From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 4/5/2007 12:20 PM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 14
April 5, 2007

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Bush Embraces General Accused of War Crimes
* Kadyrov Sworn In as Chechnya's President
* Little-Known Group Honors Kadyrov as Human Rights Defender
* Top Rebel Commander Reportedly Killed
* Oreshkin on Moscow and Kadyrov: Be Careful What You Wish For
* From Military Butcher to Political Loser: A Portrait of General
Shamanov
By Andrei Smirnov
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Bush Embraces General Accused of War Crimes

President George W. Bush welcomed Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, the aide
to Russia's defense minister and former Ulyanovsk governor who
commanded troops in Chechnya accused of committing atrocities, into
the Oval Office on March 26. Shamanov visited the White House in his
capacity as co-chairman of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on
POW/MIAs. Bush posed for pictures with Shamanov and the American co-
chairman, retired Air Force Gen. Robert Foglesong, president of
Mississippi State University. Interfax reported on April 2 that
Russia's ambassador to the United States, Yuri Ushakov, also
participated in the meeting.

The Yezhednevny zhurnal website (Ej.ru) on March 29 quoted Shamanov
as telling journalists after the meeting that he and the U.S.
president had discussed the search for Soviet soldiers who were
captured or missing in action in Afghanistan. "During the time of
the commission's work, we have managed to clarify the fate of more
than 70 people who took part in the Afghan war, and the work
continues," Shamanov said. "The American side today confirmed that
it is prepared, using the presence of coalition forces and American
forces in Afghanistan, to help us in resolving this issue." He said
that thanks to coordination with the United States, out of the 384
Soviet troops who had disappeared in Afghanistan, the fate of only
286 remains to be determined.

The Washington Post wrote on March 29 that it was not clear whether
Bush knew about Shamanov's background going into the meeting, but
that "at least some Russia experts in the government who were not
consulted on the visit did." According to the newspaper, Bush spoke
with President Vladimir Putin by telephone on March 28. On March 29,
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that Bush "was not aware of
the allegations made against" Shamanov and that "due to the
information about the current Russian commission leadership, we are
going to review how best to move forward with that important work,
without future photo ops." As the Washington Post reported on March
30, asked by a reporter whether Bush would have met with Shamanov
had he known about the allegations, Perino responded: "Unlikely."

As Human Right Watch (HRW) noted in a March 29 press release,
Shamanov, as a former commander of Russian federal forces in
Chechnya, is implicated in "grave human rights abuses," including
the killing of civilians in the villages of Alkhan-Yurt in 1999 and
Katyr-Yurt in 2000, and the illegal detention and torture of
detainees in 2000. "In December 1999, Russian troops under
Shamanov's command committed at least 14 killings which amounted to
extrajudicial executions in Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya," the HRW press
release stated. "Evidence collected by Human Rights Watch documents
that Shamanov was aware that his troops were perpetrating abuses in
Alkhan-Yurt but that he failed to take any steps to stop it. Human
Rights Watch's 1999 report on Alkhan-Yurt documented that on
December 11, 1999 a group of residents from Alkhan-Yurt attempted to
meet with Shamanov, who was in the vicinity of the village at the
time, to raise their concerns about the continuing abuses in Alkhan-
Yurt. However, Shamanov refused to listen to the villagers and,
according to one of the women in the group, swore at them and
threatened: `[G]et out of here or I will shoot you right now.'
Witnesses informed Human Rights Watch that the villagers pleaded
with Shamanov to stop the killings but after about 10 minutes the
commander forced them to leave."

Human Rights Watch noted that in February 2005, the European Court
of Human Rights, ruling in the case Isayeva vs. Russia, found
Shamanov responsible for "a military operation which involved
the `massive use of indiscriminate weapons' and which led to the
loss of civilian lives in the village of Katyr-Yurt in February
2000." The New York-based group also said that in early 2000 it
received several allegations of abuses on a military base in Tangi-
Chu by troops under Shamanov's command. "Multiple witnesses told us
that detainees were being held in pits at this military base and
were systematically tortured and ill-treated," Human Rights Watch
stated in its March 29 press release. "We interviewed several
survivors of this place of detention, who recounted being beaten
repeatedly and subjected to electric shock. The protracted period of
time over which these abuses were taking place and the considerable
numbers of allegations of abuse suggest that Shamanov either knew or
should have known about them but failed to prevent these actions or
punish the perpetrators." (For further details of the accusations
against Shamanov, see Andrei Smirnov's article below.) Human Right
Watch said that it had been in contact with the White House, which
had "acknowledged that working with Shamanov had been an error that
would be addressed."

