of a Red Cross IDP convoy on October 29,101 che attack on the village of Elistanzhi; and the air raids on Novyi Sharoi and Samashki.
• Torture was an official state policy in Chechnya. Organized and encouraged by the military elite, by early 2000 it was an unexceptional feature of the armed conflict. Punishment was used to gather evidence and it was clear that civilians, suspected or otherwise, were tortured for information. The rituals of torture served several functions. Gathering information or confessions was the formal motive for violence, but it was not its only purpose. In actuality, it was used to assert the dominance of the Russian forces, to create a broader landscape of fear, and to neutralize potential fighters or those who were hors de combat.
• The use of state power for personal plunder was ubiquitous. After the zachistka in Alleroi in August 2001, which lasted for nine days, Russian soldiers tried to sell the carpets they had stolen in the market in the neighboring village of Novogroznenskoe. While one unit detained suspected fighters or civilians on the outskirts of the village, the other unit would remain in the village to loot the houses. In Tsotsin-Turt in October 2000, soldiers raided the mill and drove around selling stolen four back to the local villagers. "The soldiers took all the four. Sugar and jars of preserves from our home. What they couldn't carry, they smashed. They caught all the chickens in the yard," recalled one witness.
• The March 2003 referendum marked the beginning of a new political campaign by the Russian authorities to ensure not only that Chechnya remain an integral part of the Russian Federation under the pretense of a democratic referendum but that the pro-Moscow Chechen administration in Grozny begin to assume responsibility for the country's political fate. While subsequent reports spoke of the empty polling booths on March 23, making official aims of a 98 percent turnout highly specious, the referendum was the first of a series of events that sought to institutionalize the new political doctrine.
• What Politkovskaia did with particular effectiveness was capture the appalling conditions within the Russian armed forces serving in the region. She devoted more than half of her articles to the Russian soldiers disenchanted and confused by their own role in Chechnya, those "exhausted men with unbalanced minds, as she depicted them.' What emerges from her dispatches are the sorry stories of the bureaucratic fate of the corpses of Russian soldiers once deemed missing in action; the putrid tinned meat from the Semikarakorsk meat processing plant in Rostov, dished up to hungry soldiers; the rotting feet stuck in worn-out army boots; the drunkenness, the drug abuse; the desertion and the often brutal relations between senior officers and foot soldiers; the absence of benefits and insurance for the wounded returning home; the soldiers' mothers determined to remove their sons from the region
• The methods used to restore “honor and dignity of Russia” today are no different than they were in Chechnya then: indiscriminate shelling of civilians, torture via “filtration points”, rape, and looting of everything that the drunk and sadistic soldiers could get their hands on. There are even parallels to today’s invasion of Ukraine with the fine details, as in Chechnya the Russians also bombed a maternity hospital and food markets.
• Russia even then cynically and capably used the language of the west to justify its own war. Whereas the audience at home was told plainly that the Chechens are a lower race to the Russians (much as the Ukrainians are little Russians), and that they must be tortured into submission, abroad the message was about a fight against international terrorism, which resonated with the post 9/11 West. So today, any Russian speaker who pays attention to the people in power understands that this is a purely imperial invasion, whilst the useful idiots (many of whom populate silicon valley), believe that this is because of some legitimate geopolitical security concerns.
• The book explains how Russia, which is to say Putin and his inner circle, evaded any, even token or superficial, responsibility for their genocidal war. At every step the Russian Federation was able to stifle any kind of international rebuke, whilst at home it violently oppressed independent reporting. It’s not surprising at all that after Chechnya, and after Crimea, that Putin reasoned he could use his band of incompetent and poorly equipped soldiers to shell and torture another civilian population, and cram a sham referendum down their throats.
Most of the following quotes from the book may as well have been lifted from the newspapers in 2022
• International indifference with respect to Chechnya increased after the September 11 attacks in the United States. Dismay at the backsliding in Russia's democratic transition was eclipsed by President Putin's support in the international war on terror. "After September 11, Chechnya ceased being a post-Soviet phenomenon, wrote Akhmed Zakaev, "and became an issue between the West and the Islamic world. We did not seek this role, it was bestowed on us by the West's policies." Although Putin explicitly reproached the West for not backing his "antiterrorist operation" in Chechnya in the immediate aftermath of September 11,41 the United States and Europe did eventually align themselves with a government that was conducting a "dirty war. And Western governments clearly traded on Chechnya. Yet the United States could not maintain its claim to moral leadership while it traded its acquiescence in Russia's human rights violations in Chechnya for Russia's acquiescence in America's human rights violations in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, and the outsourcing of torture to Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. Nor can we dismiss the degree to which human rights discourse was and continues to be appropriated by the as Russian government in a manner that strips the language of rights of any validity.
