EDITORIAL: Russia’s Siamese Twin Idiots Come Unglued

EDITORIAL

Russia’s Siamese Twin Idiots Come Unglued

“You can say that the case has on the whole been solved.”

— Vladimir Putin, February 3, 2010

“No one has a right to make an announcement about the solution of this crime.”

— Dmitri Medvedev, February 3, 2010

The horrifically successful bombing of Russia’s Domodedovo airport has caused the idiotic Siamese twins who rule the country to come unglued.  It seems those who gave their lives at the airport did not do so in vain.

They are actually, openly contradicting each other. It’s sweet music to our ears.

Preobrazhenskiy on Chechnya

Frontpagemag.com reports:

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, a former KGB agent who became one of the KGB’s harshest critics. He is the author of seven books about the KGB and Japan. His new book is KGB/FSB’s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent.

FP: Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today about Putin’s war on Chechnya, which we don’t really hear about much these days. Has Russia succeeded in stifling the Chechens? Fill us in on the latest developments.

Preobrazhenskiy: Thanks Jamie.

EDITORIAL: Caucasus Rebels, getting Bolder by the Minute

EDITORIAL

Caucasus Rebels, getting Bolder by the Minute

They are getting bolder by the minute.  Why, it’s almost like Shamil Basayev were still calling the shots.

Last week a bomb ripped through a security cordon outside a theater in Grozny, Chechnya.  Inside was the regional dictator and homicidal lunatic Ramzan Kadyrov himself, watching a show.  Next time, the local rebels were obviously saying, the bomb will be inside the theater and Kadyrov (and his cadres) will be dead.

So much for Kadyrov having pacified the Caucasus rebels.

EDITORIAL: Russian Failure and Humiliation in Ossetia and Chechnya

EDITORIAL

Russian Failure in Ossetia and Chechnya

Two reports last week highlighted the increasing humiliation Russia is experiencing in the Caucasus region.

First, Russia was left fuming with egg on its face when the Council of Europe adopted a draft resolution condemning barbarous Russian atrocities in Chechnya, and did so in the presence of infamous Chechen freedom fighter Akhmed Zakayev.  Once again, Russians were forced to confront their government’s utter failure in foreign policy in Europe, and forced to face the shame of having their wanton criminal behavior in the Caucasus exposed before a slack-jawed world.

And then came the news that Ossetia has already been declared a failed state.

In Russia, like Puppet like Master

Human Rights Watch reports:

The Russian government should closely examine evidence gathered by the Austrian government which indicates the president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, ordered the kidnapping last year of a Chechen refugee in Vienna, Human Rights Watch said today. The refugee, Umar Israilov, died as a result of gunshot wounds inflicted by his assailants.

On April 27, 2010, the Austrian prosecutor’s office announced that, following a year-long investigation into Israilov’s murder, the country’s federal counterterrorism agency had concluded that Israilov had been killed as a result of a botched kidnapping, which was allegedly ordered by Kadyrov. All three suspected kidnappers are in custody in Austria, awaiting indictment by the prosecutor’s office. Kadyrov has denied any involvement in the crime.

Chechens must be Free

Writing on Market Oracle Eric Margolis, author and contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada, writes that Chechnya must be free:

There is an old saying about the fierce Chechen tribes who inhabit southern Russia’s Caucasus mountains: “Chechen cannot ever be defeated. They can only be killed.”

Chechen are Russia’s nemesis. Even the notoriously brutal Russian mafia fears the ferocious Chechen, and for good reason.

Last year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proudly proclaimed that resistance to Russian rule in the North Caucasus had been eliminated. The region was pacified.

Confounding Putin’s claim, Chechen suicide bombers hit Moscow’s subway last week, killing 39 and injuring over 70. Chechen suicide bombers in Dagestan killed twelve, mostly policemen. There were further attacks in neighboring Dagestan. The North Caucasus was again at a boil.

The attacks seriously rattled Russians and left the Kremlin deeply embarrassed and enraged.

The Moscow Bombings: A Prelude to Russia’s Invasion of Georgia?

Frontpagemag reports (hat tip:  reader “Robert”):

The Chechen Islamist Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow that killed at least 40 people. Putin and the Russian government have vowed to hunt down those responsible for the attacks. The target of the beating of the war drums isn’t only Chechen Islamists, though. For months, Russian officials have been blaming Georgia for terrorist violence on their soil, setting the stage to remove the Saakashvili government and control Georgia.

In 2008, Russia went to war with Georgia under the pretext of protecting the Russian minority in the country from the aggressive Georgian military. The Russian forces took control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia using this excuse, and the two republics have since declared “independence” while remaining under Russian control. Since then, Russia has continually expressed opposition to the government of Mikheil Saakashvili and his removal is a clear goal.

