what ever it is, it looks fully suppressed...
Posted on 08/19/2008 5:43:16 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
OVER the weekend, photographic proof emerged that the Russians used mur derous Chechen mercenaries to do their dirtiest dirty work in Georgia: The ragtag unit in question is so vicious that, last April, Chechnya's Russian-installed "president" demanded it be disbanded.
War snaps taken by Russian photojournalist Arkady Babchenko have been circulating among intelligence personnel. The shots reveal far more to the West than Babchenko realized.
Amid photos of the horrors of war, grateful South Ossetians and triumphant Russian troops, one series leapt out at me as a former intel officer: Bearded irregulars riding atop Russian-built armored vehicles (old BMPs, for the military-hardware buffs). The vehicles had been splashed with white lettering.
What did the scrawls announce to the world? These thugs proudly proclaimed that they're Chechens serving in the Vostok ("East") Battalion commanded by Badrudin Yamadaev - who shares a reputation for gangland violence with his brother, Ruslan.
Last spring, mercenaries from the Vostok Battalion indulged in a bloody gangland shoot-'em-up in the city of Gudermes, near their home turf. The mafia-on-steroids brutality was too much even for the Chechens (which is quite a standard). The province's puppet president publicly begged the Kremlin and its generals to disband the unit.
The generals refused. At the time, their stubborn support for the outlaw Yamadaev Brothers seemed baffling - a quiet Chechnya was a longstanding Russian goal. But last week, it all made sense: Putin's military, which had been planning the invasion of Georgia for many months, intended to unleash the worst criminals in uniform it had on the Georgian people.
Why?
Two reasons: First, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants the Georgians to suffer - to really suffer. And Chechens are the world's subject-matter experts in atrocities.
Second, this gives the Russian army itself a veil of deniability....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The U.S./Georgian program, operated from 2002 to 2007. It cost the U.S. $64 million and approximately 200 Special Op troops. The gorge was pronounced free of terrorists when the program ended.
How does Putin thank the U.S. and Goergia for what they did? He sends Chechnyan terrorist into Georgia to terrorize Gergian civilians.
Just think we are roommates at the space station.
what ever it is, it looks fully suppressed...
Here’s a link to his photos. . . offered advisemant. There are
some gruesome ones. He’s a hell of a photographer.
http://www.fromthefrontline.co.uk/blogs/index.php?blog=5&title=arkady_babchenko_in_georgia&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1page in english has a jump to his photos.
http://lsd-25.ru/2008/08/14/voyna-v-yuzhnoy-osetii-89-fotografiy-arkadiya-babchenko/
Ralph Peters made it onto The Glenn Beck Show on CNN/Headline News.
Maybe I’ve been in a coma, but the first place I’ve heard that the
Russian/Chechen operation’s code-name was the Russian term for
“Scorched Earth” was from Peters this evening.
Anyone wanting to catch the segment...Beck’s show will re-air tonight
(08-19-08) at 11PM Central Time; Peters appears at about 15 minutes
into the show.
The Vostok (Chechen) Battalion is reported (by the Russians) to be part of the "Main Intelligence Directorate", or GRU, which is part of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The Battalion is OPCON to the 42nd Motor Rifle Division, which is stationed in Chechnya.
The Chechens are therefore a part of the Russian military, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Ping for the list...
I have been reading the Chechen news group at Yahoo Groups for several months.
The real Chechens do not accept the terrorist fraction as Chechens.
I can’t say it well, as they do, but many of the so called Chechen fighters are imports and not Chechen at all.
Anna Pol....the murdered writer tried to tell us that there was more to the Nord Ost and Beslan massacres and the more I read, the more I believe that she was right.
Linvenenko is dead of poison, he also tried to expose Russia.
Now these horrible so called Chechen troops are riding the Russian tanks and I wind up thinking that Anna and Linvenenko are correct.
Why is Russia training and using terrorists to fight in their name?
Norbert the owner of the group, attempts to keep it educational and has recently banned some that were not following rules and wanted to post radical nonsense.
Their files at Yahoo were open for anyone to read.
granny
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/
August 6Friday, August 1, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Ethnic Chechens Could Form One-Third of Russian
Draftees This Fall
aul Goble
Vienna, August 1 – Because of an unusual combination of circumstances,
Chechens could easily make up one-third of young Russian citizens to be
drafted this fall, a figure that means non-Russians would easily form
more than 50 percent of that draft class and one that is certain to
disturb Russian commanders and politicians, according to a Moscow
military analyst.
In an extensive article in the current issue of “NG-Regiony,” Vladimir
Mukhin calls into question official claims that the just-completed
spring draft cycle was successfully fulfilled and points to even greater
troubles ahead this fall in complecting the Russian Federation’s armed
services (www.ng.ru/ngregions/2008-07-21/9_prizyv.html).
