Translated material
After the battle
At night and on the morning of December 4, a real war was going on in the center of Grozny. As a result of a special operation against militants who seized the Press House and School No. 20, according to official figures, 14 security officials were killed, 11 attackers were destroyed
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December 4, 2014. Armored vehicles appeared in the center of Grozny early in the morning. Photo: AP
December 5, 2014. The body of a civilian resident was discovered in a burned -out print house. Photo: AP
During the last interview with the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, in January 2014 - the author of these lines asked what Grozny would be in 10 years. “I promise you that you will not want to leave here - it will become a wonderful tourist center, our Grozny,” answered Kadyrov.
On the evening of December 4, when we flew to Grozny, they told us: “It is better not to leave the airport. The city is closed. There is a special operation. "
As in the living
The school watchman accidentally discovered a school watchman at school No. 20, they wounded her, but she was able to call the police. The shooting at the school began early in the morning of December 4, and ended at four days. In the morning of the 5th, teachers and schoolchildren began to gather at the burnt building of the school: there was a rumor that after two in the afternoon, teachers would be allowed into the office-to see what was left after shelling. And by the middle of the day the building already had a whole crowd.
In Grozny frosty. Changing from foot to foot from the cold, women are discussing the last rumors: “They say there were only three bandits, and the shootout was going on for so many hours ...” Some of the teachers observing the battle say that at the end of the special operation “three knots were carried out, and how many bodies were in them, it is unclear.”
Fatima Gazieva, an elementary school teacher, saw the battle with her own eyes: despite the team not to leave the houses, Fatim and many of her colleagues could not resist - they went to the center. The security forces were pounding around the building from everything in a row - everything is like “then”, during the war, “when outbreaks of shots are visible in the lumen between the houses, and you look at all this and do not feel anything, because you are already used to everything,” Fatima recalls.
On the other hand, for most Chechens today every bush in the park, every new or restored building is joy. “Now you are watching how the house is sheated or how something burns, and it feels like they are shooting at you and wound you,” my old girlfriend Hed Saratova admitted in a conversation.
Where did they come from?
“About half of the first we heard shots on Putin Avenue - the militants shot at the police. It seems that there were three cars, they have 15 militants ... People are in uniform - they always have a target, they have dangerous work ... ” - tells, restoring the first minutes of the night battle, the builder Aslambek, with whom we talk in the Snontini pizzeria on one of the central avenues of Grozny.
| *“Imrat Caucasus” - a self -proclaimed Islamic state in the North Caucasus - by a decision of the Supreme Court on February 25, 2010, was recognized as a terrorist organization (the imarat is also included in the list of terrorist organizations in the United States). Imrat was created by Dok Umarov (killed in Chechnya at the end of 2013) in order to unite the Muslims of the North Caucasus and establish Sharia in the controlled territories. The organization took responsibility for the terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport on January 24, 2011, and also threatened to disrupt the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. |
And the "Islamic state", as the official Grozny claims? (It is known that the IS group has already threatened Kadyrov and his environment).
“We are now installing their personalities now,” says one of the colleagues of Malik.
In the “human rights center” of Grozny, where dozens of professional lawyers from six regions of Russia work in shift, their own version of what happened: the militants came by taxis from the village of Hastens to take revenge for fellow countrymen killed by the security forces. Human rights defenders refer to their video at their disposal, in which the deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, allegedly, threatens believers that he has “good” to shoot them from Ramzan Kadyrov himself. And after the attack on YouTube, a video with a certain action movie appeared, who says that they committed an “act of retaliation” for the offended “sisters”-muslims. “Unfortunately, the more powerless lawlessness, the worse the reaction to it,” says lawyer Sergei Babinets, “about 10 statements from those who suffered from abuse from the security forces lies from the holls and from Urus-Martan. The situation with human rights over the past six months has worsened, people began to torture more often. ”
Nonth questions
“My granddaughter is nine years old,” says the teacher Fatima Gazieva, “and she asks me:“ Where did these people who captured your school come from? ” I say: "Granddaughter, all these people studied well at school."
