‘They should all be eliminated on the spot’ Chechen Parliament speaker explains how to handle terrorists and their families

On Thursday night, December 4, gunmen infiltrated Grozny, first seizing a high-rise building and later an unoccupied schoolhouse. After many hours of fighting that included the use of heavy weaponry, local police crushed the resistance, saying they killed 11 militants. (Police suffered 14 casualties of their own.) The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has already promised to expel from the republic the militants’ relatives and raze their homes to the ground.

Speaker of the Chechen Parliament Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov recently explained to Meduza’s special correspondent Ilya Azar that most of the Chechen Interior Ministry’s losses during the Grozny attack were due to troops’ “excessive zeal.” The only people who become insurgents, Abdurakhmanov says, are mercenaries hired by the West and the local “mentally ill.” Expelling their relatives from Chechnya is actually too kind, according to Abdurakhmanov, who advocates “punishment” for militants’ fathers and older brothers on the principle of collective responsibility.

Originally published in Russian on December 8th, 2014

In recent years, Grozny’s developed a reputation for being a relatively safe city. What happened on the night of December 4?

That was the day of the “poslanie” [President Putin’s speech to the Federal Assembly on the state of the nation]. Russian nationhood is now firmly positioned as the enemy of fascism; we’re firmly declaring our opposition to what is happening in Ukraine.

[The insurgents] probably felt they had to interfere somehow—at least start shooting, running around, trying to cause a panic, and in so doing cast a shadow on Putin’s speech. Another reason was to show that they still have some quote unquote “strength” that can be put to use in Grozny and in Chechnya, the region’s calmest, most peaceful republic.

Did they pull it off?

No. They don’t have the strength. Their strength has been destroyed. The group in Grozny was made up of 10-15 men. Even if there had been 400 men, or 4,000, it wouldn’t have made a difference. This isn’t the 1990s anymore. Russia’s top leadership today is determined, well established, and we trust and support entirely Moscow’s foreign and domestic policies.

But how did you allow all this to happen?

We got too comfortable. We were too sure that such a thing wasn’t possible here. In 2010, for instance, we removed the security guards from the Parliament, took their weapons and opened the gates, so everyone could come and visit their elected officials. Our enemies studied everything, looked for weak spots, and came and shot everything up, just to make some noise. [Two police officers, a building custodian, and four militants were killed in the attack on the Parliament.]

On December 4, 2014, I was in my office. Other deputies came armed to the Parliament building and stood with me. We held our ground, ready for anything. We may be deputies, but we all served in Afghanistan, so nobody frightens us.

[The gunmen] were counting on creating a panic, but it didn’t happen. We didn’t blink an eye. People were still out walking the streets of Grozny calmly—ordinary people, never mind the police who are used to this sort of thing. [In fact, Grozny’s streets were almost empty on the evening of December 4, though pedestrians reappeared the next day, when stores and cafes reopened.]

Nonetheless, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is fond of saying [of the insurgency] there are only a dozen or so “devils” left in the forests—that they no longer present any real danger. Now, suddenly, we get this. Where did they come from?

The attack on December 4 shows just how right Kadyrov is. That was Brussels and Washington in action. Look at the speeches by Yuri Bereza and others in the Ukrainian Rada and you’ll see the proof. The militants in Chechnya are taking orders from these people. [Before December 4], a person from there arrived in Chechnya with a bunch of money.

From where?

What do you mean “from where”? From the West! People here take their money and go recruit in the neighboring areas, where they find another one or two people to join them.

Look, Chechnya still has mentally ill people. We have to admit that preventative medical care for these ailments isn’t what it used to be. In the Soviet Union, people in every village were examined and tested for basic competence. There’s no more of that now. If we could examine the people who blow themselves up, we’d see how sick they are.

You don’t think these men handle their weapons a little too well to be mentally ill?

They don’t know anything about weapons. There were two or three men with weapons who destroyed the police car, but the rest of them just turned tail. Then police cut them off, and then they ran into the Dom Pechati building. That’s all that happened—it’s all they did.

Then how did 14 police officers die?

