On May 21st 1864 commander of the Caucasian army Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov issued a decree on complete annexation of western Caucasus and ending of the Caucasian war.

The decree noted firmness and heroism of Russian soldiers that they showed in heat to overcome self-sacrificing resistance of local population who were sheltered in hiding places of wild, inaccessible mountains.

Later it became known that one million Russian officers and soldiers were killed in the Russian-Caucasian war. Despite the fact that thousands of them were awarded honours, some of them posthumously nothing was said about those hundreds of thousands of people killed and exiled from their homeland. And one million Russian soldiers were sacrificed to bring misfortunes on the heads of these people.

Probably Mikhail Romanov could not have imagined that the Caucasian war that he declared finished could have still existed in 2010 and that, like him, his successor General Nikolay Ragozhkin would have to speak about their losses and heroism of Russian soldiers in the fight against Caucasians.

Grand Duke neither could have imagined that the 21st of May – a day that he declared as the end of the Caucasian war - would have become a date of national mourning for the people that were destroyed by him.

Recollection of the 150 year-old decree of the general was prompted by statistic data voiced by commander of the internal troops of the Russian Interior Ministry General Nikolay Rogozhkin that was published in the media several days ago. They concern losses, successes and heroic activities of the body subordinated to him in the North Caucasus during the last 22 years.

As the general says that during this time only internal troops lost 12 thousand soldiers. At the moment 22 thousand officers and soldiers armed-to-the teeth with latest warfare just from internal troops are fighting against rebels in the North Caucasus and among them are two Chechen battalions each consisting of one thousand militants. No less than 22 thousand soldiers and officers were awarded honours for heroic actions in military operations and this figure is just for the internal troops. 87 out of those were awarded the highest award - order of the Hero of Russia.

The Army general declares that these data is being revealed for the first time and he hereby notes with pain in the heart that such services of the military units before their country and attitude of the state towards them should be adequate.

We should draw reader's attention to a circumstance that this data concerns only internal troops.

It does not include units of the defence ministry with its special intelligence, air force, paratroops, tank and other divisions number of which exceeds that of internal forces and who are participating in the joint large-scale anti-terrorist operations on a daily basis. This data neither includes personnel of central and local departments of the police information of foreign intelligence and FSB is absent from this data as well.

Analytical services would not need much time to determine what amount of personnel, military hardware and security services are used in the North Caucasus. And how many tens of thousands of people were killed and devastated by those 22 thousand heroes of the internal troops. Since these military personnel are awarded honours and promoted according to number of those they have killed and destroyed.

This is dry numbers of the army general but questions arise that society wants answered. Army general is the highest rank in today's Russian army. And when such person voices these numbers and does not understand what kind of political and moral conclusions he incites in the society this is not just a tragedy of Nikolay Rogozhkin but of the highest political leadership of the country.

If the general and his Moscow masters still continue to consider the North Caucasus an integral part of the Russian state then maybe they would name a country where 22 thousand people just from one government body were awarded honours and elevated to the rank of a hero (when other Ragozhkins appear in other Russian law enforcement bodies is a matter of time) for killing of their own people.

When the general talks about his losses why does not he remember how many thousands were devastated by his killers who were declared heroes?

General Rogozhkin's statistics and assessments made it clear that thinking of Russian generals and politicians have not changed since 1864 and they do not intend to stop 200-year Russian-Caucasian war which even today continues with extreme brutality and insidiousness. 

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