Gazieva does not know how to lie. That is why she does not watch films about the Chechen wars - neither the first nor about the second - she is unpleasant to hear the lies about the "bad Chechens" with whom the "good" Russian troops fought: "I do not care who shoots these films, in them, lies in them. I watch on May 9 films about the Great Patriotic War and cry - everything is more honest there. ”
“We don’t have a family where someone would not have died in the first and second Chechen ones-we live in this,” Fatima answers the question of the approaching 20th anniversary of the first Chechen. She says that it is much more difficult to answer when the children at school ask her who fought with whom and with whom: “I don’t know what to say.”
During the many hours of battle with the militants, teachers were called by parents and students with questioning how their “Brest Fortress” holds. School No. 20 has a rich 65-year story: in different years it was burned, bombed, threw grenades, burned again ... Until 2008, it remained dilapidated, the gym-the only place where it could be given: they made partitions, put the desks ... Then they demolished the school and rebuilt again. And now she gapes again with charred windows.
Was it sorry for her children? “Come on, nothing terrible happened,” the 13-year-old Gamzat, a 8th grade student smiles. “Ramzan will say, and the school will be repaired.”
December 5, 2014. Ramzan Kadyrov ordered to restore the print house for the New Year. Photo: Musa Sadulayev/AP/TASS
The young 22-year-old deputy director of the school, Islam Dzhabrailov retells the television, in which the head of Chechnya, dressed in military uniform, speaks in a high-profile connection with the militants who sown at school: “Ramzan says, come out, you will not be. And the bandit tells him about some kind of ayah. And Ramzan in response: but no one forbids you to pray, take care of your wives, mothers and children. ” This plot in local news releases was repeated all day on December 5th.
“It’s not their faith (militants) pushing them, maybe they are zombie, or they were in drugs,” Islam summarizes. He does not find another answer to the question of why the young guys attacked the city.
Fear of war
On the afternoon of December 5, the Grozny Center was not unlikely: the city returned to normal life slowly. The asphalt on the boulevard of journalists, not far from the monument to the dead reporters, is all covered with sleeves. At the nine -story building of the Press House after the fire, only a beautiful white staircase between the floors remained unharmed. But the work on the restoration of the building has already begun - Ramzan Kadyrov ordered to finish them by the New Year. Zaurbek Bagaev, a photojournalist of the Chechnya Today, says that his colleague had burned out the entire photo archive, which he gathered for 10 years.
There was a hotel on the very top floor of the seal house - there, during a special operation, a guest suffocated in fire. Many heard people shouting at the building: "Vlad, take Vlad."
| ** Material dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the First Chechen War, read tomorrow on the website of The New Times. |
There have been no such events in Grozny for a long time. The Chechen journalist Milan Mazaeva saw a fight at the Press House with her own eyes. Usually calm and reasonable, Milan speaks of the events of the December night with strong excitement: “Perhaps since August 1996 they (militants) have not entered the city in such quantities. About five or six years ago, it began to seem to us: all, they would not come anymore, they would not dare. And here again ... you see, we are all against forceful lawlessness and violations of human rights, abductions, and laid out ... But we do not want war even more ”**.
Grigory Shvedov , editor-in-chief of the online publication "Caucasian Knot":
"Lasteful Chechnya is a myth"
Until the bodies are identified, it is impossible to say exactly where these militants are from Chechnya or from neighboring Dagestan. It is likely that these are people from Chechnya. I can’t say with confidence that the time selected for attack in Grozny is connected precisely with Putin’s message to the Federal Assembly. These days there are 20 years since the beginning of the First Chechen War. It is clear that the time for the attack is chosen taking into account the maximum PR effect. As it was on October 5, when a terrorist-suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the concert hall, where the city day was celebrated and, due to a coincidence, Kadyrov’s birthday. April 3 was undermined by the BMP, four died on the spot, 11 military were injured. So the shy Chechnya is a myth that is dispelled by the activity and PR of the militants. Terrorist sorties are performed regularly, just Russian citizens do not want to know what is happening in the republic. Behind the facade of propaganda news, someone is constantly being detained, patrol machines are fired and high-explosives are laid.