In society

Echo of the past war

May 21, 2014 Alexander Cherkasov

Today at noon, my colleagues, Memorials , Oleg Orlov and Jan Rachinsky represent the results of a ten-day trip to the Donetsk region. Watch the online broadcast: http://www.memo.ru/d/197809.html

It would be more correct to say not “trips”, but “expeditions”: the East Ukrainian reality is too, not like, exotic ... or, conversely, too “local”-we have already passed through all this, only carefully forgot.

The bad and the “illegitimate” junta ... that is, the power of Johar Dudaev from all sides. A very independent and correct “opposition” to this regime, which was strengthened in Donetsk ... that is, in the Nadtersky and Urus-Martan districts. The most important folk mayors ... That is, “temporary tips”.

Fights in cities, three times destroyed Grozny. The "will" of the people in the conditions of armed conflict and the unnecessary martial law is the procedure for the most pronounced and the highest, consecrated by the forerunners of the wizard Churov. Well, bend your fingers! In December 1995, the elections that provoked the resumption of war after a half-year restoration. In June-July 1996-and also at once the war in full, to the defeat and Khasavyurt. In December 1999 and in March 2000, the elections, too,, by the way, according to the reports of the type, took place, although there was no hint of voting in the republic, only hundreds of thousands of refugees.

In modern Donetsk, I was not, but besides movements in space, travel travel is also possible.

A lot in our current reality does not just have in the past useful for understanding analogy. There are roots. And sometimes modern heroes came from there, and did not even change their minds. And about everyone, if not the saga is folded, then write a feuilleton.

If we talk about the Ukrainian events of the last three months, then the Russian media most often recalled Sasha Bilogue, Alexander Muzychko, who fought in Chechnya in 1994-1995, who left this world in time.

But the message of the RBC agency that the Russian troops in Crimea was commanded by General Igor Turchchenyuk, the deputy commander of the Southern Military District, domestic mass media did not replicate, although they did not refute. In 1999-2000, in Chechnya, Turchenyuk commanded the 138th separate motorized rifle brigade, in the location of which they disappeared and then found-seven local residents in the ground. Of course, there was no talk of an effective investigation of this fact either.

*****

And then we finally come to our hero and his undeservedly forgotten affairs. I'm talking about Igor Alexandrovich Strelkov, aka Igor Vyacheslavovich Girkin. They just write a lot about him. Like, from the "Reconstructors". They talk less about the main specialty.

Strelkov has been involved in the events in the Donetsk region since mid -April 2014. Almost immediately, comments appeared in which he was identified with an officer operating as part of the 45th regiment of special reconnaissance of the airborne troops in the vicinity of the village of Khatuni, the Vedensky district of Chechnya in 2001 and involved in the violent disappearance of the inhabitants of the Chechen Republic. But there was no complete confidence: in fact, the surname Strelkov could be a pseudonym, call sign, used at different times for the operational cover of different people. Doubts scattered “Strelkov” himself in his commentary on May 16: “I remember, only in 2001 in the area of ​​the Chatuni camp, the local Chechen population“ Opokoilo ”at least three times”.

In total, in 2001, dozens of people were detained and disappeared in the surrounding villages of Khatuni, Mahkeets and Teevseni. Anna Politkovskaya wrote a lot about this then, it was there that she was detained, it was in this military camp that they were inevitable for several days. And then the heroes of her articles were killed - as if on a list ...

The human rights center "Memorial" is known about the four episodes of violent disappearance in the vicinity of the village of Khatuni, in which a person named Strelkov appears. Below these episodes are briefly set out in accordance with chronology. As a result, six people disappeared. But the consequences are not limited to these: two sisters of one of the then disappeared became three years later by terrorist suits. The victims of the first were 42 passengers and a member of the crew of an exploded aircraft. The second sister participated in the capture of the school in Beslan.

******

Kagirov Baudi Denievich and Kagirov Khavazhi Denievich were detained by military personnel on the night of April 9, 2001 and taken to part of the Airborne Forces deployed at the village of Khatuni. Subsequently, a certain “Colonel Nikolai Strelkov” told his parents of the abducted brothers that no one had taken them anywhere at all. It is possible that we are talking about Igor Strelkovo - Chechens from the mountain village could easily confuse the name, not to understand the number and size of the stars on the uniform. This happened: Colonel Gazhdiev was somehow confidently called Starley. The Kagirovs were taken away by helicopter in Hankal - the mother saw them in a television plot from there. The criminal case is suspended, the fate of the Kagirovs is unknown.