Yet the first Chechen war was instrumental in establishing the patterns of violence that were later refined beginning in Seprember the aftermath of the indiscriminate airpower cha struck Grozny winter of 1994, two actualities entered Chechen life. One as random detainment and the filtration point. The other was torture
• The Russian government had learned from the first war. It now managed to streamline and orchestrate a highly polished propaganda machine that sought to counter the civilian testimonies coming over the border in the west and the south with its own language of "precision strikes," "'humanitarian corridors," and "safe zones" for the civilian population.
• discussion of an ethnic war, there was a consonant rise in nationalist rhetoric, and the two levels of political manipulation were radically reframed under Putin's administration in the lead-up to the presidential election on March 26, 2000. This nationalism sanctioned a strong revival in classic racial prejudice against Chechens, which already had a long history in Russian society. Putin sought to counter what he interpreted as a crisis of identity in Russia by resurrecting a national identity based on pride and an all-powerful state. "This is not just about restoring the honor and dignity of Russia,, he said to the soldiers. "It is rather more important than that. It is about putting an end to the breakup of the Russian Federation. That is the main task, Russia is grateful to you. " Putin made it clear that he was not going to tolerate any "humiliation to the national pride of Russia."
• The most well-known instances were the attack on Centralnii market in Grozny, the strike on the mosque at Kalinina, and the attack on a Grozny maternity hospital on October 21, 1999; the bombing of a Red Cross IDP convoy on October 29,101 che attack on the village of Elistanzhi; and the air raids on Novyi Sharoi and Samashki.
• Torture was an official state policy in Chechnya. Organized and encouraged by the military elite, by early 2000 it was an unexceptional feature of the armed conflict. Punishment was used to gather evidence and it was clear that civilians, suspected or otherwise, were tortured for information. The rituals of torture served several functions. Gathering information or confessions was the formal motive for violence, but it was not its only purpose. In actuality, it was used to assert the dominance of the Russian forces, to create a broader landscape of fear, and to neutralize potential fighters or those who were hors de combat.
• The use of state power for personal plunder was ubiquitous. After the zachistka in Alleroi in August 2001, which lasted for nine days, Russian soldiers tried to sell the carpets they had stolen in the market in the neighboring village of Novogroznenskoe. While one unit detained suspected fighters or civilians on the outskirts of the village, the other unit would remain in the village to loot the houses. In Tsotsin-Turt in October 2000, soldiers raided the mill and drove around selling stolen four back to the local villagers. "The soldiers took all the four. Sugar and jars of preserves from our home. What they couldn't carry, they smashed. They caught all the chickens in the yard," recalled one witness.
• The March 2003 referendum marked the beginning of a new political campaign by the Russian authorities to ensure not only that Chechnya remain an integral part of the Russian Federation under the pretense of a democratic referendum but that the pro-Moscow Chechen administration in Grozny begin to assume responsibility for the country's political fate. While subsequent reports spoke of the empty polling booths on March 23, making official aims of a 98 percent turnout highly specious, the referendum was the first of a series of events that sought to institutionalize the new political doctrine.
• What Politkovskaia did with particular effectiveness was capture the appalling conditions within the Russian armed forces serving in the region. She devoted more than half of her articles to the Russian soldiers disenchanted and confused by their own role in Chechnya, those "exhausted men with unbalanced minds, as she depicted them.' What emerges from her dispatches are the sorry stories of the bureaucratic fate of the corpses of Russian soldiers once deemed missing in action; the putrid tinned meat from the Semikarakorsk meat processing plant in Rostov, dished up to hungry soldiers; the rotting feet stuck in worn-out army boots; the drunkenness, the drug abuse; the desertion and the often brutal relations between senior officers and foot soldiers; the absence of benefits and insurance for the wounded returning home; the soldiers' mothers determined to remove their sons from the region
May 31, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Довольно специфическая книга, которая заинтересует немногих, а прочитать сможет ещё меньшее количество людей в силу психологически тяжёлого текста (или темы, вопроса).
Российские правозащитники и некоторые журналисты не просто так делали всё возможное и невозможное, чтобы привлечь к чеченской трагедии не только внимание российское общества, но и общества других стран, в частности внимание стран Запада. Конечно, эту книгу я решил прочитать не потому, что меня интересовала чеченская война, а исключительно по причине российско-украинского конфликта, который вышел далеко за пределы тлеющего, каким он был, начиная с 2014 года. Сегодня многие спикеры по всему миру говорят о событиях в Буче и в других украинских городах, но все понимают, что перед Бучей были чеченские сёла, ибо именно там российское руководство оттачивало способы по подавлению всякого сопротивления. Именно в Чечне появились чистки, внесудебные казни, пытки, похищения людей и полное пренебрежение к закону со стороны представителей российских властей, включая и армию. Кто-то может сказать, что всё началось не с Чечни, а с Афганистана, но я с этим не согласен, т.к. Афганистан, пусть и там присутствовали военные преступления совершаемые советской армии, всё же значительно отличается от того что делает российская армия сегодня в Украине. Нет, я более чем уверен, что нынешние практики российская армия и российские спецслужбы впервые начали использовать в Чечне, а учитывая, что вторая чеченская война окончилась успехом, это означает, что российские власти посчитали такие практики пусть и не этичными, но зато эффективными.