Interestingly, Kommersant on April 2 quoted "informed sources" in
Washington as saying that the meeting between Bush and Shamanov had
been prepared by White House staffers in conjunction with officials
from Russia's Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry. The newspaper
quoted an American source "close to the White House" as saying that
the U.S. State Department was not involved in the preparations. It
also quoted sources in Washington as saying that the Kremlin
also "had a hand" in organizing the meeting. However, a source in
the Russian Defense Ministry's press service said that the ministry
had nothing to do with Shamanov's trip to Washington. Kommersant
quoted Kremlin administration sources as saying they had also been
unaware of Shamanov's plans to meet with Bush and found out about
the meeting only after it had taken place. Foreign Minister
officials contacted by Kommersant were unable to say who prepared
Shamanov's visit to the United States.

Whatever the case, the meeting was strongly condemned by human
rights activists. The Washington Post on March 29 quoted Carroll
Bogert of Human Rights Watch as saying: "This isn't someone the U.S.
president should be meeting with. This is someone the president
should be calling for an investigation of. What message does it send
to Putin? It sends the message that whatever happened in Chechnya we
don't care about."

The Associated Press on March 29 quoted Rachel Denber, deputy
director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division,
as saying that the group has compiled records, interviews and other
documentation of Shamanov's service in Chechnya that leaves no doubt
that he had to have known what his troops were doing. Denber told
the AP that the POW/MIA commission Shamanov co-chairs has "a great
mission" but that it "just seems that folks in the Defense
Department and the administration just didn't do their homework" and
that the United States should never have accepted him as the
commission's co-chair. "When his name popped up involved [sic] in
serious human rights abuses, they should have done some digging,"
Denber told the news agency. "It should have rung some alarm bells."

Novaya gazeta military affairs correspondent Vyacheslav Izmailov, a
retired major who had fought in the first Chechen war and was
personally threatened by Shamanov, wrote in the bi-weekly's April 2
edition that after Shamanov was named chairman of Russia's
Interagency Commission for Prisoners of War, Internees, and Missing
in Action in 2005, he failed "to help Russian mothers in the search
for their sons who had disappeared in the war in Chechnya." Izmailov
added: "On that account, I heard Shamanov's statements…[that] the
corresponding Chechen commission supposedly should deal with the
missing. But it [the Chechen commission] is headed by the former
head of the Ichkerian security service, Ibragim Khultygov, who, like
his former `office,' was involved in kidnapping soldiers and
civilians."

Izmailov concluded by saying he hoped Bush had agreed to meet with
Shamanov by mistake. "First of all because General Shamanov, I
think, should answer in court for multiple counts of war crimes,"
Izmailov wrote. "Secondly, because, in contrast to the Americans,
nobody is searching for our prisoners and abductees."

A commentary on the Shamanov controversy posted on the separatist
Kavkaz-Center website on March 30 and signed by Said Irbakhaev
concluded: "Meanwhile, a completely natural question arises: `Did
George Bush dirty himself by receiving a Russian war criminal and
being photographed with his arm around him?' After the war crimes
that Bush and his army have committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, it
would seem [he has] not, given that it is impossible for dirt to
soil dirt."

Shamanov, for his part, told Interfax on April 2 that his meeting
with Bush had come as a surprise to himself. "The reception by the
U.S. president came as a surprise to me as it was not included into
the original program of the visit," Shamanov told Interfax. "The
meeting lasted 10-15 minutes. George Bush expressed his satisfaction
about the work of the Russian-U.S. Commission on POW/MIAs set up 15
years ago, and said that he personally was interested in seeing that
the joint work aimed at seeking Russian and U.S. servicemen missing
in action in hotbeds of tension during the Cold War years, is
continued." Shamanov added: "Neither Chechnya nor the war in Iraq
was brought up at the meeting."

