"Pulverizing" Chechens

CAIRO — Breaking limbs with a hammer, administering electric shocks and "pulverizing" detainees are but a few of the atrocities perpetrated by Russian death squads against Chechens.
"We'd beat them to a pulp with our bare hands and with sticks," Vladimir, a Russian Special Force officer, told The Sunday Times on April 26, citing one of a series of brutal methods used against Chechen fighters.

"One very effective method is ‘the grand piano’ - when one by one we’d smash the captive’s fingers with a hammer," he added.

"It's dirty and difficult work. You would not be human if you enjoyed it but it was the only way to get this filth to talk."

Captives were also forced to perform sexual acts with the scenes then circulated among Chechen fighters as part of psychological warfare.

Chechnya has been ravaged by conflict since 1994, with just three years of relative peace after the first war between Russian forces and Chechen fighters ended in August 1996.

The second war was ordered by late president Boris Yeltsin in 1999, just months before he resigned and was succeeded by Vladimir Putin, now the prime minister.

International human rights watchdogs had said in a joint statement that rape, torture and extrajudicial executions by Russian troops were everyday occurrences in Chechnya.

At least 100,000 civilians -- about 10 percent of the population -- are estimated to have been killed in both wars, though rights groups say the real numbers are much higher.

Pulverization

Death squad officers also gave accounts of a common technique used against Chechens known as pulverization.

In one incident, heavily armed men in masks and camouflage uniforms stormed a single-storey house in a small village deep in the Chechen countryside, arresting three women on charges of recruiting fighters.

"At first the older one denied everything," said a senior Special Forces officer.

"Then we roughed her up and gave her electric shocks. She provided us with good information. Once we were done with her we shot her in the head."

The Russian soldiers then disposed the woman's body in a field.

"We placed an artillery shell between her legs and one over her chest, added several 200-gram TNT blocks and blew her to smithereens," said the officer.

"The trick is to make sure absolutely nothing is left. No body, no proof, no problem."

The technique was known as pulverization.

The two other women were taken away for further interrogation before they, too, were executed.

Andrei, a third Special Force officer, took part in the most brutal revenge operation in Chechnya in 2002, killing 200 people following the killing of two Russian security agents and two soldiers.

In another operation, his unit stumbled across dozens of wounded fighters in a cellar used as a field hospital.

"The fighters who were well enough to be interrogated were taken away. We executed the others, together with some of the women."

Andrei insisted their brutal methods were approved by superiors.

"Our bosses knew about such methods but there was a clear understanding that we should cover our tracks," he said.

"What mattered most was to carry out this work professionally, not to leave evidence which could be traced back to us
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