The Hydra of Terrorism in the Failed State called Putin’s Russia

Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, writing in the Moscow Times:

Once again, Russia and the world were shocked by an atrocious terrorist attack, one in which at least 39 people were killed in the Moscow metro.

The country’s terrorists have made it clear that they are still as strong and capable as ever to strike at any time or place. The group’s main leader, Chechen rebel Doku Umarov, has been warning for years that jihad will spread to all of Russia. The suicide bombers and their supporters carried out Monday’s mission with their typical professionalism and precision. The media have reported the existence of two special schools in the Caucasus for training suicide bombers, and now those graduates have brought their “skills” to practice.

Putin has lost control in the Caucasus

The New York Times reports, under the headline “With Breakdown of Order in Russia’s Dagestan Region, Fear Stalks Police”:

At a certain point last summer, when snipers on rooftops began picking off police officers, Col. Mukhtar Mukhtarov’s wife blocked the door with her body and refused to let him leave home in his uniform.

For 25 years, it had been one of the great joys of Colonel Mukhtarov’s life to walk the streets in his red-striped police cap. But by last summer all that had been turned so thoroughly on its head that he quietly went back to his bedroom to change into civilian clothes.

His son Gassan, a 20-year-old beat officer, has known the job only this way, thick with fear. He changes in his car outside the station house. Aware that militants often follow police officers for days before killing them — his neck sometimes prickling with the sense of being watched — Gassan Mukhtarov swaps license plates with friends to make himself harder to track. He is still not safe. He knows that.

“They’ve known who I was from the first day,” he said.

It is all a measure of how thoroughly order has broken down in the Russian region of Dagestan, in the North Caucasus. Fifty-eight police officers were killed in attacks here last year, according to the republic’s Interior Ministry, many of them while running errands or standing at their posts. Last month alone, according to press reports, 13 officers were killed in bombings and gangland-style shootings.

EDITORIAL: A Postcard from that Special Hell called “Russia”

EDITORIAL

A Postcard from that Special Hell called “Russia”

Is Russia the very worst place on this planet?

We challenge you to carefully read our original translation published below in this issue, thoughtfully reflect (if you dare) on the photographs published along with it, and come to any other conclusion.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is hell on earth.

Another Original LR Translation: Lethal Garlic — More “accidental” fatalities in Ingushetia

WARNING: This post, a translation from the website of the Russian human rights organization Memorial, deals with gruesome acts of violence in the war-torn breakaway republic of Chechnya.  Following the text is a series of explicit photographs of civilian casualties resulting from a Russian “anti-terrorist” campaign.  The photos are very disturbing and all readers are advised to exercise caution in deciding the click the jump and view the entire post.  You can read the text without seeing the photographs by scrolling carefully and stopping where the text ends and the photos are marked to begin.

This translation has been prepared by LR staff. As always, corrections are welcome and encouraged.   

Hat tip:  Reader “Robert.” 

Lethal Garlic:  More “accidental” fatalities in Ingushetia 

Memorial.ru 

February 15, 2010 

On February 11-12, 2010, in a forest on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya, near the Ingush villages of Arshty and Datta, a special military operation was conducted by Russian forces.  The government reported on the destruction of a large detachment of rebel fighters and denied that any civilian casualties had occurred.  However, on February 12th we began receiving reports that there had in fact been civilians killed, and the next day we visited Arshty.  The following day we visited the Achkoi-Martan district in Chechnya.  Working with representatives of Human Rights Watch, we interviewed dozens of witnesses.  As a result, we can confidently assert that in the region where the operation was carried out were a large number of civilian residents and at least four of them were killed. 

The assault carried out by federal forces began with a missile barrage in the early morning hours on February 11th.  It continued throughout the day, ceased with the onset of darkness and then resumed the next day at dawn.  Federal forces initially reported that the cadre of rebel fighters numbered 15-25, and it was reported that from half to nearly all of them had been killed.  The President of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, visited the area on February 12th and claimed that 18 rebels had been killed.  A list of various wanted figures was given by Ingushetia’s Prosecutor Yury Turygin as having been killed in the attack. 

But we learned on February 12th that among those killed were also civilians who had been in the nearby woods gathering wild garlic, and the reports we received were confirmed by the president’s press secretary in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio, where he stated:  “During the course of the special operation about 70 local residents were evacuated from the woods where they had been collecting wild garlic, but unfortunately four of them came under fire and were killed.”  The president did not include these victims with the 18 persons killed in the raid.  [Story reported in English by RIA Novosti on February 13th here.] 

To see for ourselves, Memorial staff left for Arshty on the afternoon of February 13th.  The villagers confirmed that there had been civilian casualties, including children.  On the south-eastern outskirts of Arshty Memorial was shown the bodies of seven adults, six wrapped in sleeping bags, perhaps to identify the remains of militant fighters. 