It is true, Mukhin says, that the military was able to draft the 133,200
young people in the plan and that 21.5 percent of them had higher
educations, double the figure from a year earlier. It reduced the number
of evaders to 6700, a quarter the rate one year earlier. But the
military was able to do that only by drafting individuals whose health
is at the very least questionable.
Human rights groups like the Soldiers’ Mothers committees believe that
as many as half of those drafted should not have been because of poor
health, and even the General Staff announced this time around that 30
percent of those it was calling to the colors should not have been.
But the prospects Moscow faces this fall are even more problematic,
Mukhin continued. On the one hand, the services will have to draft
200,000 young people all at once, 180 percent of the number drafted this
spring, and on the other, it will have to fill simultaneously two
classes who will be leaving service at the same time because of changes
in the length of service required.
Indeed, Mukhin argued, “such a large influx into the army as is
scheduled to occur this fall has not happened before in post-Soviet
Russia to their more senior commanders and the media, about whether they
will be able to cope.
In this situation, Mukhin says, “it is not excluded that in order to
fulfill draft quotas for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and
other Russian forces, the military commissariats will begin to draft
young people from Chechnya,” a step they have not taken in recent times
because of the troubles there but which could generate about 70,000
draftees this fall.
Because Chechens are “more healthy and accustomed to the military way of
life than are young people from other regions,” few of them would be
excluded under the new and more relaxed health grounds. And if Moscow
does decided to take this step, Mukhin writes, then this fall “every
third new draftee could be a Chechen.”
Mukhin’s article is not the only one focusing on these problems.
“Gazeta” today reported that the military’s draft program on “The New
Face of the Armed Forces” anticipates retaining the draft until at least
2030, thus eliminating one means commanders might have to maintain
Russian dominance in the army (gzt.ru/politics/2008/07/31/223029.html).
And an essay carried by Sobkorr.ru discussing the situation argued that
the desire of commanders to continue to rely on draftees not only
reflects the continuing impact of what it called a Soviet-era mentality
but also raised questions about what kind of conflicts Russia’s military
in fact needs to be prepared for (www.sobkorr.ru/news/4892AB98C6ED3.html).
Obviously, there are certain steps Moscow could take to address this
situation – drafting a higher percentage of ethnic Russians than of
others as it has done in the last two draft cycles or reducing the size
of the military – but neither of those are attractive militarily or
politically and consequently underscore just how many problems the
Kremlin now has in filling the ranks.
http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/08/window-on-eurasia-ethnic-chechens-could.html
To force inhabitants of an occupied country into the occupying army is a
grave international crime. N.S.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/, 2008
RFE/RL: Are Chechens Answer To Russian Army’s Manpower Shortage?
Russia’s new army?
August 06, 2008
By Liz Fuller
This fall, young Chechen men will once again be drafted into the ranks
of the Russian armed forces after an interval of several years. But
estimates of the number of potential Chechen draftees diverge
considerably, and it remains unclear where in the Russian Federation
the Chechen recruits are likely to be stationed.
When Chechnya gravitated out of Moscow’s orbit following the collapse
of the USSR in 1991, the draft system fell into abeyance, and an
entire generation of young men avoided compulsory military service.
Only in February 2001, after then-Russian President Vladimir Putin
declared a victorious end to the “counterterrorism operation” in
Chechnya did Putin’s envoy to the Southern Federal District, Viktor
Kazantsev, who commanded the Group of Russian Forces in the North
Caucasus during the 1994-96 Chechen war, order Chechen administration
head Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov to prepare the necessary paperwork to enable
young Chechen males to be drafted into the Russian Army. Kazantsev
specified that the Chechens were to serve as railway troops or in
construction units.
The first intake of 100 young Chechen men was duly inducted two months
later, a further 500 in the fall of 2001, and a total of 1,700 in
2002. But that exercise was reportedly not a total success. “Gazeta”
on March 20, 2002, reported that Russian Army Chief of General Staff
General Anatoly Kvashnin had ordered the disbanding of a sports
company consisting of 63 Chechen recruits attached to the 27th
Motorized Infantry Brigade, based near Moscow. The reason for that
decision, according to the paper, was that Russian servicemen of the
brigade who had served in Chechnya were hostile to the Chechen
recruits, while officers’ wives expressed concern for the safety and
honor of their daughters. Several months later, Kadyrov announced that
in the future all Chechen draftees would serve in their home republic.
Accordingly, the few hundred Chechens called up in 2003, 2004, and
2005 performed their military service in Chechnya. In addition,
between 60 and 80 young men signed up annually as contract servicemen
with the Vostok and Zapad battalions, which are subordinate to the
Russian Defense Ministry’s 42nd Motorized Rifle Division that is
permanently stationed in Chechnya.
