September 1, 2001

***
At 2 o'clock the village of Beltoy-Yurt was blocked by the Russian military. At dawn, they began to "target cleansing." During the operation, 11 local residents were detained, three of whom are the Akhmedov brothers: Ali, born in 1965, Ruslan, born in 1969, and Yunus, born in 1977. All were taken to the Gudermes VOVD, where they were interrogated “with prejudice”. The Akhmedovs were treated especially cruelly. Terrible screams were heard from the cell where they were kept.

Ruslan Akhmedov was asked to confess that his brothers were militants. They gave blank sheets of paper to sign, but he refused, because of which the torture and beatings only intensified. Ali Akhmedov underwent two operations on his stomach, but the police demanded that the surgical scars on his body were shrapnel marks. The torture was stopped a few days later, apparently due to the fact that the brothers nevertheless took upon themselves some crimes. For two weeks after that, they were kept in the temporary department without need, waiting for the wounds from torture and beatings to heal. However, when Ali Akhmedov was released, which happened on the 19th day after his arrest, his condition was still grave.

Criminal cases were initiated against the brothers, which in April 2002 were considered in the Krasnodar Regional Court. Ali Akhmedov was released from the courtroom. Yunus Akhmedov was sentenced to three and a half years. After the trial, he was brought to Chernokozovo for a short time, and then, a week later, he was sent to serve his sentence in the correctional colony in the city of Kurgan. There he was placed for two months in the same cell with convicts suffering from tuberculosis, and he became infected. The news of this was brought to the relatives by a man who served his sentence with him.

On September 8, 2003, Yunus Akhmedov died in custody. On the fourth day after that, his corpse was brought home and buried. A healthy, strong guy lived in the penitentiary for only a year and four months.

However, even before his death, another tragedy occurred in the Akhmedov family. When the first amnesties for members of the Chechen armed resistance began, the brothers decided that they had enough of hiding from the authorities. They appealed to the ROSH and asked for amnesty. The brothers surrendered their weapons and even, it seems, got a job there. At least, according to the testimonies of people who knew them, they got "Rosh" passes, which were issued only to employees. Relatives remember officer (major or lieutenant colonel) Oleg Solodovnikov. He often visited them at home.

On January 7, 2003, Imran Akhmedov met with Ramzan Kadyrov and, returning home, said that he had no complaints against them either, since, according to him, "there is no blood on them." There is no need to run from the military, he finished the story, during the “cleansings”, they say, sit at your place. A week later, on January 14, the brothers were supposed to go to work in the ROSH, on this day they were supposed to be officially presented.

However, on 11 January 2003 at about 11.50 am two APCs drove up to their house at 17 Tsentralnaya Street. The third armored car, along with the UAZ-469 car, stopped a little to the side. Armed men in masks cordoned off the quarter where the brothers and their entire family lived. Some of them broke into the yard to their parents, Hansolt and Maida. Viskhan and Zubair Akhmedov were there at that time. Seeing the military in masks, the first of them tried to cross to the neighboring street, but fire was opened on him from automatic weapons. The wounded Viskhan Akhmedov hung on the fence in the garden. From there he was removed and thrown into an APC. Zubair Akhmedov was taken from the room and also put into an armored car. Imran Akhmedov lived next door, on Sadovaya Street. He was taken from his home.

Armored vehicles with the kidnapped brothers drove towards the city of Gudermes, within the city, they headed for the railway bridge.

Relatives searched everywhere for the kidnapped brothers. They also turned to Oleg Solodovnikov. He came to their home, looked distressed by what had happened, but promised to help. The head of the administration of Beltoy-Yurt said that one of the abductors had the call sign "Tsunami". When this was handed over to Oleg Solodovnikov, he made a surprised look and asked where this information came from and whether it was reliable. He was told that yes, it was true. The officer confessed that “Tsunami” was the call sign of the ROSH officer, but began to deny that they were holding the abductees. On this, their traces were finally lost.
Later, the head of the village administration died of a heart attack. After the brothers were kidnapped, Khizrail Akhmedov left home. His further fate is unknown. Relatives believe that if he were alive, he would definitely make himself known. One day, special services came to them and said that one of those killed during some kind of terrorist act was Khizrail Akhmedov, who had left home. They took a DNA test from the father, but he did not confirm their assumption.
On June 28, 2004, the mother of the Akhmedov brothers, Maida, born in 1938, died of a heart attack. She took the loss of her sons hard and spent all the time at the window, hoping that they would return.

***
From 4 o'clock the village of Mairtup was blocked by the Russian military. Residents were not allowed to leave it, and the road leading to the village of Kurchaloy and the village of Novogroznensky was closed to traffic. The military explained their actions by the fact that they are looking for a certain member of the armed resistance, who regularly contacts the village. The general in charge of the operation rudely demanded that the locals extradite this man, otherwise a "hard cleansing" would be carried out.

In Mairtup, obviously, something similar to what happened shortly before that in the nearby village of Alleroy was planned. Here, as well as there, in the first two days, the military broke into houses, robbed, behaved extremely rudely. The detained men and even teenagers were taken to Kurchaloy, where the FSB was located, or to the outskirts of the village, to the headquarters of the operation (a computer was installed there to check people). During the field check, at least twenty people were severely beaten.