It’s always easier to be the ones defending, when one man can stand against ten. Our boys died because they went on the offensive. Now, would they have done that, if they didn’t believe in Kadyrov? Or if they didn’t believe in Putin? Would they have gone in like that, if they weren’t certain they were defending their republic and their people? If you’re looking for the most capable leader there is, it’s Ramzan Kadyrov. He’s a commander. He’s proved it, time and time again.

The January before last, in 2013, there was a battle in Chechnya’s Nozhay-Yurtovsky District. That time, instead of seizing a building, there were snipers, who had the high ground. With Kadyrov and Chechnya at their backs, the police charged at the enemy, knowing they’d get a bullet in the forehead for it. And that’s just what they got.

Maybe their tactics could have been a bit better?

No. This was a matter of courage. I’m proud that Chechnya has such brave officers. This isn’t the 1990s, when the [Communist] Party, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin betrayed everyone. Now things are almost like they were in the Soviet Union, where everyone is racing to be first into battle. If Kadyrov or [head of the Chechen Internal Ministry Ruslan] Alkhanov had been present in Nozhay-Yurtovsky, we would have seen even greater casualties. Everyone would have joined the attack—it would have been a human avalanche.

Do you think the attack this month was against Putin and not against Kadyrov?

Anything against Kadyrov is against Russia. These people’s path from the 1990s has led to this point. Who sent these terrorists? Sometimes I wonder if I’m wrong when I blame the United States. After all, who isn’t sick and tired of hearing about the US, even though the USSR was destroyed with the West’s blessing?

But don’t recent events show it is in fact America? How else can we understand the US voting in favor of fascism at the United Nations? Or [Vice President] Biden and the CIA director leading a coup in Ukraine? I, for one, am certain the militants in Chechnya are getting their funding and their orders from there.

Not long ago, in Nozhay-Yurtovsky, a man was killed. Then we learned that he’d left Chechnya some time ago, to move to Paris, where he received asylum and a three-bedroom apartment. So he must have returned to work it all off.

The men who attacked Grozny on December 4 said in their statement that they’re mujahedeen from the Caucasus Emirate, and that the reason for their actions was the “oppression of women in Chechnya.”

The year before last, I was in Strasbourg, where I met with a deputy in the European Parliament. She had prepared a report about the oppression of women in the North Caucasus. [When we met], she was wearing ripped jeans and a tiny t-shirt—midriff exposed—sitting next to an aide dressed the same. How can a woman dressed like that write anything about our women? I asked her, “Who drove you to work? Your husband? Your brother?” She said she’d rode on public transportation!

In Chechnya, the first thing we try to do is buy a car for our mothers and wives—even a VAZ-1111 “Oka”, if it’s all we can manage. We carry our women in our arms! We drive them to the store in a Mercedes! Now, if there’s nobody in all of great Europe to care about this deputy, [how is she going to write about Chechen women]…? In the end, she never even came to visit Chechnya.

With the militants, though, it’s not about women being poorly dressed or their relatives failing to drive them to work. It’s about the authorities not letting them cover their faces, as Islam commands.

Who’s taken up arms because of that? Let’s hear some names! That is just another typical lie. According to Islam, women’s faces and hands should be uncovered.

We’re not in Tunisia or Tanzania. Ninety percent of Chechens are Muslims, but the Caucasus still has its own traditions. We tell our people “don’t go overboard!” and that’s all it takes. Not a single woman in Chechnya is harassed. Why? Because she has relatives who would raise a hand against any aggressor. Yes, sometimes there is a blade or a rifle in those hands, but that’s why we have the authorities, who deal out the punishment.

Nowhere in the Russian Federation will you find such respect and chivalry for women as in the Chechen Republic. Nowhere in this country are women’s lives so peaceful. Recently we even dedicated a holiday to the Chechen woman. Ramzan Kadyrov did it specifically to elevate women in society.

But women in Chechnya can’t cover their faces?

No.

And what happens to the woman who does cover her face?

Nothing will happen. They’ll come to her brother and her father at work and explain. A woman has to obey to her elders. This is the law, and like with the Spartans, it’s not up for discussion. If a woman doesn’t obey her elders, it means she’s not one of us.

You said all these people are paid by the West. Meaning there aren’t any religious fanatics?