Как показал опыт второй чеченской кампании, мировая общественность, которая была осведомлена о пытках и внесудебных казнях, ничего не сделала, чтобы это остановить, а виновных наказать, точно так же повела себя и российская общественность, которая просто закрыла глаза на такие действия со стороны российских властей, даже понимая, что это нарушает собственные законы РФ. Вот так мы и пришли к тому, что законы, на одной отдельно взятой территории, просто перестали действовать. В России нет закона, разрешающего пытать и казнить людей, но в Чечне именно это и происходило. Об этом знали все, но почти никто ничего не предпринимал. Конечно, большой вклад в такое игнорирование российских законов внесли и сами чеченцы, когда от их имени в России стали происходить террористические акты из-за чего большая часть общества РФ ожесточилось, тем не менее, факт остаётся фактом – во время второй чеченской войны системно нарушались законы РФ и нарушались не гражданскими, а официальными представителями российской власти – армией, спецслужбами и полицией.
In the words of Lieutenant General Gennady Troshev, deputy commander of the Northern Caucasus Military District, “If we are fi red upon from a house, we destroy that house, if we are fi red upon from a settlement, we destroy that settlement.” “We will cleanse Chechnya of any scum,” promised Lieutenant General Viktor Kazantsev, the commander of the Russian armed forces in the Northern Caucasus. “If given the opportunity,” he concluded, “I would finish the campaign within a week. I would bomb the whole republic, since I have enough force and means to do that.” Finally, for Lieutenant General Sergei Makarov, commander of the Eastern Group of Forces, Chechnya was simply “a nation of parasites.” For the army generals, the war was being waged to protect “Europe and the whole world” from the “terrorist abyss.”
And such hyperbole was an accepted feature of this war.
<…>
From the end of November onward, Grozny was subjected to a constant bombing campaign that saw the destruction of telephone, electricity, and gas infrastructure, water reservoirs, the airport, bridges, and roads. Throughout the day on December 6, Russian warplanes scattered leaflets on the city, warning citizens to leave. “People who stay in the city will be considered terrorists and bandits and will be destroyed by artillery and aviation,” warned the Russian armed forces.
<…>
Many who were left in their cellars were attacked with live grenades, and houses were set on fi re. Looting of the village began almost immediately. Ural trucks arrived and began to pack up rugs, refrigerators, televisions, and house wares.
<…>
The crucial principle of distinction between military and nonmilitary targets was largely ignored.
<…>
The rituals of torture served several functions. Gathering information or confessions was the formal motive for violence, but it was not its only purpose. In actuality, it was used to assert the dominance of the Russian forces, to create a broader landscape of fear, and to neutralize potential fighters or those who were hors de combat. In the torture, we can see that there was not only a very broad definition of the enemy group in Chechnya but that torture was used to reinforce the powerlessness of the victim, either civilian or separatist fighter, and to undermine personal security or certainty.
<…>
Journalists, both foreign and Russian, were confined to the territory of the Khankala military base and only permitted to enter the republic when accompanied by a Press Center official. Access to Chechnya was limited to press tours by the military itself and a constant barrage of press releases published by the Ministry of Defense broadsheet Krasnaia Zvezda or Rosinformcentre, a government public relations firm set up in Moscow sought to shape the public image of the war. Journalists were prohibited from meeting with civilians and from traveling in dependently to towns and villages.
<…>
The first aim of the Russian Press Center at Khankala was to cut off any alternative sources of information about the separatist movement. The Russian government sought to eradicate any possible public sympathy for or sensitivity to the position of the Chechen fighters. No insight into their internal workings, no historical links or arguments, no alternative view other than that they were “terrorists” was to emerge in the public arena.
Узнаёте? Разница только в том, что эта практика была расширена и углублена. К примеру, если раньше журналистов просто не пускали в Чечню, то сегодня этого уже недостаточно, т.е. недостаточно чтобы лишь журналисты не писали о том, что российская армия делает на самом деле, ибо сегодня и всё российское общество обязано следовать официальной позиции российского руководства, в противном случаи – тюрьма. Удивительный «прогресс» случился за эти 20 лет, не так ли? Если раньше наказывали в основном только чеченцев и тех, кто им помогал (к примеру, Политковская), то сегодня наказывают всех, кто не согласен с проводимой Путиным политикой. Хотя ранее я писал, что воздерживаюсь от оценок касательно военных преступлений совершённых российским государством, включая армию (ибо для этого необходимо провести независимое расследование), но у меня нет никаких сомнений в том, что практики, которые применялись в Чечне, применяются сегодня и на территории Украины. Заметьте, практика тотального разрушения городов, которая использовалась при захвате города Грозный, так же применяется и сегодня в Украине.
