20 March 2000
The fighting around the village of Komsomolskoe in the mountain foothills, now in its second week, will decide the fate not just of the war but of Russia itself. Our country's territorial integrity, independence and economic well-being depend on the outcome – or so the official announcements tell us.
Try as we might, we cannot square events in Chechnya today with what the authorities say. It is not just that reality is more complicated. Quite simply it does not correspond to the propaganda of either presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky or of the combined forces headquarters.
Lema and Ruslan are 30 and 26 years old, relatives and members of the same teip or "clan". They are also Chechen fighters, and both in the detachment commanded by Ruslan Gelayev. (It was a condition of the interview that I did not give their surnames.)
We made no particular effort at concealment in order to talk. Yet Lema had come out of Komsomolskoe only the night before, during the most intensive fighting when federal forces had the village "completely" sealed off. His appearance leaves no doubt about his recent activities. Extremely thin, his face is black and he constantly scratches his head (lice). Ruslan looks much better. His commander ordered him to leave the group earlier. But Ruslan's story is virtually identical: he left the village of Shatoi then, surrounded by federal troops, took to mountain paths with the wounded, and escorted them to hospital (that was his assignment). Now he is being treated for the severe frostbite he suffered during that expedition.
Neither bothers to hide the fact that they are waiting for April, when the trees in Chechnya come into leaf. Then they will go back and fight again. Most of the fighters now resting or recovering are also waiting for those same leaves to appear, they say.
Before 1994 they were ordinary villagers. One grew maize in Naura, the other planted wheat at Samashki. During the first war Lema did not touch a weapon. Ruslan is more experienced; he fought then.
Q. How could you get out of Komsomolskoe if it was completely surrounded by soldiers?
LEMA: We came out at night, naturally. The sentries were on duty and the artillery shelled the place. The soldiers were coming under fire from their own side. They held their ground, but were terrified of everything – they want to live. In our case, the soldier was crouched beneath a tree because the bombardment was very intense. We walked past ten metres away.
Q. Are you sure the soldier saw you? It was dark, after all . . .
LEMA: I'm sure he saw us. Without a word, he cocked the bolt on his rifle and we did the same in reply. We "greeted" each other and parted. I think he knew: if he fired a shot we'd kill him straight away. But the soldier doesn't want this war, he just wants to live.
Q. So you came out of Komsomolskoe bearing arms?
LEMA: Of course we were armed. There were times when a group of up to 50 fighters walked past the soldiers and they saw us.
Q. What was going on in Komsomolskoe when you were there?
LEMA: They were firing every kind of heavy weapon at the village. The peaceful inhabitants had become hostages and many died. Sometimes the soldiers tried to storm the place. Our main force is in the mountains, there's only a small group in the village. It's like this: we're in the village, surrounded by the feds, and around them is a ring of our fighters.
Q. Did your group not consider leaving Komsomolskoe? No one, including boys more than ten years old, was being allowed out because of you. If you'd gone, the village could have been saved from destruction.
LEMA: TO begin with we wanted to do that, but then we were left with no choice.
Q. Why? You've just come out. You could have taken people with you . . .
LEMA: People wouldn't come with us, they're afraid of dying. We're moving at night, aren't we? Without any guarantees.
Q. All right, you've managed to get out of Komsomolskoe. What next?
LEMA: It's no problem to get past army posts in the night. I won't tell you exactly how we do it, though.
Q. You mean you paid the feds on the army posts and during "cleansing" operations?
RUSLAN: We never pay to get past their posts. But we do buy weapons and ammunition, of course, from Russian officers. The feds have a lot of the latest weaponry and they sell it.
Q. When did you yourself last buy weapons from the soldiers?
RUSLAN: About a month ago.
Q. How do you make such a deal?
RUSLAN: Through Chechen intermediaries. We hire those Chechens who are on good terms with the military. For instance, people in the recently created local administration. Usually we're buying large quantities and the military know perfectly well what it's for. There were times when they deliberately gave us ammunition for rifles that blew up in the sniper's face. But that doesn't happen often. Most of our ammunition and weapons, though, we get from fighting.
LEMA: I've noticed that in this war the soldiers are making wide use of Omnopon and, of course, Promedol.48 They often go into battle drugged out of their minds and fear nothing. Our prisoners also told us that they injected themselves before a battle and then they weren't frightened of anything.
RUSLAN: Each carries a little yellow packet in his pocket, his own first-aid kit. We've seen them on the dead. We usually take painkillers from these packets for our wounded.
Q. But people say just the same about your fighters, that they also take narcotics before attacking and that's why they're so reckless.
LEMA: That's not true. We don't fear death because we shall go to paradise if we die on the battlefield. Some drug addicts did join our groups when we were in Grozny. But junkies are no good at fighting so we pushed them out.
Q. How did you join the group?
LEMA: Like everyone else. When the war began the lads in our village got together "What shall we do?" We decided to fight. "Who will be our commander?" We agreed, "He'll do it." And off we went. We've been fighting since the battle at "Soviet Russia" village in Naurskaya district [i.e. since early October]. We weren't in Daghestan.