Commenting on the controversy surrounding the meeting, Shamanov
said: "The fuss made in the USA and spread by some Russian media in
connection with the U.S. president's meeting me, a former commander
of the Joint Group of Forces in the Chechen Republic, shows that
some forces are restless about the fact that Russia has won against
international terrorists in Chechnya, which is a universally
acknowledged fact. Russia continues intensifying its efforts to
stabilize the situation in the North Caucasus."

Kadyrov Sworn In as Chechnya's President

Ramzan Kadyrov was officially sworn-in as Chechnya's president on
May 5 in Gudermes. According to Russian news agencies, Kadyrov
recited the oath of office in Russian, swearing on copies of the
Russian and Chechen constitutions and the Koran. More than 2,000
guests and journalists gathered for the ceremony, including
practically all the governors and republic leaders of the Southern
Federal District. Foreign guests included ambassadors and other
officials from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria and Romania.

Earlier, ITAR-Tass quoted Chechnya's Minister of National Policy,
Press and Information Movsur Ibragimov, a member of the inaugural
organizing committee, as saying that the official swearing-in
ceremony was to last for two hours, after which an official lunch
would follow. He said that more than 1,500 guests and 500 officials
had been invited to the ceremony, which would be covered by around
200 Russian and 70 foreign journalists. According to Interfax, among
the invited guests were the leaders of the neighboring republics,
including the unrecognized breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, top officials of Russia, Kazakhstan and
Azerbaijan, top officials of the Russian Orthodox Church and the
Muslim Spiritual Board, and European and Middle Eastern ambassadors.
Members of the inaugural committee said Grozny's recently re-opened
airport would be working at a record pace, with ten passenger planes
with guests expected from Moscow alone. It was not certain that
former Chechen President Alu Alkhanov would attend the ceremonies
given that relations between him and Kadyrov had become very tense
in the months before his resignation and replacement by Kadyrov,
Vremya novostei reported on April 5.

The newspaper reported that while the final price tag for the
scheduled inaugural ceremonies was unknown, it was known that
something about 16 million rubles (around $615,000) from the
republican budget would be spent on them. According to the
inauguration's organizers, that sum would be enough to feed and
house the guests. The rest of the costs would be covered by the
Akhmad Kadyrov Foundation.

Newsru.com quoted the head of the Chechen governmental and
presidential apparatus, Abdulkakhir Izrailov, as saying that
following the inauguration, the members of the Chechen cabinet will
tender their resignations and that certain "structural changes" are
possible in the new cabinet of ministers. "The formation of the
government will be carried out in the shortest possible period," he
said. "We cannot allow ourselves to delay this process when over
1,000 objects are at the stage of being reconstructed, not to
mention other complicated tasks, which the government must take up."

Security measures were tightened in Chechnya ahead of the
inauguration, with a special operational headquarters set up for
this, headed by the republic's deputy Interior Minister, Akhmed
Yasaev. The republic's police were deployed in increased numbers
around all government buildings and patrols were stepped up, not
only in Grozny, but also in other cities in districts across
Chechnya, and both Interior Ministry personnel and army servicemen
were deployed for this purpose. Reuters reported on April 5 that
police had sealed off the center of Grozny and that the road from
the airport was lined with armed police on both sides, while armed
guards were stationed around Kadyrov's villa near Gudermes.

Little-Known Group Honors Kadyrov as Human Rights Defender

Kommersant reported on April 4 that Ramzan Kadyrov was to be awarded
the Distinguished Defender of Human Rights award in Grozny that same
day. As the Moscow Times reported on April 5, Alexander Sapronov,
the spokesman for a little-known Ukraine-based NGO called the
International Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, told
Kommersant that Kadyrov had been chosen for the award because of
his "personal contribution to the protection of human rights." The
NGO, which was registered in Kiev in 2001, claims to have 61 million
members from around the world. The committee is headed by Colonel
General Igor Danilov. Its honorary president is former Ukrainian
Interior Minister Ivan Gladysh, according to the NGO's web site.
Colonel General Viktor Kazantsev, who commanded government troops
during the campaigns in Dagestan and Chechnya in 1999 and 2000, is
the group's "extraordinary and plenipotentiary envoy."

