On May 26, the FSB and the Investigative Committee of Russia announced the detention of three former militants from the so-called “Kabardian jamaat” in Kabardino-Balkaria. According to investigators, Anzor Batyrov, Aslanbek Kazanchev and Taimuraz Nakusov, as part of the group of Shamil Basayev and Khattab, participated in the attack on Pskov paratroopers in 2000.
We are talking about one of the most famous episodes of the second Russian-Chechen war. On February 29 – March 1, 2000, in the mountains near the village of Ulus-Kert in the Shatoi region of Chechnya, 84 out of 90 servicemen of the 6th parachute company of the 104th regiment of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division were killed in the battle for a strategically important position at height 776. The combined detachment of Basayev and Khattab, according to the investigation, numbered about 2.5 thousand militants.
Meanwhile, sources in Chechnya, as ND - Novy Dosh wrote earlier, are confident that the Chechen armed underground has never had such large detachments and the actual number of Chechen resistance fighters who participated in the clash with a company of Pskov paratroopers did not exceed 70 Human.
Members of the “Kabardian jamaat” were detained in Baksan, Chegem and the village of Nartan. They are accused of banditry, armed rebellion and assault on the life of a law enforcement officer.
ND has already written about the criminal prosecution of alleged members of Basayev’s detachment who took part in the clash with Pskov paratroopers. Thus, in the Southern District Military Court, since January, the trial of Magomed Alkhanov has been going on, who has already served 10 years of strict regime for participation in an illegal armed group and is now again accused of attacking Pskov paratroopers. Alkhanov’s lawyer claims that in his client’s 49-volume criminal case, only a few pages are devoted to the attack on Russian military personnel. These are records of the testimony of classified witnesses - already convicted militants who named his name and identified him from a photograph. However, one of them did not identify Alkhanov, saying that he had another person in mind.
Another piece of evidence is an extract from a classified list of 69 militants who surrendered to the Russian military in the Chechen village of Selmentauzen in February-March 2000. The list was allegedly compiled by FSB officers in the same year 2000. However, as Memorial notes, when Alkhanov was convicted of participation in an illegal armed group, he did not appear in the case materials. The investigation refused to declassify the witnesses and this list, as requested by the defense.
As Memorial found out, cases of attacks on Pskov paratroopers are being investigated by one group of investigators from the Main Investigations Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the North Caucasus Federal District, and its core composition does not actually change.
Over the years, the number of these criminal cases is only growing.