Женщины и дети: право на жизнь

During both the “first” and the “second” wars in the Chechen Republic I myself saw quite a lot of deaths, I saw killed people. I saw many wounded and deformed children and adults. I tasted grief, blood and tears. At that time and now I have heard so many stories about atrocities caused by Russian militaries to the peaceful people. The remarkable fact is that majority of these crimes were committed by so called “mercenaries”. They are the servicemen under contract. Not 18-20 years old youths, but quite grown-up men. The citizens of Chechnya call them mercenaries. This definition, in my opinion, is best suited for it. These people go to the field, go to kill other people for money. They want to build their fortune on grief, blood and misfortune of the others. They are not respected even by the regular soldiers who are on military service for regular term. As far as I understood they are even hated by the soldiers.

During one of my trips to the conference held in Moscow, it was in summer of last year, I met a former Russian soldier who served in Chechnya in 1999 -2000. We settled in one compartment; we got acquainted, talked to each other and had lunch together. He drank a bit, and then told me a story, which shocked me to the innermost of my heart. I did not ask him to tell it to me, but he gave pull to speak confessedly.

According to this ex-serviceman, I will call him Vladimir, it was winter of 2000, and to put it more precisely, late January. The subdivision, where he was doing his military service, was sent to conduct a “sweep operation” in the settlement of “Berezka” in Staropromyslovski district of Grozny city. There were many mercenaries among them, whom the soldiers called “contrabasses”. And almost all the time all of them, as Vladimir was asserting, were drunk. There were not many people in Grozny at that time as the fierce battles were still ongoing, and everyone who could, just had escaped, abandoning their dwellings and all property.

According to Vladimir, in one of the houses the servicemen met a family of seven people. The grown-up man and woman as well as young boys and two small children were immediately shot dead by the soldiers. They left alive only a girl of 13-14 years old, the only daughter of the owners of the house. The house was looted, as all other neighboring houses, which were abandoned by the people, and then was burned. The girl was thrown on the armored personnel carrier (APC) and taken to the place of their dislocation, near the settlement of Zagrazhski of Staropromyslovski district.

Vladimir told that during one week the officers of this detachment raped the girl. It happened every night, sometimes during daytime as well. Having had their whack of mockery at the girl, the commanders gave her to the mercenaries.

That what the hellhounds did to her cannot be described. She was beaten up and raped several hours a day. Moreover, not just by one person but by ф group of several people. The girl often fainted and she was brought to her senses poring over cold water. In several days after constant mockeries she was hardly alive. The girl could die any time and then they decided, as one of the mercenaries noted, to “use her last time at a profit”.

As Vladimir told, the half dead and naked child was hanged by hands in one of the basement premises the way that her feet were hardly touching the flour. Then they brought a young man to the basement. He was detained earlier. During several days the poor man was being beaten and tortured. He was demanded to tell where the weapon was hided and the whereabouts of the fighters. But he kept silence obdurately despite all cruel tortures, which the brutal mercenaries applied. They seared his body with hot iron, knifed him, clubbed and beat him with heavy army boots but the young man repeatedly harped on that he did not know anything and anyone, because he had recently returned from Russia. Vladimir knew that neither the tiny girl nor the detained man had any chance to survive.

According to the soldier, it was he who was told to take the detainee to the place where a group of mercenaries gathered and the girl was kept. On the way to the basement he whispered to the detainee not to tell anything against himself and warned him that in any case he would not be released. He was hardly standing on his feet when he was taken into the basement and put in front of crucified girl.

Again the mercenaries demanded to tell where he hided the weapons adding that otherwise they would “start” from the girl. The man continued keeping silence. Then one of the mercenaries approached the hanged girl and cut her breast with a knife. She began to cry deliriously because of the pain. The young man just died and tried to turn his back from this horrible show. The mercenaries started beating him demanding to look at how the girl was dying “because of him”. Then the same mercenary cut the girl’s second breast and she lost consciousness. The man started asking the mercenaries to stop this violence and told them that he saw how one of the local residents hided a sub-machine gun in a drain pipe, and mentioned the place. The mercenaries were greatly amused by this answer.

Saying that “none of you are needed now” they started smashing the half-died girl. First they cut off her legs with a meat-cutting axe, then they cut off her arms, and when the blooded stump fell on the floor – they cut her head. The pieces of meat were thrown into a large sack. Then they took the detained man outside, to the abandoned place, tied him to the box with trotyl, put the remains of the girl on the top of the box and blasted both of them. The dead child and still alive young man.

Vladimir cried telling this story to me. He told that “contrabasses” always jeered at the people, killed everybody without any pity despite the sex, age and nationality. Sometimes even the regular soldiers became the objects of mercenaries’ mockery. Vladimir got off somewhere in Voronezh. I had not seen him any more. Though he left his phone number and took mine but we had never called each other. Why?

The story told by the former soldier of the Russian army is probably the most horrible one that I have ever heard during these years. Though I repeat again that I have heard and seen a lot. Unfortunately, I do not know the names and surnames of the girl and the young man. May be their relatives, if not close ones but the distant ones are still searching for them, hoping that probably they will return home one day but they do not even imagine how painful and terrible was their death. And these two have not got even graves. They were just torn into pieces by the blast and that is it. And it was done by the servicemen who came to “release” us from the “international terrorism”.

I have read somewhere the expression: “The one who murdered – will be murdered himself, the one who was ordered to murder – will be murdered, the one who ordered to murder – will be murdered”. And I hope a lot that those monsters in military uniform, who brutally killed unarmed people, women, children, elders, sooner or later will be adequately punished. If not on this side of the grave, so at least afterlife they will be accountable to the Almighty for all their deeds.

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