The NGO claims such Western celebrities as former UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan and Sophia Loren, along with such Russian
notables as Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir
Zhirinovsky, television host Leonid Yakubovich and humorist Mikhail
Zhvanetsky, as members. However, Novaya gazeta on April 2 quoted
Zhirinovsky, Yakubovich and Zhvanetsky as saying they had never
heard of the organization.

Meanwhile, in an article about Kadyrov's impending presidential
inauguration published on April 1, the Sunday Times quoted an
unnamed Grozny-based human rights activist as saying of
Kadyrov: "The Kremlin, which has bombed Chechnya for years and
killed 100,000 people, is now handing it over to a dictator-in-the-
making. He behaves like someone who owns the republic and everyone
in it." On April 5, the Daily Telegraph, in article filed from
Argun, quoted family members of young men who had been tortured or
made to "disappear" by Kadyrov's security forces. Samai Abzuyeva
told the British newspaper that kadyrovtsy had tortured her son,
Abdulbek, to death a year ago in order to wrest control of his
second-hand car dealership. "Enraged that Mrs. Abzuyeva has tried to
seek justice, the militiamen, working with Abdulbek's widow who
wants to force her from her flat, have turned their anger onto the
76-year-old grandmother," the Daily Telegraph reported. It quoted
her as pleading: "I'm begging you to help me punish these people."
The Daily Telegraph also said it had recently obtained a video
showing a woman lying face down as she was flogged, apparently also
by kadyrovtsy. "Activists have interviewed her but say she is so
scared that she has begged them to drop the matter," the newspaper
reported. It compared the filmed beating to the case of Malika
Soltaeva, who, after being accused by her husband of having an
affair with a Christian, was filmed, apparently by kadyrovtsy, as
they beat her, shaved her head and painted it green, painting a
green cross on her forehead (Chechnya Weekly, January 25; May 25,
2006).

Top Rebel Commander Reportedly Killed

RIA Novosti, on April 4, quoted an unnamed federal Interior Ministry
official as saying that the commander of the rebel Eastern Front and
close associate of the late Shamil Basaev, Suleiman Imurzaev, aka
Khairulla, was killed by security forces. "As a result of a special
operation, the so-called `commander of the Eastern Front, emir of
the Vedeno district Khairulla, who was involved in a whole series of
crimes on the region's territory, was destroyed," the official said.
Interfax, citing Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov, reported
that Khairulla was one the three most influential rebel field
commanders still at large, along with Dokka Umarov and Rappani
Khalilov. In March, Umarov, who is the president of the separatist
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI), named Imurzaev a ChRI vice-
premier.

The separatist Chechenpress and Kavkaz-Center websites ran items on
the reports that Imurzaev had been killed, but said that the rebels
had not confirmed his death. RIA Novosti, quoting the federal
Prosecutor General's Office, reported on April 5 that Imurzaev's
mother and daughter-in-law had identified his body.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax on April 4 that he
was in direct control of the special operation that killed
Imurzaev. "As a result of an operation that was carefully planned
and conducted during the two months, [we] managed to follow the
trail of the so-called front commander and so-called Ichkerian vice-
premier Khairulla," Kadyrov said. "He has been destroyed." Kadyrov
added: "Considering the special significance and importance of the
operation that was [to be] carried out, its development and
execution was under my personal control from day one. The commander
of the group constantly reported to me on the course of the
operation." According to Kadyrov, the operation was carried out by a
group of no more than six people in order to keep its existence
secret.


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From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24    Sent: 4/5/2007 12:21 PM

Kavkazky Uzel, on April 4, quoted a source in the Chechen Interior
Ministry as saying the operation was carried out at 6 a.m., local
time, in the Vedeno district by members of the republican Interior
Ministry and Federal Security Service (FSB) branches. Khairulla was
killed when he offered armed resistance to his capture, the source
said. The website quoted representatives of "power structures" as
saying that Imurzaev had been one of Shamil Basaev's "closest
associates" and quoted Ramzan Kadyrov as saying that Basaev and
Imurzaev were the organizers of the bombing that killed his father,
Akhmad Kadyrov, in Grozny's Dinamo Stadium on May 9, 2004. Kadyrov
said in March 2006 that the "direct executor" of the bombing that
killed his father had been "eliminated" by law-enforcement agencies
the previous year but that "the organizer of the crime, Khairulla,
is still alive, but I hope not for long" (Chechnya Weekly, March 23,
2006).