Я ничего не сказал про пытки и как пытки выглядели в Чечне, т.к. считаю, что с ними и так всё понятно и нет нужды в конкретизации, но я хочу подчеркнуть, что автор пишет и о них, что означает, что и они присутствуют сегодня в Украине. С другой стороны, как заметили международные организации по правам человека, и украинская сторона так же применяет пытки, но уже в отношении солдат РФ. Так что же нам со всем этим делать? Одна из главных проблем России, т.е. главная причина, почему мы пришли сегодня к такому вот итогу состоит в том, что законы в России не работают и не работают с 90-ых годов, т.е. в России выборочная практика исполнения законов. Законы не работали в Чечне и законы не работают в Москве, и не работает главный закон – российская конституция. Законы сегодня в РФ просто игнорируются и из этого мы и имеем несменяемую власть и правоохранительные органы, армию и прочих силовиков, которые защищают не страну, а нынешнее российское руководство, т.е. бюрократию, высших чиновников или, иными словами, новую российскую номенклатуру, истинный правящий класс современной России. И чеченская война и украинская были развязаны не в интересах страны и не в интересах народа, а исключительно в интересах этой новой номенклатуры с Путиным во главе. Пока власть не вернётся в руки народа, народом избранного правительства, я не думаю, что что-то может измениться, включая неработающие законы и военные преступления, совершаемые российской армией и прочими силовиками. Так что более широко, эта книга и о том, что происходит или начинает происходить, когда законы страны перестают работать, а представители государства имеют возможность эти законы игнорировать.
It's a pretty specific book that few people will be interested in, and even fewer will be able to read due to the psychologically heavy text (or topic, issue).
Russian human rights activists and some journalists have been doing everything possible and impossible to draw the attention of not only Russian society but also the societies of other countries, particularly the West, to the Chechen tragedy. Of course, I decided to read this book not because I was interested in the Chechen war but solely because of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which has gone far beyond the smoldering conflict it has been since 2014. Today, many speakers around the world are talking about the events in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities, but everyone realizes that before Bucha, there were the Chechen villages, for it was there that the Russian authorities sharpened their methods of suppressing any resistance. It was in Chechnya that cleanings, extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnappings, and total disregard for the law on the part of the Russian authorities, including the army, appeared. Some may say that it all started not with Chechnya, but with Afghanistan, but I do not agree with this because Afghanistan, even though there were war crimes committed by the Soviet army, is still much different from what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine today. No, I am more than sure that the Russian army and Russian special services first started using these practices in Chechnya, and considering that the second Chechen war was a success, it means that the Russian authorities considered these practices to be unethical but effective.
As the experience of the second Chechen campaign showed, the world public, which was aware of torture and extrajudicial executions, did nothing to stop it and punish the perpetrators, and the Russian public, which simply turned a blind eye to such actions on the part of the Russian authorities, even realizing that this violated the Russian Federation's own laws, behaved in the same way. This is how we came to the point where the laws in one particular territory simply ceased to apply. There is no law in Russia authorizing torture and execution of people, but that's exactly what was happening in Chechnya. Everyone knew about it, but almost no one did anything about it. Of course, the Chechens themselves made a great contribution to this disregard for Russian laws when terrorist acts began to take place in Russia on their behalf, which hardened a large part of Russian society. Nevertheless, the fact remains that during the second Chechen war, the laws of the Russian Federation were systematically violated not by civilians but by official representatives of the Russian authorities - the army, special services, and police.
In the words of Lieutenant General Gennady Troshev, deputy commander of the Northern Caucasus Military District, “If we are fi red upon from a house, we destroy that house, if we are fi red upon from a settlement, we destroy that settlement.” “We will cleanse Chechnya of any scum,” promised Lieutenant General Viktor Kazantsev, the commander of the Russian armed forces in the Northern Caucasus. “If given the opportunity,” he concluded, “I would finish the campaign within a week. I would bomb the whole republic, since I have enough force and means to do that.” Finally, for Lieutenant General Sergei Makarov, commander of the Eastern Group of Forces, Chechnya was simply “a nation of parasites.” For the army generals, the war was being waged to protect “Europe and the whole world” from the “terrorist abyss.”
And such hyperbole was an accepted feature of this war.
<…>
From the end of November onward, Grozny was subjected to a constant bombing campaign that saw the destruction of telephone, electricity, and gas infrastructure, water reservoirs, the airport, bridges, and roads. Throughout the day on December 6, Russian warplanes scattered leaflets on the city, warning citizens to leave. “People who stay in the city will be considered terrorists and bandits and will be destroyed by artillery and aviation,” warned the Russian armed forces.