Annals of Russian Barbarism in Chechnya

Oksana Chelysheva writes us via Facebook:

New proofs of the innocence of the Gataev couple and the role of the security police of Lithuania in fabricating charges against them were announced at the press-conference held in Helsinki on January 22.

EDITORIAL: Russia and its Bandits

EDITORIAL

Russia and its Bandits

Our hearts skipped a beat last week last week when we read reports indicating that Russian “president” Dima Medvedev had declared his intention to “eliminate the bandits” who were plaguing his country.

At last, we thought!  Finally Russia’s so-called leader has seen the light and is going to arrest proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin and his gang of thugs who have been robbing the nation blind for years.  And that’s to say nothing of the murders.

Vladimir Putin, War Criminal

Leila Pliyeva holding photos of her son Alikshan Pliyev

The Washington Post reports:

Aliskhan Pliyev was talking on his cell phone with his girlfriend one autumn afternoon when two dozen masked men in uniforms stormed into his family’s house, grabbed him and began to hustle him away.

The 30-year-old construction worker’s three sisters screamed, demanding to know where the intruders were taking him. “None of your business!” a man in a black mask shouted, before Pliyev was driven off in a convoy of cars and vans escorted by an armored personnel carrier. He hasn’t been seen since.

Officials here in the Russian region of Ingushetia say they don’t know anything about Pliyev’s abduction, one of scores in recent months that have caused fresh outrage and grief in a region already scarred by over 15 years of fighting.

But the young man’s kidnapping in the outskirts of Ingushetia’s largest city bears the hallmarks of what rights activists call Russia’s “policy of state terror,” a shadow war against violent Muslim separatists in the North Caucasus, a strategic crossroads of Europe and Asia.

A central tactic in the war, activists say, is forced disappearances – the brazen snatching of young people from their homes or off the street, often by gangs of masked men who move freely, even in areas heavily patrolled by Russian military and police. The pace of forced disappearances has doubled in the past year, following a spike in militant attacks on police and authorities, including suicide bombings, ambushes and assassinations.

A “Reign of Fear” Grips Chechnya

The New York Times reports:

Bearded police in camouflage clothes, carrying assault rifles and long daggers, stop cars with tinted windows in the rebuilt Chechen capital — their latest ploy in the hunt for Islamist fighters.

As one car pulls over, a policeman jerks open the back door, slides in and slashes the dark tinted film off the car windows with his 10-inch (25 cm) dagger.

“If you don’t like it, take it up with the president. Militants could be hiding behind these,” he snarls at a pair of nervous passengers, exposing a row of sparkling gold teeth.

Russia’s Dirty Caucasus Secrets

SBS Dateline has produced a documentary film about Russia’s secret dirty wars in the Caucasus.  Watch it here.  The following is a transcript ,which could not be more timely as Maksharib Aushev, just murdered as noted in our Special Extra below, is quoted extensively:

In the Caucasus Mountains along Russia’s southern fringe, a hidden war is escalating. Moscow says it’s battling militant Islam in the tiny republic of Ingushetia. But people here say hundreds of innocent civilians are being tortured and murdered.

REPORTER: He says, “We can no longer walk. “Our teeth have been broken, our jaws are broken. “We desperately need some help.”

They say they live in terror of a Russian security apparatus out of control.

We arrived in Nazran, the largest town in the mainly Muslim Russian Republic of Ingushetia. We were taken to a house, where we were met by a crowd of grieving women. Just a few days earlier, at 5:30 in the morning, 400 heavily armed Russian soldiers had surrounded the house.

REPORTER: And then what happened?

Babitsky on Chechnya

Andrei Babitsky

David McDuff says this is Andrei Babitsky writing under a Georgian pseudonym for Prague Watchdog:

Andrei Soldatov’s recent article in Yezhednevny Zhurnal [about Moscow’s alleged ceding of control of the counter-terrorist operation to Ramzan Kadyrov, see the link (tr.)] left me with mixed feelings. I do not consider myself too proficient a judge of the control structures of the security agencies in Chechnya, and am therefore always interested to read what the experts have to say on this subject. Soldatov is without any doubt a highly informed specialist in this field, so anything written by him is likely to help one towards a better understanding of what is taking place in the republic. However, it seems to me that in the conclusions it makes his article repeats the stereotypical fears that are characteristic of Russia’s liberal community.

Let me explain what I mean.

How the Armenians see the Caucasus Quagmire

Writing on Hetq Online, an Armenian-American freelance journalist analyzes Armenia’s position in the Caucasus quagmire:

Russia will be well along the road to total defeat by the US and NATO in the Caucasus and beyond if the recently proposed Armenian – Turkish “Protocols” are ratified.

Within two months after ratification, Turkey would be required to open its border with Armenia. Subsequently, or perhaps simultaneously, the Azerbaijani – Armenian border will open if, as appears increasingly possible, an Artsakh (Karabagh) peace agreement is signed.
Regardless of whether the Azeri border opens, a fully open Turkish – Armenian border would inevitably result in US and NATO penetration and subjugation of Armenia.