Speaking to journalists in Grozny on April 4, Kadyrov called
Imurzaev "one of the bloodiest terrorists," Kavkazky Uzel
reported. "This person took responsibility for the murder of my
father and said that Ramzan Kadyrov will be next," Kadyrov said. He
added that Imurzaev, "along with these notorious terrorist acts, was
also involved in the murder of civilians – directors of schools and
representatives of administrations and public servants."

Kadyrov said that the "immediate preparation" for the operation to
take out Khairulla had lasted for two weeks and that the operation
itself "was successfully carried out at dawn today by the staff of
the Russian MVD and FSB for the Chechen Republic." He also said that
the operation resulted in a shootout that left dead and wounded
among the militants "who were with the destroyed terrorist." Adam
Delimkhanov, the Chechen government vice-premier in charge of the
republic's force agencies, said there were no losses among the law-
enforcement personnel that conducted the operation.

RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed federal FSB official as saying that
Imurzaev was born in 1974, a native of Dagestan's Novolaksk district
and had commanded the rebel's southeastern front. Delimkhanov told
ITAR-Tass that approximately 50-60 fighters were under Khairulla's
command. Kavkazky Uzel quoted an unnamed special services source as
saying that Khairulla was responsible for "numerous bloody crimes,"
including the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov, "the organization of
the rebellion in the Republic of Dagestan in September 1999, and
numerous attacks on servicemen, Chechen policemen [and] peaceful
citizens."

Oreshkin on Moscow and Kadyrov: Be Careful What You Wish For

Commenting on reports that the Chechen parliament had asked Moscow
for an initial payment of 18.1 billion rubles (around $691 million),
to be followed by yearly payments of 10 billion rubles (around $384
million), political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, who heads the Merkator
research group, told Kavkazky Uzel on April 2: "Kadyrov has gathered
up all of the administrative and force levers in the republic. Now
he is demonstrating to his people that he is a genuine dzhigit
[literally, "skillful horseman"] and knows how to beat money out of
the Kremlin's money-bags in support of his regional elites."
Oreshkin added that Kadyrov "understands that the center depends on
him, that the center has no one else to stake on, that if an
alternative figure appears there, then the configuration of power
that Kadyrov built will collapse and chaos will rise again in
Chechnya…Correspondingly, he demands money as payment for his
loyalty. And will be demanding it."

Oreshkin said the Kremlin will subsidize Chechnya, but most likely
in unofficial and non-public ways. "Agreeing to such demands – to
compensate the victims of political repression for moral and
material damage – creates a precedent: the Ingush can also demand
compensation, for example. Therefore, the transfer of money will
take place `hand-to-hand.' Not recognizing those subsidies de jure,
the Kremlin recognizes them de facto."

Oreshkin told Kavkazky Uzel that the federal subsidies to Chechnya
have already been increasing by a factor of two to three each year,
following the traditional pattern in which a colonial power sponsors
a colony in exchange for symbolic devotion. However, sooner or later
this will lead to a catastrophe, Oreshkin warned – either when the
center is no longer financially able to "feed" the regional elites
or when the demands of these elites grow. "And the needs [of the
regional elites] will grow very quickly, because these territories
consider themselves not as colonies, but as equal subjects,"
Oreshkin said. "In a few years the center will not be able to
satisfy Chechnya's demands." Russia is thereby paying dearly for
its "imperial mentality," he said.

Oreshkin said the situation in Chechnya could worsen within a few
years. "The technology of power that Kadyrov practices is based upon
strict control by means of force," he said. "That type of control
suppresses the development of business. Correspondingly, Chechnya
will not be able to become self-sufficient. It can only be
subsidized and be a millstone around Moscow's neck." When the
international community eventually feels less dependent on Russia
and President Vladimir Putin in dealing with such issues as energy
supplies, the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism, Oreshkin
said, "then the Chechen problem will rise to the surface."