<…>
Many who were left in their cellars were attacked with live grenades, and houses were set on fi re. Looting of the village began almost immediately. Ural trucks arrived and began to pack up rugs, refrigerators, televisions, and house wares.
<…>
The crucial principle of distinction between military and nonmilitary targets was largely ignored.
<…>
Little was done to minimize suffering or to create appropriate conditions for the evacuation of the civilian population. The argument here is that there were less costly ways to accomplish the Russian government’s military objective, regardless of how important its objective was. Only a political settlement could have relieved the mutual siege and prevented the tragic consequences that followed.
<…>
We can also be certain that a given human group was victimized and that the Russian armed forces and the Russian government were well aware of the attacks themselves and their potential consequences for Chechnya’s civilian population.
<…>
The rituals of torture served several functions. Gathering information or confessions was the formal motive for violence, but it was not its only purpose. In actuality, it was used to assert the dominance of the Russian forces, to create a broader landscape of fear, and to neutralize potential fighters or those who were hors de combat. In the torture, we can see that there was not only a very broad definition of the enemy group in Chechnya but that torture was used to reinforce the powerlessness of the victim, either civilian or separatist fighter, and to undermine personal security or certainty.
<…>
Journalists, both foreign and Russian, were confined to the territory of the Khankala military base and only permitted to enter the republic when accompanied by a Press Center official. Access to Chechnya was limited to press tours by the military itself and a constant barrage of press releases published by the Ministry of Defense broadsheet Krasnaia Zvezda or Rosinformcentre, a government public relations firm set up in Moscow sought to shape the public image of the war. Journalists were prohibited from meeting with civilians and from traveling in dependently to towns and villages.
<…>
The first aim of the Russian Press Center at Khankala was to cut off any alternative sources of information about the separatist movement. The Russian government sought to eradicate any possible public sympathy for or sensitivity to the position of the Chechen fighters. No insight into their internal workings, no historical links or arguments, no alternative view other than that they were “terrorists” was to emerge in the public arena.
Do you recognize it? The only difference is that this practice has been broadened and deepened. For example, if earlier journalists were simply not allowed into Chechnya, today this is no longer enough, i.e., it is not enough for journalists alone not to write about what the Russian army is actually doing because today, the entire Russian society is obliged to follow the official position of the Russian leadership, otherwise - prison. Amazing “progress” has happened in these 20 years, isn't it? Whereas previously only Chechens and those who helped them (Politkovskaya, for example) were punished, today, everyone who disagrees with Putin's policies is punished. Although I wrote earlier that I refrain from assessing war crimes committed by the Russian state, including the army (for this requires an independent investigation), I do not doubt that the practices that were applied in Chechnya are being applied today in Ukraine. It should be noted that the practice of total destruction of cities, which was used when the city of Grozny was attacked, is also used today in Ukraine.
I did not say anything about torture and how torture looked like in Chechnya, as I believe that everything is clear and there is no need for specifics, but I want to emphasize that the author writes about them, which means that they are also present in Ukraine today. On the other hand, as international human rights organizations have noticed, the Ukrainian side also uses torture, but already against Russian soldiers. So what should we do about all this? One of the main problems of Russia, i.e., the main reason why we have come to such a result today is that laws in Russia do not work and have not worked since the 90s, i.e., Russia has a selective practice of law enforcement. Laws did not work in Chechnya and laws do not work in Moscow, and the main law - the Russian constitution - does not work. Laws today in Russia are simply ignored, and from this, we have irremovable authority and law enforcement agencies, the army, and other law enforcers who protect not the country but the current Russian administration, i.e., the bureaucracy, top officials or, in other words, the new Russian nomenclature, the true ruling class of modern Russia. Both the Chechen war and the Ukrainian war were unleashed not in the interests of the country or the people but solely in the interests of this new nomenklatura with Putin at its head. Until power is returned to the people, to a government elected by the people, I don't think anything can change, including the laws that don't work and the war crimes committed by the Russian army and other security forces. So more broadly, this book is also about what happens, or starts to happen, when the laws of a country stop working and the representatives of the state can ignore those laws.
Довольно специфическая книга, которая заинтересует немногих, а прочитать сможет ещё меньшее количество людей в силу психологически тяжёлого текста (или темы, вопроса).