Nagaev Uvais Salmanovich was abducted from his house in the village. Tevzeni Vedensky district on May 3, 2001 by employees of federal power structures who arrived at BETERIA. Relatives turned to Shamil Odtsuev, who mediated between the military and local residents. He managed to find out that some “Ushakov” and “shooters” participated in Nagaev’s detention, that they brought him to the location of the Airborne Forces group next to the village of Khatuni, tortured, and then allegedly blew up. The intermediary did not report the whereabouts of the body, and soon he was killed: on June 14, 2001, the military shot his car from a grenade launcher. Subsequently, the sisters of Uvis Nagaev became terrorist-suicide bombers: the Aminat Nagaeva on August 24, 2004 blew up the Tula region of the Tu-134 of the Volga-Aeroexpress campaign, which was from Domodedovo to Volgograd, killed 43 people. And Rosa Nagaeva participated in the capture of the school in Beslan on September 1, 2004.

Shaipov Uvais Ilyasovich was detained by employees of federal power structures, among whom was Igor Strelkov, on May 23, 2001, Shaipovna Taxi was driving from Grozny Homemen Vtevzeni. At the entrance to the village at the block, the car was stopped, the documents were checked and said that they were delaying Shaipov. My relatives, having learned, went to the post. When asked why they were detained, they answered that they suspected Uvis of relations with the militants, which, according to operational information, in March 2001 he was a guide. Shaipov was taken to the base in Khatuni. There, an officer who went to relatives said that Uvis would be released after interrogation, but Shaipov was not released either on this day or later. Relatives through intermediaries entered into negotiations with officers of this military unit, who agreed to free Uvis first for two machine guns, then also demanded a Stechkin pistol, and then also a thousand US dollars. Shaipovs did not have that kind of money. Subsequently, the military claimed that Shaipov immediately after delivery to them was taken to the military base in Hankal, and in the end they began to deny the fact of his detention. He disappeared.

Tashuev Sudyan Mutsalievich and Deville Bislan Khavazhievich. The 8th 2001 in the village of Khatuni were detained by military personnel on armored vehicles and taken away in an unknown direction. According to the information of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Chechen Republic, the abductors were commanded by officers of 45 SPN Airborne Forces Proskurin and Igor Strelkov. None of the power structures recognized its involvement in their detention. On the fact of their abduction, the prosecutor’s office of the Vedensky district opened a criminal case No. 73016 under Article 126 of Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (human abduction), soon suspended “due to the inability to establish persons involved in the crime” in accordance with clause 3 of Article 195 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR. Like thousands of similar cases. The fate of Supyan Tashuyev and Buslas is unknown.

*****

We wrote about this eight years ago (people live here. Chechnya: Chronicle of violence. Part 3. April-June 2001. / M.: “Star”. 2006. Ss.49-51, 124-125, 303-304, 389-391). What has changed? "What lessons can we learn from this, comrades?"

Firstly, these disappearance-as well as dozens of others in the vicinity of the base in Khatuni, like thousands of others for the entire “second Chechnya”-are still not investigated “due to the inability to establish persons involved ...” there is Sergey Lapin-cadets convicted by the efforts of Natalia Estemirova, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelova.

Now, Igor Strelkov has declared itself, and relatives may demand from the prosecutor's office to resume the investigation of cases. After all, violent disappearance - where they turn into a common and systematic practice - the essence of the crime against humanity that has no statute of limitations.

Secondly, it is finally clear what it is worth comparing the cellars of Slavyansk, where the Donetsk People’s Republic holds the hostages: with pits, with Zindans Hatun and Khankala, about which Anna Politkovskaya wrote.

And the third is the consequences. Causal relationships. Between the disappearance of Nagaev - and the fact that his sister blew up the plane and took away four dozen lives. How many times we said that violent disappearance is not a means of effective combating terrorism, but rather the creation of a new mobilization base for the organizers of the terror. Today's violence, current crimes, if they are not named or punished, will respond in the future.

When he sat down for a certificate of Igor Strelkovo, he did not suspect that the thread would reach Beslan and the flight from Domodedovo ...

How cramped the world is, how everything is interconnected and how reminds of ourselves our past, if we are trying to forget it.

The past, it does not go anywhere.

It returns and takes revenge.


In the photo: Ukraine. Slavyansk. April 27. The commander of the People’s Militia forces of Slavyansk Igor Strelkov (on the right) during communication with journalists in the building of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), where the Alfa special forces were taken by the SBU, captured by the people's militias of the Donetsk region.

Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Mikhail Postuev