Let us look at US and Russian policy in the Caucasus, both past and present.

EDITORIAL: The Latest Barbaric Outrage from Russia’s Man in Chechnya

EDITORIAL

The Latest Barbaric Outrage from Russia’s Man in Chechnya

Last week, Russia was formally convicted after a trial once again for barbaric abuses of human rights in Chechnya by the European Court for Human Rights.  Last year, Russia was convicted more than 200 times for everything from kidnapping to murder by the ECHR, and already this year it has been ordered to pay more than $700,000 to its victims in the Caucasus region.  But the Kremlin, of course, goes right on flouting international law, and it’s only response to the convictions has been to threaten to reject the court’s jurisdiction.

That is, until recently.  In the past few months the Kremlin has hit upon a new masterstroke:  Blame the CIA.  That’s right, the CIA.

Crisis in the Caucasus

Paul Goble reports:

The recent increase in attacks on religious leaders and ordinary citizens in the North Caucasus, the editors of Nezavisimaya Gazeta say, highlights a dangerous new development in that region: the increasing role of radical extremists who do not feel themselves limited by any moral considerations.  As a result, the Moscow paper says in an unsigned editorial, the conflict in the North Caucasus bears all the signs of “a civil war” in which everyone is a potential victim, a development, the paper continues, that Moscow in recent months appears to be almost entirely oblivious.

Kadyrov’s “Robespierreian” State

Islam Online reports:

When Russia announced an end to its near-decade, long “Counter-Terrorist Operation”(CTO) in Chechnya last April, many observers were taken by surprise. The decision to call an end to this security regime was taken by senior Russian officials at the orders of Chechnya’s President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Over the past several years, Kadyrov has overseen the relative stabilization of the security situation in Chechnya, compared to the increasingly chaotic state of affairs in neighboring republics such as Ingushetia and Dagestan. Kadyrov claims that his militias have all but eliminated militants based in Chechnya. Those who have managed to survive, he claims, have fled to Ingushetia and Dagestan where they have taken advantage of less stringent security regimes to regroup and reorganise.

EDITORIAL: Putin slithers Around Kadyrov

EDITORIAL

Putin slithers Around Kadyrov

No rational person, of course, could expect the malignant ruler of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to criticize the campaign of mass murder being waged by his hand-picked Frankenstein ruler in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.  After all, to publicy admit fault by Kadyrov would be to acknowledge his own failings as well.

But it’s one thing for Putin to avoid criticizing Kadyrov as he murders political enemies left and right, quite something else entirely to rush to Kadyrov’s defense. Yet that’s just what he did earlier this week, achieving yet another loathsome new low in the modern history of Russia.  We condemn his outrageous misconduct, and even more do we condemn the craven people of Russia for allowing this repugnant reptilian dictator to represent them before the gaping, slack-jawed world.

EDITORIAL: Russia Faces the Apocalypse

EDITORIAL

Russia Faces the Apocalypse

One of the bicycle bomb scenes in "pacified" Grozny last week, courtesy of the Moscow Times

Last Friday, a pair of bombings swept through the Chechen capital of Grozny while the streets were full of people eating their lunch.  Each bombing was carried out by a suicide attacker on a bicycle riding up to a police checkpoint.  Four more police officers were killed, making a total of sixteen over the course of a week.  Add to that the massive car bombing in Nazran, Ingushetia which killed two dozen and injured well over a hundred, and you have a clear picture of apocalypse in Russia.

And that was only the beginning.  The same day that the cyclists were doing their bloody work in Grozny, something even more terrifying happened.

EDITORIAL: The Putin Kremlin is Clinically Paranoid

EDITORIAL

The Putin Kremlin is Clinically Paranoid

We reported last week on the insane ravings of Vladimir Putin,  statements so detached from reality that they could only come from the mouth of a neo-Soviet lunatic.  But no sooner had we done so than Putin’s man in Ingushetia was spewing paranoia so demented it made Putin look like Gandhi.

The indispensible Paul Goble reports that Yunus-Bek Yevkurov believes he had discovered the identity of those who are relentlessly gunning down his cabinet members and police officers.  Islamic radicals? Of course not!  The culprits are America, Britain and Israel.

EDITORIAL: Russia’s Caucasus Policy comes Unwound

EDITORIAL

The Caucasus are Burning

Sure, the friends of democracy are getting liquidated in Josef Stalin’s Vladimir Putin’s Russia left and right, and the homicidal Kadyrov regime is openly threatening more reprisals.  Indeed, they make no effort to hide their crimes because they know they have the Kremlin’s blessing.   But if you think the only people getting killed in the Caucasus these days are Putin’s enemies, think again.