ASSINOVSKAYA, Chechnya -- When two Interior Ministry light tanks rolled up from their roadblock to this rural backwater where cows and chickens wander in the muddy streets, they threatened to level the village.
It was just the latest episode in what the villagers described as a tale of shelling, killing, pillage and rape.
"At 4 P.M., two light tanks came to the northern edge of the village and announced through a loudspeaker that if we did not give up our weapons they would destroy the village with rocket strikes, artillery, or aerial bombardment," said Khas-Magomed Masarov, acting chief of the village administration. "They did not say how or to whom we should give up the weapons."
Masarov and the village elders tried to meet with the Russian commander, Lieutenant General Yury Kosolapov, whom they had met several days before when the Russians agreed not to approach Assinovskaya.
"But after we met, they bombarded the village with heavy artillery, killing livestock and knocking out our communications, gas, electricity and water," he said. On Sunday, Masarov stood on the road for two hours, flashing his headlights and sounding his horn in the agreed signal, but no one from the Russian side came to meet him.
The deadline passed, and he returned home to wait. At 1 P.M., jets screamed low over the village twice, but did not fire any missiles.
"These forces are not controlled by their commanders, and they are demoralized. We have no hope in them. They can do anything they want, any minute," said Masarov.
The incident is just the latest in almost a month of harassment by troops manning one of only two Russian checkpoints on the 55-kilometer main road that leads from Ingushetia to Grozny.
Russian Army and Interior troops man the checkpoint together, clustered around a hut, three tanks and coils of razor wire. The army, relaxed and friendly, stood by their tanks and begged matches from a passing car.
The Interior troops, legs apart in an aggressive pose, trained their guns on each approaching car.
A Russian woman, Olga Sokolova, 40, mother of two, said she was raped by soldiers from the checkpoint. In a statement to the local commander, she wrote, "On Dec. 25, 1994, at 11 P.M., someone knocked on my door ...
They said, 'We are Russian soldiers,' and I said that I would not open the door. They said they would throw a grenade.
"I opened (the door), and they burst in and started taking the groceries and good things. They took my wedding ring, they drank my home-brewed ***samogon***. One of them held us at gunpoint.
"After that they took me into the third room, and four of them started raping me. They were in masks.
"I am forced to leave. I ask you to help me."
The toll in the village at the hands of the Russian forces since the invasion of Chechnya a month ago is nine dead and 15 seriously wounded. The 15 do not include Masarov's neighbor, who lost a finger from flying shrapnel. Artillery fire and bombing have damaged 60 houses and killed over 50 head of cattle, the village's main source of income.
On the edge of the village, at the milk farm, dairy cows wandered forlornly through the mud, mooing plaintively, since they had not been milked for three days.
Last Thursday, Interior ministry troops shelled the farm and then entered it, firing on the employees, who ran away across the fields, according to the villagers.One Chechen tractor driver, a father of four, did not get away. "We found him lying here, his hat there. They beat him up and dragged him to this point. Then they shot him through the mouth," said Sulumbeg Osiyev, manager of the farm.
Osiyev and the others, who lay in the fields for six hours, returned to a wrecked farm. The troops had stolen the radio, ransacked the office, and sprayed bullets around the living quarters. Outside they burned the hay, shot up the milking machines, and killed 47 cows.
Rubble, mortar shells, and machine-gun and rifle cartridges littered the ground. One cow, wounded from a bullet in the leg, lay unable to stand. Osiyev said he did not even have a knife to put the cow out of its misery. Trying to explain the wrecking of his farm, he said, throwing up his hands, "We did nothing to them. The cows did nothing to them."
It was just the latest episode in what the villagers described as a tale of shelling, killing, pillage and rape.
"At 4 P.M., two light tanks came to the northern edge of the village and announced through a loudspeaker that if we did not give up our weapons they would destroy the village with rocket strikes, artillery, or aerial bombardment," said Khas-Magomed Masarov, acting chief of the village administration. "They did not say how or to whom we should give up the weapons."
Masarov and the village elders tried to meet with the Russian commander, Lieutenant General Yury Kosolapov, whom they had met several days before when the Russians agreed not to approach Assinovskaya.
"But after we met, they bombarded the village with heavy artillery, killing livestock and knocking out our communications, gas, electricity and water," he said. On Sunday, Masarov stood on the road for two hours, flashing his headlights and sounding his horn in the agreed signal, but no one from the Russian side came to meet him.
The deadline passed, and he returned home to wait. At 1 P.M., jets screamed low over the village twice, but did not fire any missiles.
"These forces are not controlled by their commanders, and they are demoralized. We have no hope in them. They can do anything they want, any minute," said Masarov.
The incident is just the latest in almost a month of harassment by troops manning one of only two Russian checkpoints on the 55-kilometer main road that leads from Ingushetia to Grozny.
Russian Army and Interior troops man the checkpoint together, clustered around a hut, three tanks and coils of razor wire. The army, relaxed and friendly, stood by their tanks and begged matches from a passing car.
The Interior troops, legs apart in an aggressive pose, trained their guns on each approaching car.
A Russian woman, Olga Sokolova, 40, mother of two, said she was raped by soldiers from the checkpoint. In a statement to the local commander, she wrote, "On Dec. 25, 1994, at 11 P.M., someone knocked on my door ...
They said, 'We are Russian soldiers,' and I said that I would not open the door. They said they would throw a grenade.
"I opened (the door), and they burst in and started taking the groceries and good things. They took my wedding ring, they drank my home-brewed ***samogon***. One of them held us at gunpoint.
"After that they took me into the third room, and four of them started raping me. They were in masks.
"I am forced to leave. I ask you to help me."
The toll in the village at the hands of the Russian forces since the invasion of Chechnya a month ago is nine dead and 15 seriously wounded. The 15 do not include Masarov's neighbor, who lost a finger from flying shrapnel. Artillery fire and bombing have damaged 60 houses and killed over 50 head of cattle, the village's main source of income.
On the edge of the village, at the milk farm, dairy cows wandered forlornly through the mud, mooing plaintively, since they had not been milked for three days.
Last Thursday, Interior ministry troops shelled the farm and then entered it, firing on the employees, who ran away across the fields, according to the villagers.One Chechen tractor driver, a father of four, did not get away. "We found him lying here, his hat there. They beat him up and dragged him to this point. Then they shot him through the mouth," said Sulumbeg Osiyev, manager of the farm.
Osiyev and the others, who lay in the fields for six hours, returned to a wrecked farm. The troops had stolen the radio, ransacked the office, and sprayed bullets around the living quarters. Outside they burned the hay, shot up the milking machines, and killed 47 cows.
Rubble, mortar shells, and machine-gun and rifle cartridges littered the ground. One cow, wounded from a bullet in the leg, lay unable to stand. Osiyev said he did not even have a knife to put the cow out of its misery. Trying to explain the wrecking of his farm, he said, throwing up his hands, "We did nothing to them. The cows did nothing to them."
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