Российские правозащитники и некоторые журналисты не просто так делали всё возможное и невозможное, чтобы привлечь к чеченской трагедии не только внимание российское общества, но и общества других стран, в частности внимание стран Запада. Конечно, эту книгу я решил прочитать не потому, что меня интересовала чеченская война, а исключительно по причине российско-украинского конфликта, который вышел далеко за пределы тлеющего, каким он был, начиная с 2014 года. Сегодня многие спикеры по всему миру говорят о событиях в Буче и в других украинских городах, но все понимают, что перед Бучей были чеченские сёла, ибо именно там российское руководство оттачивало способы по подавлению всякого сопротивления. Именно в Чечне появились чистки, внесудебные казни, пытки, похищения людей и полное пренебрежение к закону со стороны представителей российских властей, включая и армию. Кто-то может сказать, что всё началось не с Чечни, а с Афганистана, но я с этим не согласен, т.к. Афганистан, пусть и там присутствовали военные преступления совершаемые советской армии, всё же значительно отличается от того что делает российская армия сегодня в Украине. Нет, я более чем уверен, что нынешние практики российская армия и российские спецслужбы впервые начали использовать в Чечне, а учитывая, что вторая чеченская война окончилась успехом, это означает, что российские власти посчитали такие практики пусть и не этичными, но зато эффективными.
Как показал опыт второй чеченской кампании, мировая общественность, которая была осведомлена о пытках и внесудебных казнях, ничего не сделала, чтобы это остановить, а виновных наказать, точно так же повела себя и российская общественность, которая просто закрыла глаза на такие действия со стороны российских властей, даже понимая, что это нарушает собственные законы РФ. Вот так мы и пришли к тому, что законы, на одной отдельно взятой территории, просто перестали действовать. В России нет закона, разрешающего пытать и казнить людей, но в Чечне именно это и происходило. Об этом знали все, но почти никто ничего не предпринимал. Конечно, большой вклад в такое игнорирование российских законов внесли и сами чеченцы, когда от их имени в России стали происходить террористические акты из-за чего большая часть общества РФ ожесточилось, тем не менее, факт остаётся фактом – во время второй чеченской войны системно нарушались законы РФ и нарушались не гражданскими, а официальными представителями российской власти – армией, спецслужбами и полицией.
In the words of Lieutenant General Gennady Troshev, deputy commander of the Northern Caucasus Military District, “If we are fi red upon from a house, we destroy that house, if we are fi red upon from a settlement, we destroy that settlement.” “We will cleanse Chechnya of any scum,” promised Lieutenant General Viktor Kazantsev, the commander of the Russian armed forces in the Northern Caucasus. “If given the opportunity,” he concluded, “I would finish the campaign within a week. I would bomb the whole republic, since I have enough force and means to do that.” Finally, for Lieutenant General Sergei Makarov, commander of the Eastern Group of Forces, Chechnya was simply “a nation of parasites.” For the army generals, the war was being waged to protect “Europe and the whole world” from the “terrorist abyss.”
And such hyperbole was an accepted feature of this war.
<…>
From the end of November onward, Grozny was subjected to a constant bombing campaign that saw the destruction of telephone, electricity, and gas infrastructure, water reservoirs, the airport, bridges, and roads. Throughout the day on December 6, Russian warplanes scattered leaflets on the city, warning citizens to leave. “People who stay in the city will be considered terrorists and bandits and will be destroyed by artillery and aviation,” warned the Russian armed forces.
<…>
Many who were left in their cellars were attacked with live grenades, and houses were set on fi re. Looting of the village began almost immediately. Ural trucks arrived and began to pack up rugs, refrigerators, televisions, and house wares.
<…>
The crucial principle of distinction between military and nonmilitary targets was largely ignored.
<…>
The rituals of torture served several functions. Gathering information or confessions was the formal motive for violence, but it was not its only purpose. In actuality, it was used to assert the dominance of the Russian forces, to create a broader landscape of fear, and to neutralize potential fighters or those who were hors de combat. In the torture, we can see that there was not only a very broad definition of the enemy group in Chechnya but that torture was used to reinforce the powerlessness of the victim, either civilian or separatist fighter, and to undermine personal security or certainty.
<…>
Journalists, both foreign and Russian, were confined to the territory of the Khankala military base and only permitted to enter the republic when accompanied by a Press Center official. Access to Chechnya was limited to press tours by the military itself and a constant barrage of press releases published by the Ministry of Defense broadsheet Krasnaia Zvezda or Rosinformcentre, a government public relations firm set up in Moscow sought to shape the public image of the war. Journalists were prohibited from meeting with civilians and from traveling in dependently to towns and villages.
<…>
The first aim of the Russian Press Center at Khankala was to cut off any alternative sources of information about the separatist movement. The Russian government sought to eradicate any possible public sympathy for or sensitivity to the position of the Chechen fighters. No insight into their internal workings, no historical links or arguments, no alternative view other than that they were “terrorists” was to emerge in the public arena.