There are hardly any fanatics left. Maybe there are still one or two, but the rest are bought and paid for. A third of them are simply mentally ill—that’s the only kind of person who would do this. So they found ten people for this attack on Grozny. Where are the rest? Where’s their horde? Their troops and divisions? They lie about their numbers just as they do about the oppression of women.

Our people—our fathers and our grandfathers—have always had three goals in life. We are masters of our land—that’s first. Then there’s our statehood—that’s second. And there’s religious freedom—that’s third. For 500 years, Chechens haven’t pursued anything else. Today, we’ve attained all three of these things. We’ve got a beautiful, thriving republic. Our people live in complete peace. There’s no NKVD [the KGB’s predecessor], no deportations, and no purges!

With Putin, Kadyrov achieved all this! He did it all for the people! He’s solved all our social issues! Historical, political—he’s solved them all! Now we’re a part of Russia and we live at peace, not war. We turned that page. So what can [these fanatics] think up now? Now they say somebody is being oppressed.

Do you support Kadyrov’s decision to banish from Chechnya the relatives of militants?

I worked as a teacher for nine years. I never offended a single person, let alone children, the elderly, or women. I’m not a violent person, and I’m against fascism. But I support entirely what Kadyrov said yesterday.

There’s no way a father or an older brother don’t know when his son or his sibling is preparing a terrorist attack. They should be punished. These people get salaries, benefits, retirement—and they just smile at us. Once the investigation concludes, we’ll find out how many of the attackers were Chechens, and these men’s fathers and older brothers should be punished and expelled without discussion.

And how does that accord with Russian legal norms?

In the parliament, I have the right to make laws. We pass our laws within the bounds placed on us. Concerning what’s beyond those boundaries, we intend to introduce amendments to federal law and lobby for their adoption. Yes, we’re part of the Russian Federation, but we are [also] the Chechen Republic.

Where would you send militants’ relatives?

Wherever they want. Our job is the territory of the Chechen Republic. If Moscow decides to send them away from the Russian Federation entirely, let the federal government sort that out. But in Chechnya there will be nothing for them.

Many female suicide bombers are the widows of militants. If, for example, you expel to Dagestan the family of a militant and raze their home, you’d leave them with nothing but the road into the forest, back into Chechnya.

And we’d be there waiting.

But you’d be creating new militants yourselves.

No, we’re nipping this in the bud, so their neighbors don’t start looking around and thinking, “Well they got away with this, and didn’t suffer at all.” Until now, we haven’t been dealing with them like this. We condemned it and that was all. Now there needs to be some real punishment, in addition.

You’re familiar with the principle of collective punishment? That Nazi Germany, for example, used it?

I am aware.

Isn’t this the same thing?

No. We’re not killing anyone, we’re not hanging anyone, and we’re not sending anybody to concentration camps. We’re just saying, like the Greeks, the most cultured ancient people, “Leave Athens for 10 to 15 years. You’re a danger to us and to the republic. You’re persona non grata. This is our homeland—not yours. If this were your homeland, you’d have helped develop and protect it with us. But your sons shot our sons. You’ve lived on our bread, our pay, and our pensions, and you rejoiced. Our mothers shouldn’t have to cry.”

This response is reasonable, even a bit weak, considering the crime. Really they should all be eliminated on the spot.

Who should be eliminated?

Those who knew in advance—a father or a brother who knew and remained silent.

That’s something that needs to be proved.

An investigation will show which families knew and which families didn’t. This won’t be hard. Launch a criminal case and one of every two suspects will immediately tell the investigators, “Yes, it’s true. I knew, but I’m not to blame.”

We had a case like this five or seven years ago in the Naur district, when some person convinced a bunch of people to start following him, and he declared himself an Emir. The authorities caught him and the first thing he did during questioning was betray everyone whom he’d rallied against the government! How’s that for an Emir. The militants’ relatives won’t be any different.

People in Moscow are now saying the government will have to expel every Chechen in the city who dances the lezginka, if Chechnya starts expelling the relatives of its militants.

We’re Russian citizens. We didn’t take up arms against Moscow and we have the right to dance where we want. This is our country. We fight to defend it. Whoever it is in Moscow who says this, I say they’re an enemy. These militants are taking up arms against the Russian Federation. What kind of parallel is there with dancing?