Urgent Need Arises
Partly due to shortfalls over the past 12 months and partly because
both the spring and fall contingents drafted last year will be
demobilized in the coming months, no fewer than 200,000 young men must
be drafted into the army and navy this fall to maintain the required
troop levels. That figure is higher than at any time since the
collapse of the USSR. In an article published on July 21 in
“Nezavisimaya gazeta,” military expert Vladimir Mukhin wrote that
Chechnya could supply up to 70,000 of that total. By contrast, Moscow,
with a population of 8 million, will provide only 5,000 draftees.
The figure of 70,000 Chechen draftees may seem improbably high given
that the entire population of Chechnya is estimated at between 800,000
and 1 million. But at the time of the 2002 Russian census, the
Chechens were the sixth-largest ethnic group in the Russian
Federation, after the Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, and
Chuvash. And because the birthrate among Chechens has over the past
few decades been far higher than among those other nationalities, the
number of Chechens of draft age is correspondingly higher than the
percentage of Chechens among the Russian population as a whole.
In addition, proportionally fewer Chechens are rejected as unfit for
military service than are young men from elsewhere in Russia: only
8-10 percent, according to a June 5 article by Mukhin quoting
Chechnya’s military commissar, Major General Said-Selim Tsuyev. By
contrast, as many as one-third of ethnic-Russian draftees are rejected
as unfit to serve because of chronic health deficiencies or
psychological defects. Others obtain repeated deferments to continue
their studies, or their parents pay bribes to have their healthy sons
designated unfit.
In the same June 5 article, however, Mukhin also quoted Tsuyev as
estimating the number of potential draftees from the Chechen Republic
at “over 50,000,” while the news agency Kavkazsky Uzel on April 7 gave
the much lower figure of 10,000. One possible explanation for the
discrepancy between the various estimates of the number of draft-age
men in Chechnya is that in line with a directive issued by Chechen
Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov, not only young men born in 1990 will be
liable for conscription this year, but all those born between 1981 and
1990, regnum.ru reported on April 3.
That assertion raises several questions: is Kadyrov seeking to round
up the entire male population between 17 and 28 and ship them out of
Chechnya to serve elsewhere in Russia in order to deprive the North
Caucasus resistance of potential recruits? Kadyrov has on several
occasions in recent months lambasted local officials for failing to
halt the exodus of young men who leave home to fight under the banner
of self-proclaimed imam of the North Caucasus Doku Umarov. Indeed, how
many of the pool of 70,000 hypothetical draftees have jumped the gun
and already joined the resistance ranks? And could the harsh
conditions of army service outside Chechnya, including the hazing for
which the Russian armed forces are notorious, impel more young men to
make that choice?
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/
They were North Ossetians.
Didn’t Al-Qaeda admit to having commited the ‘99 apartment bombings? I feel that Putin certainly exploited them in order to rise to power.
What's you beef with Ralph Peters? He is definitely one of the good guys.
Our military was only allowed to train the Georgians for peacekeeping, anti-terrorism and small-unit tactics. The Georgians gave us all they had, and we gave them crap. The Bush administration should hang its wobbly head in shame.
Meanwhile, Chechen rapists and butchers are celebrating - and picking over the US gear the Russians captured and didn't even want.
Outrageous.
I feel ashamed.
As I recall, Putin could hardly drag himself away from his Black Sea vacation to attend to the tragedy.
yup, agreed, it’s all Bush’s fault? AGAIN?
Sheesh!
Thank you for that information. I wonder if the Chechens are on a "for hire" basis versus contract. OR, as you've pointed out, that although the Chechen group is indeed part of the military the Russians do not consider Chechen "regular" Russian military and because of their ethnicity? Do you have any thoughts in this regard? How Russia can say the savagery is not done by Russian Military -- only those Chechen thugs?
My first thoughts as word of the aggressor attrocities became known, was that these may be So Ossetians extracting their revenge upon Georgians during the mayhem.
Anna Pol....the murdered writer tried to tell us that there was more to the Nord Ost and Beslan massacres and the more I read, the more I believe that she was right.
No kidding. I'm near breathless with this information. And Russia has legalized keeping the draft in place until 2030; a draft which will cull approximately every "3rd new draftee would be Chechen."
Asidem: So this is why the Dems want the DRAFT brought back into America? So America can be more like Russia?
Aug 6, 2008: "but also raised questions about what kind of conflicts Russia’s military in fact needs to be prepared for (www.sobkorr.ru/news/4892AB98C6ED3.html)."
Just had to highlight this.
From: RFE/RL: Are Chechens Answer To Russian Army’s Manpower Shortage?
Russia’s new army?
August 06, 2008
By Liz Fuller
That assertion raises several questions: is Kadyrov seeking to round up the entire male population between 17 and 28 and ship them out of Chechnya to serve elsewhere in Russia in order to deprive the North Caucasus resistance of potential recruits?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.