Узнаёте? Разница только в том, что эта практика была расширена и углублена. К примеру, если раньше журналистов просто не пускали в Чечню, то сегодня этого уже недостаточно, т.е. недостаточно чтобы лишь журналисты не писали о том, что российская армия делает на самом деле, ибо сегодня и всё российское общество обязано следовать официальной позиции российского руководства, в противном случаи – тюрьма. Удивительный «прогресс» случился за эти 20 лет, не так ли? Если раньше наказывали в основном только чеченцев и тех, кто им помогал (к примеру, Политковская), то сегодня наказывают всех, кто не согласен с проводимой Путиным политикой. Хотя ранее я писал, что воздерживаюсь от оценок касательно военных преступлений совершённых российским государством, включая армию (ибо для этого необходимо провести независимое расследование), но у меня нет никаких сомнений в том, что практики, которые применялись в Чечне, применяются сегодня и на территории Украины. Заметьте, практика тотального разрушения городов, которая использовалась при захвате города Грозный, так же применяется и сегодня в Украине.
Я ничего не сказал про пытки и как пытки выглядели в Чечне, т.к. считаю, что с ними и так всё понятно и нет нужды в конкретизации, но я хочу подчеркнуть, что автор пишет и о них, что означает, что и они присутствуют сегодня в Украине. С другой стороны, как заметили международные организации по правам человека, и украинская сторона так же применяет пытки, но уже в отношении солдат РФ. Так что же нам со всем этим делать? Одна из главных проблем России, т.е. главная причина, почему мы пришли сегодня к такому вот итогу состоит в том, что законы в России не работают и не работают с 90-ых годов, т.е. в России выборочная практика исполнения законов. Законы не работали в Чечне и законы не работают в Москве, и не работает главный закон – российская конституция. Законы сегодня в РФ просто игнорируются и из этого мы и имеем несменяемую власть и правоохранительные органы, армию и прочих силовиков, которые защищают не страну, а нынешнее российское руководство, т.е. бюрократию, высших чиновников или, иными словами, новую российскую номенклатуру, истинный правящий класс современной России. И чеченская война и украинская были развязаны не в интересах страны и не в интересах народа, а исключительно в интересах этой новой номенклатуры с Путиным во главе. Пока власть не вернётся в руки народа, народом избранного правительства, я не думаю, что что-то может измениться, включая неработающие законы и военные преступления, совершаемые российской армией и прочими силовиками. Так что более широко, эта книга и о том, что происходит или начинает происходить, когда законы страны перестают работать, а представители государства имеют возможность эти законы игнорировать.
It's a pretty specific book that few people will be interested in, and even fewer will be able to read due to the psychologically heavy text (or topic, issue).
Russian human rights activists and some journalists have been doing everything possible and impossible to draw the attention of not only Russian society but also the societies of other countries, particularly the West, to the Chechen tragedy. Of course, I decided to read this book not because I was interested in the Chechen war but solely because of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which has gone far beyond the smoldering conflict it has been since 2014. Today, many speakers around the world are talking about the events in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities, but everyone realizes that before Bucha, there were the Chechen villages, for it was there that the Russian authorities sharpened their methods of suppressing any resistance. It was in Chechnya that cleanings, extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnappings, and total disregard for the law on the part of the Russian authorities, including the army, appeared. Some may say that it all started not with Chechnya, but with Afghanistan, but I do not agree with this because Afghanistan, even though there were war crimes committed by the Soviet army, is still much different from what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine today. No, I am more than sure that the Russian army and Russian special services first started using these practices in Chechnya, and considering that the second Chechen war was a success, it means that the Russian authorities considered these practices to be unethical but effective.
As the experience of the second Chechen campaign showed, the world public, which was aware of torture and extrajudicial executions, did nothing to stop it and punish the perpetrators, and the Russian public, which simply turned a blind eye to such actions on the part of the Russian authorities, even realizing that this violated the Russian Federation's own laws, behaved in the same way. This is how we came to the point where the laws in one particular territory simply ceased to apply. There is no law in Russia authorizing torture and execution of people, but that's exactly what was happening in Chechnya. Everyone knew about it, but almost no one did anything about it. Of course, the Chechens themselves made a great contribution to this disregard for Russian laws when terrorist acts began to take place in Russia on their behalf, which hardened a large part of Russian society. Nevertheless, the fact remains that during the second Chechen war, the laws of the Russian Federation were systematically violated not by civilians but by official representatives of the Russian authorities - the army, special services, and police.
In the words of Lieutenant General Gennady Troshev, deputy commander of the Northern Caucasus Military District, “If we are fi red upon from a house, we destroy that house, if we are fi red upon from a settlement, we destroy that settlement.” “We will cleanse Chechnya of any scum,” promised Lieutenant General Viktor Kazantsev, the commander of the Russian armed forces in the Northern Caucasus. “If given the opportunity,” he concluded, “I would finish the campaign within a week. I would bomb the whole republic, since I have enough force and means to do that.” Finally, for Lieutenant General Sergei Makarov, commander of the Eastern Group of Forces, Chechnya was simply “a nation of parasites.” For the army generals, the war was being waged to protect “Europe and the whole world” from the “terrorist abyss.”
