Ramzan Kadyrov´s "Winter-offensive" against the rebels completely fails!!!

In late November 2008 Chechnya´s so called "pro-russian" dictator Ramzan Kadyrov once more declared to the media,that "this winter (december 08-february 09) will definitely be the last winter of the bandits (chechen rebels)". However, only few days later Kadyrov´s "right hand",interior minister Ruslan Alkhanov, dared to refute Kadyrov´s statement and complained,that the "militants are not brave enough to fight in the open field,instead they hide in the forests and mountains and shoot our people (the armed "Kadyrovites") in the back". In contrast to the always-optimistic "King Ramzan", his most loyal interior minister knew very well,that this so-called "winter-offensive" against the rebels would probably end in one more failure,as it used to be in former years as well. Three months later,at the beginning of march and spring we can say,that Alkhanov´s pessimism was fully justified.

With the beginning of snowfall in early december not Kadyrov´s forces,but the rebels themselves staged the first attack of the "winter season". In the late evening of december 3 a large rebel-squad of circa 100 men entered the village of Agishty in the foothill-region of the Shali-district in Southeastern Chechnya.The rebels killed the former village-administration head of Kadyrov´s government and his wife and son,who betrayed three rebels to Kadyrov´s militias in early 2006. They burned down their house and car and left the village. Kadyrov´s brutal answer came 24 hours later,when his armed "policemen" burned down several houses of rebel-relatives in Agishty´s neighbour-villages Khatuni and Tovzeni.

Two days later on December 6 rebel snipers killed two high-ranking "Kadyrovtsy" in Grozny and one more in Achkoy-Martan.
In the night between December 18-19 the Kadyrovtsy stormed a house in the town of Argun,where three rebels were hidden. As a result of a fierce clash four Kadyrovtsy and one rebel were killed,five more Kadyrovtsy were wounded.The two other rebels managed to escape from the house unharmed.

In January and February fighting even decreased more and you got the impression,that the war was almost finished. The rebels ambushed a car with Kadyrovites near Bamut,killing two and wounding one,but this was almost the single reported clash in whole January between the rebels and the Kadyrovtsy. In February the rebels clashed with Kadyrov´s forces near Dargo in Southern Chechnya,leaving one Kadyrovit and one rebel dead.

The most interesting development this winter was the fact,that in contrast to former years there was not a single report of a big combat in the mountains of Southern Chechnya.While the Kadyrovites raided the mountains over the last years very often in the winter-months,they refused to do so this winter,although Kadyrov had ordered them to "carry out an offensive". After suffering heavy losses in past winters this year the Kadyrovites-commanders acknowledged,that large-scale special operations were senseless,as the mountains are under full rebel control today,at least the open nature. The Kadyrovites pleased their "King Ramzan" with patrolling the village-outskirts,not daring to enter the forests and not willing to move away from their village-bases too far. Although Kadyrov did not agree to these low-scale actions of his men,this new tactic avoided large losses like in former years. It also shows,that in military questions many of Kadyrov´s commanders act more or less independant of their "Master",who is not a military genius at all. The cautious tactics of the Kadyrov-militias and the fact,that the russian troops play only a minor and a more and more unimportant role in today´s chechen war,led to a very relaxing winter-season for the several thousand rebels,who managed to spend the winter in their safe bases without fearing and facing any bigger enemy-action. The rebels used the calm winter period to accumulate weapons,ammunition and to recruit new volunteers. But of course the rebels also used the last three months to work out "big plans" for the spring-summer season 2009!

Ramzan´s "offensive" in the southern mountains was doomed to fail from the very beginning,but what was even more frustrating for Kadyrov was the extremely unsuccessful anti-insurgency-campaign of his forces in the lowlands of Northern-and Central Chechnya,which,in contrast to the southern mountains,are actually tightly controlled by Kadyrov and his circa 30.000 militiamen. Of course Kadyrov´s troops conducted many search operations in the cities and villages as well as in the fields and some forests in the plains,but these operations did not produce any positive results.
Kadyrov´s forces were neither able to find and kill a rebel-commander nor did they manage to locate small rebel groups in houses in Grozny and other cities and villages. Beside the random rebel-discovery in Argun the Kadyrovtsy found not a single rebel-squad in lowland-chechnya,which today is called "Kadyrovstan" by many chechens.

The poor achievements of Kadyrov´s fources this winter even in the lowlands could have three reasons! First,because today most rebels spent the winter in their numerous mountain-bases; second,because Kadyrov´s chechen FSB-branch lacks good agents and accurate professionality; and third,because the overwhelming majority of the chechen civilian population,maybe even some secret rebel-agents among the Kadyrovtsy themselves,are hiding the rebels in their houses without giving any information to Kadyrov´s commanders and officials.Most probably it is a mix of all three points together. All in all over the last three winter-months the situation in whole chechnya was very relaxed and calm,only several dozen Kadyrovites and a handfull of rebels were killed in the few clashes.

So far over the past days Kadyrov did not give any statement regarding his completely failed "winter-offensive";however it is evident,that in the coming spring-weeks the rebels will launch a whole series of fresh attacks not only in the mountains. All reasonable Chechnya-Experts including myself have no doubt,that the next six months in spring and summer Kadyrov´s forces will have "to pull their socks up". In the course of the severe economic crisis all over russia and the possible disintegration of the "Russian Federation" in the coming months the "chechen mujahideen" will be motivated as never before to return to power in Chechnya,which they call "Nochchicho" today,as this is the chechen name for "Chechnya"! You can also conclude,that the calm winter season 08-09 was some kind of a "calm before the storm".

Sascha J.
Independant Military Expert for Chechen Affairs
Germany