June 24, 2001

***
In the morning in the village of Starye Atagi, Grozny region, the so-called passport check operation. The settlement was blocked by armored vehicles and troops. The "cleansing" was carried out only in certain quarters of the village, no arrests and beatings of people were noticed.
However, by 17:00 the situation in the village had changed dramatically. The reason for this was the explosion of the Ural car, which killed five Russian soldiers.

It happened a few tens of meters from the well-fortified and guarded premises of the POM in the former office of the Ataginsky state farm. Shortly after that, tanks and armored personnel carriers approached here, from which fire was opened on the village. The shelling was also carried out from mortars. Houses were damaged, among the local residents there were wounded. One villager, 50-year-old Khasan Ulubaev, died.

According to eyewitnesses, a public mill burned down in the village, bridges across the river were destroyed. Argun.

On the same evening, general detentions of young men began in Starye Atagi and continued the next day. The Russian military took them to the territory of a poultry farm on the western outskirts of the settlement, where they were tortured and beaten.

Thus, Sulim Gekhaev was tied to an armored personnel carrier and dragged along the ground for several hundred meters. His relative and namesake, who had recently undergone an operation to remove the appendix, were hung by the military for two hours by the arms. The rest of the detainees were beaten, demanding to confess their involvement in the preparation and implementation of the explosion at the village commandant's office.

Having failed to achieve what they wanted, the military were forced to release the Atagins, but forced them to give receipts stating that they "have no claims against the military and the police."

According to information available by the evening of June 25, several dozen residents of the village were detained. Among them was 20-year-old Said-Emin Mugaev, who, after being interrogated by the security forces, was forced to undergo treatment in Grozny for a long time.
Perhaps the quick release of the detained people took place only because the villagers gathered at the poultry farm. The protest action organized by them continued on the evening of 25 June. By this time, Starye Atagi had still not been unblocked by the Russian military.

***
At about 19.30, a conflict broke out at checkpoint No. 5, which is located in close proximity to Khankala, between units of the Russian troops following in two different columns. In one of them there were military men who were returning after the "cleansing" of the village of Alkhan-Kala, Grozny region. Others, moving from the side of the city square "Minutka", did not give way, as a result of which a shootout broke out between them. Indiscriminate fire continued until 21:00.

Witnesses of the incident were dozens of residents of the urban village. named after Michurin.

About an hour after the firefight began, helicopters appeared in the air. They fired rockets into the area around the "fighting" troop columns, presumably to contain them.

Rockets fired from helicopters also fell on residential areas of the village. Local residents descended into the cellars of their houses. However, two people nevertheless received injuries of varying severity - Ruslan Kamaldinovich Bolotbaev, born in 1938, living at the address: Erokhov St., 107, and Khadizhat Zeynalabueva, whose house on Mikhailika St. was hit by an unguided rocket projectile fired from helicopter.

As a result of the shelling, the houses of the following residents of the village of Michurin were damaged:
1. Vahi Mazovich Sugaipov (Erokhov str., 94);
2. Kaipy Mamakayeva (127 Mikhailika St.);
3. Shukurbai Matuevich Kushaliev (Vozdvizhenskaya St., 121);
4. Khamid Shirvanievich Aslakhanov (Vozdvizhenskaya St., 145);
5. Ruslan Kamaldinovich Bolotbaev (Erokhov str., 107);
6. Nuki Zeynalabueva (St. Mikhailik, 97);
7. Asludin Merzievich Albigov (Erokhov str., 91).

The incident described above was presented in the media, including on central television channels, as an attack by Chechen fighters on a convoy of Russian servicemen. Some of the commentators spoke about an attempt to recapture the body of Arbi Baraev, who was killed in Alkhan-Kala. Local residents vehemently refute these allegations.

***
The Russian military detained residents of the village of Serzhen-Yurt, Shali district, Magomed and Mairbek Alkhanov, born in 1964 and 1978, respectively.
Witnesses of what happened was their mother, Khadizhat. She said that at about 8 o'clock an armed man in a mask entered their yard and demanded that the residents show their documents. More soldiers followed. For half an hour they searched the premises. At the same time, things were scattered, furniture was broken and turned over.

Having finished checking the household, the military blindfolded Magomed and Mairbek Alkhanov and, putting them in an armored personnel carrier with tail numbers smeared with mud, took them away in an unknown direction.

On the same day, after several hours, Magomed Alkhanov was dropped off on the outskirts of Serzhen-Yurt. Obviously mocking, the military demanded to pay a fine and took 10 rubles from him. Nothing could be found out about the fate of his brother, except for the story of a fellow villager who saw how he was transferred from an armored personnel carrier to a car with tinted windows.

The appeals of the mother and wife to the power structures of the region and the republic did not help either. So, for example, they managed to contact the deputy military commander of the district Kh. Askhabov in Shali, who promised to look into everything and inform about the whereabouts of Mairbek Alkhanov. But he did not keep his word. The employees of the civil and military prosecutor's offices, as well as the temporary department of internal affairs of the district, where applications were also submitted, did not clarify the situation. Among the instances to which women turned for help and where they failed to help was the office of the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms in the Chechen Republic.

As of the end of 2001, the whereabouts of the kidnapped person had not been established.

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