However, further events began to develop according to a different scenario. The inhabitants of the village rallied, managed to choose the right course of action, the decisive role in this was played by Zhanati (Zhanna) Ustarkhanova (Khazbulatova), an employee of the bureau V. Kalamanova, who lives here. Having overcome many obstacles, she managed to get through to the general who led the "cleansing" and demanded that the military stop their arbitrariness and act in accordance with the order of the acting. commander of the OGV (s) No. 145 of May 27, 2001. Her demands were not taken seriously at first. An elderly woman, a teacher in the past, continued to insist on observing at least a minimum of legality. After some time, the general changed his tone and accepted the statements of the villagers, which contained complaints about the illegal actions of his subordinates.

After reviewing them, he ordered to find the one who took money from an elderly resident, to return the things stolen from other villagers. Moreover, for two rams, which were slaughtered by contractors, the military had to pay the owners 1,100 rubles each. The carpets were also returned, which the servicemen had pulled out through a window in the hall of one of the houses, while the hosts were serving tea to their colleagues in the kitchen.

In the future, those who came to the “cleansing” stopped grabbing and beating men, as happened in the first two days. The armored personnel carriers driving around the village, along with the military, were now local policemen. The general severely punished two contractors who beat a man after his order to act within the law. However, it should be noted that the employees of the VOVD of the Kurchaloy district, headed by Colonel Mikhail Prokofyevich Ivashov for the last month, from the very beginning of the operation, were distinguished by a correct attitude towards local residents.

Nevertheless, the village remained in fact under a state of siege, the school did not function, people could not work in the field. Therefore, local residents themselves suggested a way to speed up the verification process. On September 7, all men from 16 to 50 years old (2748 people in total) went out of the village to the field. And there, the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs began their complete check on a computer database. Water was brought there, a toilet was installed, a military doctor and representatives of the village administration were also there. Those who did not understand Russian were interrogated with the help of an interpreter. The Friday prayer took place on the field.

The inspection lasted from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. During it, only two residents were taken to the temporary detention center of the VOVD of the Kurchaloy district. However, in the following days, nine more people from among those who were already on the field were taken from their homes. The rest were detained in the first days of the operation.

In total, 17 residents of Mairtup were taken to the temporary detention center during the “cleansing”. Four of them were later released. On September 11, 13 people remained there. Including 17-year-old Apti Huseynovich Reshidov, who was detained because of a mistake in the spelling of his last name in his passport, the mentally ill Aslanbek Khamzatovich Gazaliev, born in 1968, who was taken away as the nephew of a combatant, and the heart-sick Buvaisar Dagalaev.

It is interesting that not only the inhabitants of the settlement needed protection, but also the conscripts who stood in a cordon along its perimeter. The fact is that the operation lasted almost nine days, and they were given food for only three days. By the end of the eighth day, hungry soldiers began to shoot cattle and raid suburban houses. At the same time, they grabbed not only food, but also everything that came to hand (even a kumgan was dragged away), perhaps hoping to sell it. Apparently, yesterday's boys, witnesses and, at first, unwitting participants in the arbitrariness of the elders, developed a stereotype of behavior during the “cleansing”, and they, perhaps, did not understand why everything should be different in this case. The inhabitants, who usually treated the "conscripts" with sympathy, seeing in them the same victims of the war as they were, were discouraged by their behavior and paid off with cakes.

Another unexpected consequence of this "mopping up" is a sharp increase in fares through the checkpoint between Mairtup and Kurchaloy. From September 10, the military took 10 rubles from each person passing by.

Whether it was possible to find the militant, because of whom it all allegedly started, is unknown. And although in the course of it it was possible to avoid the blatant arbitrariness committed in other villages of the Kurchaloy district, the necessity and expediency of carrying out such operations raises doubts. About a month before the described events in Mairtup, the Russian military killed an Arab who may have had some connection with the participants of the CRI WF. This did not require a "cleansing operation" - only the quarter in which he was hiding was cordoned off, and none of the residents were injured.

This time, the village was literally attacked in the first days, institutions did not work, work in the field was stopped, children did not attend school for ten days. For those who went to first grade, the "holiday of knowledge" was spoiled for life.

***
At 8.30 in the city of Urus-Martan, employees of the Russian law enforcement agencies took away Kazbek Khamzatovich Ibragimov, born in 1977, from their home (Chekhov St., 30). The abductors, who arrived in white and gray Zhiguli and UAZ cars without registration numbers, were wearing masks. They did not say anything about the motives for their actions.

The relatives immediately applied to the authorities with a demand to indicate the reason for the detention and the whereabouts of Kazbek Ibragimov. But not a single power structure of the region recognized its attitude to this incident.

The corpse of the kidnapped young man with traces of violent death was found the very next day. Only at the end of December 2002, the prosecutor's office of the Urus-Martan district opened a criminal case No. 61163 on the fact of the abduction (part 2 of article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of Kazbek Khamzatovich Ibragimov. Memorial Human Rights Center does not know anything about the progress of the further investigation.

From the book "People Live Here", Usam Baisaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006