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The United States since 9/11 backed Putin over Chechnya. Putin, Russia and the West I: Taking Control, BBC 2012
US special forces arrived in Georgia. They helped expel the Chechens. But then they stayed on. And American interests there grew. Putin, Russia and the West II: Democracy Threatens, BBC 2012
You have no right to criticise Russia over Chechnya. Boris Yeltsin
Thousands of mercenaries who have trained in camps on the territory of Chechnya as well as come in from abroad are actually preparing to impose extremist ideas on the whole world. Boris Yeltsin
In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn’t recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, one hundred per cent. Vladimir Putin
I’d been to a number of war zones before in my life, but I had never been in one as terrifying as Chechnya. Scott Anderson
The history of Chechnya is one of imperialism gone terribly wrong. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Chechens were among the few peoples to fend off Mongol conquerors, but at a terrible cost. Turks, Persians, and Russians sought to seize Chechnya, and it was finally absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1859. Stephen Kinzer
If the Russian people and the Russian elite remembered – viscerally, emotionally remembered – what Stalin did to the Chechens, they could not have invaded Chechnya in the 1990s, not once and not twice. To do so was the moral equivalent of postwar Germany invading western Poland. Very few Russians saw it that way – which is itself evidence of how little they know about their own history. Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History
He alleged the KGB was behind the bombing of a Moscow apartment block as a justification for the second Chechen war which sealed Putin’s grip on power: Putin dismissed the claims. Hunting the KGB Killers, Channel 4 2017
1999: Bombs obliterated four apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities; all blown up at night while people slept. Hundreds died … Putin would point to rebels in Chechnya … Putin’s invasion would be brutal. Frontline: Putin’s Way, PBS 2015
‘The only way to react is to stay calm.’ Captive V: British Aid Workers, Chechnya, captive, Netflix 2016
Prior to their capture, Jon and Camilla had been in Chechnya for three months, helping children traumatised by the recent conflict. From 1994-1996 Russia waged a bloody war against the breakaway republic, ending in an uneasy ceasefire. By 1997, Chechnya’s new government was facing internal power struggles and an ongoing threat from Russia. ibid. captions
At the end of March we began receiving information from Chechnya in the south of Russia about the mass detention of gays. Initially it was just bits of information. People being detained, tortured, electrocuted, on orders of the Chechen leader. Storyville: Welcome to Chechnya: The Gay Purge, BBC 2020
It’s a disgrace to be gay in Chechnya. And for a family to find out that someone is gay? It’s a shame so strong it can only be washed away by blood. Russian Federation Officials did nothing to stop it. ibid.
Families of these people are urged to kill their children and siblings. It’s unreal. ibid.
Chechnya is a largely Muslim state, a completely closed society with its own customs and language. ibid.
Russia began the attack on Chechnya in December 1994. Adam Curtis, Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone VI: 1994-1998
‘They are just bombing and bombing. There is no rest.’ ibid. Chechen woman
As well as being responsible for the horror in Chechnya, Russians saw Yeltsin as running a ‘mafia government’ that was destroying Russia. ibid.