Six or seven years ago, at some party, one of the guests, a Chechen, said the words “Allāhu Akbar,” and the provost called the riot police. Can you imagine it? Orthodox Christians cross themselves all the time in Chechnya, and we don’t say a word! On the contrary, we set up an Orthodox church in Grozny before constructing a mosque.

I’d also demand that national television networks not show films that incite peoples against one another. [In the past], I’ve demanded that all television be nationalized.

In Chechnya or in Russia?

In Russia. We in Chechnya have also had journalists who incite hatred, but now they’re in Turkey. They’re even worse than the terrorists. They know to pit Russian citizens against one another. Just as soon as it’s February 23 [Defender of the Fatherland Day] or May 9 [Victory Day], they start showing “The Storm Gate” [a 2007 Russian movie about the Chechen War], about how valiantly federal soldiers fought to some end against various evil Caucasian peoples. But it was to us that terrorists from 59 foreign countries came, though we weren’t the ones policing the borders. So who let them through? We fought them, alongside federal soldiers.

You understand that not every point of view that’s different from yours is a lie.

[Sighs heavily.] If what took place today continues, no one should be under any illusions that what happened in Grozny won’t happen in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov, and other cities. When dollar democracy [sic] comes, we will have to come to the aid of Russians, Mordovians, Chuvash, and our other brothers in this nation.

Have the Chechens in Eastern Ukraine also come to the aid of Russians?

Yes, there are volunteers there. They are patriots of Russia and they’re fighting against the marauders who ran from Chechnya.

Do you support this [volunteer] movement?

Of course.

So why don’t you send a battalion officially?

For now, it’s not permitted.

The higher-ups won’t allow it?

They won’t allow it, but thousands would answer, if they issue the call. Because they see the injustice that’s happening there. The Donbas and Luhansk needs help. These republics need to be defended. Ukraine is our territory. These are our brothers, yes, but Moscow was responsible for creating Ukrainian statehood. To save this land, we gave 3.5 million soldiers of the Soviet Army—an army that included Chechens, Ingush, Karachai, and Balkars.

Why should we abandon Ukraine to the rule of [US Vice President Joe] Biden? Today Biden rules Ukraine! Can someone explain to me why Biden commands our former Soviet Russian land?! None of his people died there.

And how will you address the problem of Chechens fighting with ISIS in Syria?

We are working day and night on this. [Chechen parliament] deputies are going back to their villages and trying to make sense of things. There’s no good reason for someone to go there, but just this week another person was apprehended at the border with Azerbaijan. Now we need to sit down for a month or two and work with this man (who's just a teenager).

What reason could anyone have for going to Syria?! Again, it’s the mentally ill who do it. It’s a misguided war. We all watched Yugoslavia. Then Libya. Syria supports Russia, not America. They disagree with the Americans’ economic policies, and so Bashar Assad, the leader of Syria, an independent state, became unnecessary to the US. It’s just like when Gaddafi decided to manage his oil independently, without taking orders from Sarkozy and Merkel: they overthrew him and fed him to the wolves. This is democracy?

But why do you think Chechen militants are sponsored by the West, and not ISIS? They have promised incursions into Russia, after all.

Let them come. We’ve got Putin and Kadyrov—we sleep easy. Let all 40 or 140 thousand ISIS troops come into Chechnya, and we’ll show them what’s what. As Nikita Khrushchev said, we’ll teach them a lesson.

Who allowed them to come here, in the first place? It was Moscow that brought them here. If Moscow hadn’t helped Dudayev and Maskhadov establish themselves, if it hadn’t aided the GRU [foreign military intelligence] agent Basayev and al-Khattab, then ISIS would not be able to set foot in Chechnya.

We are entirely capable of defending our own homeland. After the turbulent 1990s, our eyes have opened, so that we’ve organized and found as leaders Ramzan Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin. We won’t allow such scum [as ISIS], these snakes, to take our land. Just let them try.

The militants didn’t touch any of the city’s civilians. Is this their way of trying to gain popularity among the public?

Nowhere have I in any place ever met someone who sympathized with these people.

