A member of the OMON police anti-riot squad in the Sverdlovsk region, 1,400 kilometers east of Moscow, who declined to be identified, said in a telephone interview with The Moscow Times that he was one of 100 OMON to return from Chechnya without permission.
"We were poorly armed, we did not have enough food or heat. We had to sleep in trenches, and, finally, we were given no specific orders," the officer said. "Therefore we said we were coming back."
"They were just left to their fate and decided not to put up with this barbarous treatment," said Major Valery Inozemtsev, head of the police trade union for the Sverdlovsk region. "It was just lawlessness."
Aleksei Petrenko, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, refused to comment.
The officer from the unit said they had been transported Dec. 2 from Yekaterinburg to Rostov-on-Don, 600 kilometers south of Moscow, and then to Beslan, North Ossetia.
"We were told we were being transferred on Interior Ministry duties," he said. "There was not a single word about Chechnya."
After a few days they found themselves 10 to 20 kilometers from the Chechen capital, Grozny, armed with Kalashnikov submachine guns and truncheons, with five out-of-date armored vehicles and without any maps, he said.
"We established three posts, but we were given no exact orders on what to do," he said. "We did not even have an order to open fire, and no one knew where other police posts were situated."
The officer said that on New Year's Eve they were ordered to repulse an attack by 14 Chechen tanks.
"My heart sank. We just had to let the tanks pass by, without trying to stop them, because we had no antitank guns," he said.
He said that although the tanks were subsequently destroyed by Russian helicopters, this and many other incidents -- including "a senseless" rocket bombardment of a neighboring village -- convinced him "there is no centralized control over the military operation."
He said local administrations and civilians were very hostile. Ingush and Chechen women and children blocked roads where Russian troops were attempting to advance.
"They looked us in the eye and called us fascists and promised to slaughter us," he said.
The officer said his unit had been seriously short of food, and their living conditions had been "inhumane."
"There was no hot food at all," he said. "I saw myself how some Russian soldiers killed five dogs for lunch, because their soup had worms in it."
He said they lost patience after being told their mission was being prolonged another three weeks, until Jan. 26.
"We informed our leadership that we were not going to be there any longer, and came back," he said.
Inozemtsev said the ministry had ordered another 100 men to replace them.
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Remind me later.