Meanwhile, Kavkazky Uzel on April 2 cited an article published in
the newspaper Chechenskoe obshchestvo on March 29, entitled "Ramzan
the Terrible" and written by the newspaper's editor, Timur Aliev,
suggesting that Kadyrov could become Russia's president.

From Military Butcher to Political Loser: A Portrait of General
Shamanov
By Andrei Smirnov

The Oval Office meeting between President George W. Bush and
Vladimir Shamanov on March 26 has provoked a serious scandal in the
United States. The scandal has once again focused the public's
attention on the Russian general. So, who is Mr. Shamanov and why do
many believe that the American president should not have met with
him?

Vladimir Shamanov was born in 1957. He began his career in the
Russian army as a paratrooper officer. In 1986, Shamanov became a
battalion commander in the Soviet Union's elite Pskov Paratrooper
Division. In 1993 and 1994, Shamanov served in the 104th paratrooper
division stationed in the city of Ulyanovsk.

The Russian army invaded Chechnya in 1994, but after the failure of
the assault on the Chechen capital of Grozny on December 31 of that
year, it became clear to the Russian military commanders that
additional troops were needed to suppress the Chechen resistance.
Shamanov's 104th division was sent to Chechnya together with many
other Russian units to strengthen the forces already in the region.
In February 1995, Vladimir Shamanov, who by that time had become a
deputy commander of the division, played a very active role in the
seizure of the Chechen capital. The top commanders noticed that
Shamanov could be useful in Chechnya because he had the two most
important characteristics that a Russian general needed in order to
fight in the region. As Gennady Troshev, another Russian general who
fought in Chechnya, put it in his book, "My War," Vladimir
Shamanov "was too hot-tempered and direct in his relations with the
Chechen population," preferring "to choose the shortest way to
victory," which "resulted in numerous casualties among Russian
soldiers." In other words, while fighting in Chechnya, Shamanov did
not care about the lives of local civilians or of his own soldiers
and officers.

This, however, enabled the general to have a successful career in
the Chechen war. In June 1995, Shamanov managed to seize the village
of Chiri-Yurt, leaving hundreds of his men dead. After that,
Shamanov became a deputy commander of the Russian military group in
Chechnya. The following year – 1996 – when the Russian army in
Chechnya found itself in a deep quagmire of guerrilla warfare,
Shamanov was particularly in demand due to his extremist ideas that
all the Chechens, armed or unarmed, should be killed. From April to
July 1996, Shamanov was the acting commander of the Russian military
group in Chechnya. On July 3, 1996, Russian military units under
Shamanov's command entered the villages of Gekhi and Mekhketi. The
villages were completely destroyed and dozens of civilians were
killed. Vyacheslav Izmailov, now a famous Russian journalist, was an
officer of the 205th Motorized Rifle Brigade at that time. He
brought two Russian journalists to these villages for them to see
how the area looked after the assault. According to Izmailov,
Shamanov threatened to kill him for this action and even ordered an
officer from a reconnaissance unit to do it. Izmailov left Chechnya,
thereby escaping imminent death.

Despite Shamanov's brutality, he continued to be regarded by the
Russian authorities as one of the most successful generals in
Chechnya. In the summer of 1996, Shamanov managed to seize Bamut, a
village in Chechnya's mountains, which no one had been able to
accomplish in the past. Hundreds of Russian soldiers were killed
during the assault, the village was completely destroyed, but
Shamanov became a hero in the eyes of Russian patriots.

Vladimir Shamanov was a key player in the second Russian military
campaign in the North Caucasus from the very beginning in August
1999. He headed an assault on the mountain villages in Dagestan that
had been occupied by the rebels. In 1999, Shamanov's tactics in both
Chechnya and Dagestan remained unchanged. Unable to conduct a
skillful military operation, he ordered that the villages first be
bombarded from the air and by artillery, and then ordered his
soldiers to go into the villages and kill anyone who was still
alive. Thanks to such methods, several Dagestani villages were
completely destroyed in August and September 1999. As for Chechnya,
Shamanov was even more brutal. In October 1999, when the Russian
army invaded the republic, Vladimir Shamanov headed the Western
Group and was responsible for occupying areas of the republic west
of Grozny. He was supposed to enter the Chechen capital through its
western outskirts.