You think they’d admit it to you?

Look, I know people. Anyone who thinks something different is free to sit down calmly with me and have an argument. We don’t do anything to such people—we just argue and that’s all.

I’m certain that it made no difference to the militants whom they shot. A police officer, a flight navigator, a pilot, a teacher, or a doctor. But they didn’t have a chance to get to anyone. The police intercepted them within minutes of entering the city. They just drove through the city, shooting.

But they didn’t even kill the taxi drivers. [The militants got their vehicles by calling taxis to a remote village, where they stole the cars and tied up the drivers.]

There are always flukes. In the city, to cause the greatest panic, they usually kill everyone. Leaving people alive is an accident.

Remember, they ran into a school. They probably hoped to wait for the kids to show up, so they could repeat another Beslan hostage crisis. They might have managed it, had the police not discovered them. Logically, according to their preparations and movements, that’s where they were headed. If they were so courageous and came to die, then why didn’t they storm a police station? Why’d they come so far, just to break into the Dom Pechati? Why’d they keep heading to the school?

So they went into the school intentionally? You’re saying they [only] went into the Dom Pechati because police blocked their way?

Yes, but one of their cars was able to slip through.

I think human rights activists will be displeased with your actions against militants’ families.

The human rights activists’ community has too many windbags. Unofficial and without any real work, they’re here doing jobs for Europe and America. Anna Politkovskaya, for example, never once criticized me, though twice I took her by the hands publicly and threw her out of parliament, though I didn’t want to do it to a woman. She didn’t defend any kind of rights; she just maliciously and rabidly criticized everything Russian, all while having American citizenship.

Things can go crooked, and human rights activists help people.

No human rights activist has criticized the federal government more than Kadyrov and me, when there were “sweeps” here in Chechnya. Our criticisms were harsher than Politkovskaya’s, but we [also] helped the attorney general, the military, and the Kremlin fix the problem. We didn't just criticize; we sat down with the military and drafted an order to forbid sweeps without approval from the village heads and prosecutors. We pulled people out of prison and helped them resettle. We removed unnecessary checkpoints from Chechnya’s roads.

Do you think the Kutayev case is reasonable? You think a 53-year-old political analyst suddenly became addicted to heroin? [Ruslan Kutayev, head of the Assembly of Peoples of the Caucasus and the International Committee for North Caucasus Problems, was arrested in late February 2014 for heroin possession, after holding an unsanctioned conference about the 1944 deportation of Chechens and Ingush peoples to Kazakhstan—a conference where Kutayev and others criticized Kadyrov’s government.]

If I’d been present [at his conference], I wouldn’t have let him or anyone else spread such nonsense. We ourselves are fighting to resolve the question of the [1944] deportation. [Kutayev] comes along, to this conference organized by others, opens up a live-stream on Facebook to the West, and delivers his speech directly to the camera.

There’s no doubt that he’s a smoker and a drinker. An investigation will tell us about the narcotics.

So the [1944] deportation question is off limits?

Why? Nobody has fought on this issue except us. Kutayev was nowhere to be found. He was never at these events and that tells you something about him. Now, if he’s a dishonest man, who knows if it’s just drugs he’s got. It’s a good thing a gun wasn’t found on him. One ought to work his ass off for his own country, not the West.

Now they’re saying Kutayev is Chechnya’s first political prisoner.

He could call me today and pay me a visit.

But he’s in prison!

That’s nothing. He’ll get out. Just remember how he, along with Maskhadov’s officers, sold off the remnants of the [Soviet] Chechen-Ingush Republic. After that, he’s going to tell me he’s not a drug addict? Enough lies! I didn’t sell off an ounce of the Soviet infrastructure, but he did. This shows you how much the republic and the people are worth to this person.

They probably just needed any surname for their [supposed] political prisoner.

Abdurakhmanov stands and turns to the cameraman filming the interview.

“Tomorrow, Aslan, we not going to let you go home. We’ll hold you, call in the journalists, and you can be a political prisoner, too.”

Aslan says nothing.

“You can spend three days in the cafeteria,” Abdurakhmanov adds, after a pause.

“Then I’m in,” the cameraman says exhaling, having decided it’s (probably) a joke.