Q. How many mercenaries are there in your group?
RUSLAN: There haven't been any in our group. The mercenaries make up about 1–2 per cent of the total, no more, and they stick together. The military are lying when they say on TV that there are lots of mercenaries. For myself I haven't seen a single black or Chinese among our fighters.
Q. Is discipline strict in your group?
LEMA: At the moment there's a campaign against cigarettes, no one should smoke. A warrior of Allah should not smoke. As long as he's fighting he should give up all prohibited things – drinking, swearing, going out with women, stealing, lying . . .
Q. And if someone breaks that rule when you're out fighting, then they're beaten with rods?
LEMA: Without fail. If you've been drinking you'll be thrashed.
Q. You consider such a punishment quite normal?
LEMA: Of course. It very much helps self-awareness. A grown person feels awkward when he's beaten with rods in front of others.
Q. What is the monthly pay in your group?
LEMA: I've never had a wage. The last time I got any pay was when I was 18 and working in a building brigade before serving in the army.
RUSLAN: Our system works like this. The commander keeps all the money. If I need help – I'm sick or something else has happened – then he gives me money. But no one pays me something every month, that's not the way. You don't expect money for fighting a holy war.
Q. How do you regard yourselves? Are you partisans? Servicemen in the Chechen army? Guerrillas?
LEMA: We're warriors of Allah. I am liberating my country from enemies and infidels. I see Chechnya as a free Islamic republic, and want it to become one. I'm not interested in what someone else in Russia may want. When the war ends and Chechnya is freed I shall cease being a warrior of Allah and become an ordinary person, a servant of Allah.
Q. You follow Gelayev. Explain who gives the orders, and to whom, in your group.
RUSLAN: Maskhadov is in overall charge. No one acts on his own. There are no independent initiatives, we're strictly centralised. Military councils are regularly held. I've taken part in several and Maskhadov was there.
Q. When did you last see him?
RUSLAN: It's now a month ago. I went to the council as the bodyguard of our commander.
LEMA: And I heard Maskhadov's voice over our radio in Komsomolskoe. All there obey his orders without question, and he knew exactly what was going on. It's nonsense that no one knows where he is. He's in good health and not wounded.
Q. In your opinion how many warriors of Allah are there now, in March?
RUSLAN: About 20,000 who are fighting. How many in the reserve, it's hard to say.
Q. What do you mean, the reserve?
RUSLAN: Those who are resting in the villages until someone tells them it's time to go back.
Q. What are you fighting for?
LEMA: For the sake of Allah. When we're attacked we rejoice because the gates of paradise are opening.
Q. Do you consider yourself Wahhabites? LEMA: No, we're just Muslims.
Q. Do the people of Chechnya support you?
RUSLAN: Some do, others don't. And anyway, people are too intimidated for them to talk of their support for us.
Q. You know that in those villages you passed through whenever you broke through federal lines there were very harsh "cleansing" operations and numerous victims. It doesn't make you stop – the thought that you are putting your own people at risk?
RUSLAN: But we aren't doing it on purpose. War is war, and casualties are unavoidable. No matter if they destroy villages and murder people, we shall not stop fighting. Because even if we do call a halt they won't leave the Chechens in peace, they'll carry on with their extermination. That's what our prisoners, both soldiers and officers, told us. They have been given a spoken, unwritten order to kill as many as they can, and it doesn't matter whether they're fighters, women, children or old men.
LEMA: That's why this war will never end. Even if the troops leave, they won't escape our vengeance. There've been so many victims . . .
Q. Do you believe that the troops will leave Chechnya? LEMA: Of course. You can't predict how Russia will behave. Today it has one policy, tomorrow it'll have another. And we won't tolerate any permanent garrisons on our territory.
AN ESSENTIAL POSTSCRIPT
Take note of two things in this interview:
That is why I must state the obvious yet again. This kind of fighting can go on without end and always provide serious arguments on both sides of the barricades. In other words, the madness must stop – and now!
SOUTHERN CHECHNYA
*
On 26 March the citizens of Russia voted to elect a new President. Two of the candidates had stood in 1996 against Yeltsin and repeated their achievements of that year: the liberal candidate Grigory Yavlinsky retained his steady 7 per cent of the vote; the Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov, maintained a 34 per cent share. The newcomer Vladimir Putin, contesting his first ever election, won outright. He was supported by 52.9 per cent of those who voted (the turnout was 70 per cent).
At that moment, the Chechen fighters were on the brink of defeat. Almost a year later a representative of Asian Maskhadov frankly admitted this: the Chechen side suffered very serious losses during 2000, and in Komsomolskoe alone 841 fighters were killed during March. Speaking in Paris to Pavel Felgenhauer (Moscow News, 6 February 2001) Hussein Iskhanov said that the Russian military saved the situation. Their treatment of the civilian population in the "liberated" areas rapidly turned opinion against the federal forces, creating the conditions for a classic partisan war.