The second campaign in Chechnya did not start smoothly for Shamanov.
As soon as his units entered Chechnya, they faced fierce resistance
from militants near the village of Goragorsky. As a result of this
resistance, Shamanov was stuck in northeast Chechnya for more than a
month. With great difficulty and at the price of enormous losses,
the Western Group moved to the outskirts of Grozny only by the end
of November.

Shamanov was much more successful in fighting unarmed Chechen
civilians. On September 29, 1999, he closed off all of Chechnya's
borders in order to prevent refugees from leaving the region. The
general ordered the bombing of a motorcade of refugees who were
trying to leave the republic for Ingushetia. Those refugees who
managed to reach the Ingush border were stopped at a checkpoint.
Shamanov personally met them – a crowd mostly composed of women and
children – and told them that they were all terrorists and that he
would not allow them to leave Chechnya. Only the intercession of
then-Ingush president, Ruslan Aushev, who insisted that they be
allowed to enter Ingushetia, saved the refugees.

Early in December 1999, the Russian army tried to seize Grozny but
without real success. General Gennady Troshev wrote in his book that
Shamanov moved very slowly and had endless quarrels about it with
Viktor Kazantsev, the commander of the Russian military group in
Chechnya at that time. Enraged by his failures, Shamanov ordered the
seizure of the village of Alkhan-Yurt, ostensibly "to isolate rebels
in the Chechen capital," as he explained later. After heavy
bombardment of the village, Shamanov's units entered it but found no
armed men, only civilians. What followed was one of the most brutal
massacres in the second Chechen war: Russian soldiers robbed, killed
and raped local civilians for more than a week.

After the massacre in Alkhan-Yurt, there were attempts to remove
Shamanov from his post as the commander of the Western Group. Early
in January 2000, the general was appointed as the commander of the
58th Army (the driving force of the Russian military in the North
Caucasus), but in fact, he remained in Chechnya and continued to
attack Grozny. According to Human Rights Watch, between December
1999 and January 2000, soldiers from Shamanov's units killed at
least fifty civilians, mostly old men and women, in Grozny's
Staropromyslovsky district.

However, such crimes did not help Shamanov or other Russian generals
to complete their mission in Grozny – the destruction of the
militants who were defending the city. Early in February 2000, more
than 3,000 Chechen fighters managed to break the siege of the city
and retreated to the mountains to prepare for guerrilla war. The
rebels lost many men during the breakout, but most of them
successfully reached the mountains. The rebels went to the
mountainous part of Chechnya through Alkhan-Kala and Katyr-Yurt,
settlements that had been declared "free" by Shamanov. Unable to
catch the retreating insurgents, Shamanov and General Yakov
Nedobitko, who is now the commander of the Russian forces in
Chechnya, ordered that those settlements be bombed in order to
punish the locals who had helped the rebels.

In fact, the retreat of the rebels to the mountains meant the
failure of the Russian plan to end the war quickly by destroying all
militant forces in Grozny. Still, the general remained proud of his
approach to counter-insurgency, telling the newspaper Novaya gazeta
in an interview published on June 19, 2000, that he viewed his image
as a "cruel general" as a compliment and that he believed the wives
and children of rebel fighters to also be "bandits" who needed to be
destroyed. At the same time, he denied the accusations of human
rights abuses in Chechnya that were leveled against him. As the
Washington Post reported on March 29, he told a reporter for the
newspaper in 2004 that the allegations were "fairy tales" and
suggested that human rights groups had planted the bodies in Alkhan-
Yurt and fabricated a slaughter to impugn Russian troops. "When
people try to raise funds and to draw attention to their groups,
they use anything," he said.

Shamanov received a "Hero of Russia" medal for fighting in Chechnya
in 1999 and 2000 but in reality, he did not win a single battle
during the second campaign. He resigned from the army and in
December 2000 was elected as governor of the Ulyanovsk region. After
less then a year, it became clear that he did not have the ability
to govern the province. He resigned in 2003 and received a
meaningless position in the Russian government – assistant to the
Prime Minister on military issues. Later on, he became the chairman
of Russia's Interagency Commission for Prisoners of War, Internees,
and Missing in Action and co-chairman of the U.S.-Russia Joint
Commission on POW/MIAs.

Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North
Caucasus. He is based in Russia.
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