And such hyperbole was an accepted feature of this war.
<…>
From the end of November onward, Grozny was subjected to a constant bombing campaign that saw the destruction of telephone, electricity, and gas infrastructure, water reservoirs, the airport, bridges, and roads. Throughout the day on December 6, Russian warplanes scattered leaflets on the city, warning citizens to leave. “People who stay in the city will be considered terrorists and bandits and will be destroyed by artillery and aviation,” warned the Russian armed forces.
<…>
Many who were left in their cellars were attacked with live grenades, and houses were set on fi re. Looting of the village began almost immediately. Ural trucks arrived and began to pack up rugs, refrigerators, televisions, and house wares.
<…>
The crucial principle of distinction between military and nonmilitary targets was largely ignored.
<…>
Little was done to minimize suffering or to create appropriate conditions for the evacuation of the civilian population. The argument here is that there were less costly ways to accomplish the Russian government’s military objective, regardless of how important its objective was. Only a political settlement could have relieved the mutual siege and prevented the tragic consequences that followed.
<…>
We can also be certain that a given human group was victimized and that the Russian armed forces and the Russian government were well aware of the attacks themselves and their potential consequences for Chechnya’s civilian population.
<…>
The rituals of torture served several functions. Gathering information or confessions was the formal motive for violence, but it was not its only purpose. In actuality, it was used to assert the dominance of the Russian forces, to create a broader landscape of fear, and to neutralize potential fighters or those who were hors de combat. In the torture, we can see that there was not only a very broad definition of the enemy group in Chechnya but that torture was used to reinforce the powerlessness of the victim, either civilian or separatist fighter, and to undermine personal security or certainty.
<…>
Journalists, both foreign and Russian, were confined to the territory of the Khankala military base and only permitted to enter the republic when accompanied by a Press Center official. Access to Chechnya was limited to press tours by the military itself and a constant barrage of press releases published by the Ministry of Defense broadsheet Krasnaia Zvezda or Rosinformcentre, a government public relations firm set up in Moscow sought to shape the public image of the war. Journalists were prohibited from meeting with civilians and from traveling in dependently to towns and villages.
<…>
The first aim of the Russian Press Center at Khankala was to cut off any alternative sources of information about the separatist movement. The Russian government sought to eradicate any possible public sympathy for or sensitivity to the position of the Chechen fighters. No insight into their internal workings, no historical links or arguments, no alternative view other than that they were “terrorists” was to emerge in the public arena.
Do you recognize it? The only difference is that this practice has been broadened and deepened. For example, if earlier journalists were simply not allowed into Chechnya, today this is no longer enough, i.e., it is not enough for journalists alone not to write about what the Russian army is actually doing because today, the entire Russian society is obliged to follow the official position of the Russian leadership, otherwise - prison. Amazing “progress” has happened in these 20 years, isn't it? Whereas previously only Chechens and those who helped them (Politkovskaya, for example) were punished, today, everyone who disagrees with Putin's policies is punished. Although I wrote earlier that I refrain from assessing war crimes committed by the Russian state, including the army (for this requires an independent investigation), I do not doubt that the practices that were applied in Chechnya are being applied today in Ukraine. It should be noted that the practice of total destruction of cities, which was used when the city of Grozny was attacked, is also used today in Ukraine.
I did not say anything about torture and how torture looked like in Chechnya, as I believe that everything is clear and there is no need for specifics, but I want to emphasize that the author writes about them, which means that they are also present in Ukraine today. On the other hand, as international human rights organizations have noticed, the Ukrainian side also uses torture, but already against Russian soldiers. So what should we do about all this? One of the main problems of Russia, i.e., the main reason why we have come to such a result today is that laws in Russia do not work and have not worked since the 90s, i.e., Russia has a selective practice of law enforcement. Laws did not work in Chechnya and laws do not work in Moscow, and the main law - the Russian constitution - does not work. Laws today in Russia are simply ignored, and from this, we have irremovable authority and law enforcement agencies, the army, and other law enforcers who protect not the country but the current Russian administration, i.e., the bureaucracy, top officials or, in other words, the new Russian nomenclature, the true ruling class of modern Russia. Both the Chechen war and the Ukrainian war were unleashed not in the interests of the country or the people but solely in the interests of this new nomenklatura with Putin at its head. Until power is returned to the people, to a government elected by the people, I don't think anything can change, including the laws that don't work and the war crimes committed by the Russian army and other security forces. So more broadly, this book is also about what happens, or starts to happen, when the laws of a country stop working and the representatives of the state can ignore those laws.
May 2, 2022
Absolutely heartbreaking account of the brutal war on Chechnya.
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