Death in Argun

One of the events that was actively commented on last week was the death of Abdul-Khalim Saidulaev in the Chechen city of Argun last Saturday, June 17, 2006. For a year, three months and nine days he served as the head of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which continued its underground, partisan existence. Back in the summer of 2002, Saidulaev was named the successor of Aslan Maskhadov, and during his lifetime he himself named his successor - Doku Umarov. But if Maskhadov was the elected president of the Chechen resistance, and Saidulaev, rather, a spiritual authority, then Umarov was simply one of the most prominent field commanders, his name was usually mentioned in the same breath as Shamil Basayev.

Andrei Babitsky, who spoke with him a year ago in one of the mountain camps in Chechnya, describes him as a tired man, aged early, but who sees no alternative to war while Putin rules Russia. All of Umarov's close relatives, his 70-year-old father, brother, wife and six-month-old child, were kidnapped last summer and are apparently being held hostage. However, this is unlikely to influence Umarov: let us remember that the kidnapping of seven relatives of Aslan Maskhadov at the end of 2004 did not force him to surrender.

Saidulaev's death was an accident, but a natural accident. Dangerous position. The frequent comb of “counter-terrorism” leaves little chance for the underground - both in the post-war Baltic states and Western Ukraine, and in Chechnya. But there is another pattern expressed in today’s statement by Doku Umarov. If Saidulaev took forces in other Caucasian republics under his command, then Umarov talks about creating new “fronts” in other regions of Russia. The prospect is as unpleasant as it is serious. It’s time to recall Maskhadov’s ban on transferring hostilities outside of Chechnya. The death of Abdul-Khalim Saidulaev hardly means a “final solution” to the Chechen issue, but rather an even greater complication of it.

So, there were plenty of comments regarding the significance of what happened on June 17. Even more than attempts to understand: what actually happened? This relationship has its own logic: the less knowledge, the more space remains for speculation, that is, reasoning. This genre “prevails the day”, no matter what we turn to: whether we are talking about news from the Kremlin and around (about Ustinov, for example) or about the “glorious days of the Caucasus.”

The main version of what happened in Argun on June 17 was announced in the very first hours and days. “When processing operational information, employees of the special purpose police regiment number 2 named after Akhmat Kadyrov and the Argun District Department of Internal Affairs established the whereabouts of Saidulayev and, while providing armed resistance, destroyed him,” the Minister of the Government of the Chechen Republic (not to be confused with Ichkeria!) Muslim Khuchiev told Interfax. The Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs, the department supposedly the most informed, told Interfax, without disclosing details, that “the special operation to destroy the leader of the so-called Ichkeria in Argun was carefully planned and thought out to the smallest detail.”

And, of course, Ramzan Kadyrov commented a lot on Saidulaev’s death - after all, it was the merit of his people! Standing over a half-naked body lying in a pool of blood, he stated that the “main terrorist” was sold for one and a half thousand rubles by one of his associates - because he “didn’t have enough money for a gram of heroin.” Saidulaev himself allegedly arrived in Chechnya to prepare major terrorist attacks timed to coincide with the G8 meeting... But an ambush awaited him in Argun. In general, there is something to be proud of...

In detail, according to the “security officials”, the situation was this way. Saidulaev and several associates lived in the “private sector”, on Svoboda Street in a newly built village. In the morning the house was blocked by the police and the FSB. A fight ensued. The militants tried to break through. Only two guards managed to escape. Saidulaev himself was killed. Unofficially, the same security forces said that the operation was by no means “carefully planned”, but was rather accidental - “luck.” And that only local “security officials” took part in it. In that very “Indian village” on the outskirts of Argun, renovations began in one of the houses. One of the team of hired workers digging a well, as Kommersant writes, told local police officers about suspicious bearded men who were hiding in the basement of a nearby abandoned mansion. In the morning, several police officers and FSB officers left for an inspection at the address. The militants heard the noise of the cars, were the first to open fire and began throwing grenades. How long Saidulaev was hiding there, Gazeta writes with reference to the FSB department for the Chechen Republic, is unknown: “Maybe he went there for just 15 minutes, or maybe he lived for several weeks, we’ll find out...”

The separatists, especially their radical wing, commented in their own way on the course and outcome of the battle in Argun. There were at least three hundred soldiers on the “Russian” side, and many were killed. “Residents from Shosseynaya Street say that in the morning, when it was already getting light, a truck pulled out from the direction of the village. When crossing the road, the tarpaulin on the truck fell back, revealing a mountain of corpses underneath... The Sheikh sent many souls of Russian occupiers and national traitors to Hell ", that is, kafirs and munafiks...

That is, all three versions differ in details.

The reader is offered another version - the result of an investigation conducted by employees of the Memorial Human Rights Center. At about 10.00, several FSB officers arrived from Grozny at the Argunsky District Department of Internal Affairs "Grozny". They asked for reinforcements to check an address in an “Indian village.” In total, up to ten people went there, together with local police officers. Having found the house they were looking for, the security forces calmly entered the yard. From the house they opened fire to kill them, one FSB officer was killed on the spot. One of the policemen threw a guarantor into the house. Firing back, security officers and policemen ran out of the yard and called for reinforcements...

About twenty minutes later, on a nearby street, two armed men approached the house where the funeral was taking place: one had two machine guns, the other had three. Traces of blood were visible on their clothes. They asked to call the driver of the Gazelle standing nearby - it turned out to be 28-year-old Roman Ubraimov. He went out to unknown people, and they told him that their comrade had been killed and that soon there would be many military men here. And then they will have to fight, and innocent people may suffer. As a result, they threatened with weapons and demanded to be taken out of the city. Roman complied. It is unknown how many there were in total. Roman did not see how many people got into his car: the unknown people forbade him to turn around, and turned the rear-view mirror in the other direction. After the battle, residents of the “Indian village” saw two armed young men and a young woman with three large bags leaving the house through the garden. Her clothes were stained with blood. They were leaving the “Indian village”, and a column of equipment was already coming towards them. None of the security officials paid attention to the Gazelle. The car drove out of the city unhindered towards Shali. On the way, unknown people called someone and said: “One of our brothers has been killed.” Before reaching the checkpoint near the village of Mesker-Yurt, the unknown people ordered Roman to stop the car and left. Ubraimov returned back to Argun.

When reinforcements arrived at the battlefield, the security forces examined the house and found the body of a man inside. He died from a grenade explosion. He was identified as Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev. The body was taken to Tsentoroi. The identity of the owner of the house could not be established. Roman Ubraimov was taken for questioning to the police department and was released only the next day after lunch. On the same day, the corpse of Sadulaev from Tsentoroy was brought back to the police department in Argun, and on June 18 it was sent to Mozdok for examination.

Ramzan Kadyrov awarded the employee of the regional department who threw a grenade into the house, the explosion of which killed Sadulayev. The policeman received a Lexus jeep and a Stechkin pistol... These are the details and details.

It turns out that the death of Abdul-Halim Sadulayev was not the result of some pre-planned large-scale operation. There was no “surrender” of him by the militants. He died accidentally during a short combat encounter during a routine check of a suspicious address.