In Grozny, civilians pay for a Russian 'lesson'

February 15, 2000
Web posted at: 11:14 AM EST (1614 GMT)

By Tony Karon

Talk about destroying the village in order to save it... A week after announcing it had "liberated" Grozny, Russia's military on Monday ordered the Chechen capital's remaining civilians to evacuate and declared the city off-limits. If Moscow's objective in Chechnya had truly been its proclaimed goal of freeing the territory from the grip of a handful of "terrorists," the ghost town of Grozny stands as a gruesome monument to Russia's failure. After all, the vastly outnumbered Chechen guerrillas who held off Russian forces for seven weeks are still for the most part at large -- and Russian officers freely admitted that the city was declared off-limits in part to stop them from returning. It was the city's 300,000 civilian residents who bore the burden of Russia's campaign, the bulk of them forced into refugee camps in far-off Dagestan and Ingushetia with little prospect of ever returning to homes pulverized by Russian artillery and bombs, the remainder who had braved out the Russian siege cowering in freezing basements now ordered to leave by their "liberators."

Much of the city, of course, is structurally unstable after almost three months of bombing, but Moscow has shown no inclination to rebuild. It's more likely to install its handpicked Chechen government in the second city of Gudermes, leaving Grozny in ruins as a warning to all of the restive peoples of the Caucasus against breaking away from Russia. The net effect, of course, will be to nullify Russian efforts to win Chechen loyalty -- although once Russia, in January, began rounding up Chechen men aged 14 to 60 and putting them in "filtration camps" for questioning, that was probably a nonstarter anyway. As fierce battles rage in the mountains to the south and guerrilla actions continue behind Russian lines, Moscow may find itself paying a heavy price for flying its flag over the ghost city of Grozny.

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