Russian soldiers tell a different Chechnya story

By Michael Slackman

(Published in daily the Dawn, November 23, 99)

ROSTOV-ON-DON (Russia): After spending his day flooding the forest with machine-gun fire, Andrei Ustuzhaninov stepped from his tent into the cool Chechen night to smoke a cigarette. In the instant that his match flared, a sniper's bullet whizzed through the dark, slamming into the soldier's gut, burrowing down through his body, shattering his thigh.

After more than a month in Chechnya, that was the first contact the slight 20-year-old had with guerrillas.

"No, I never saw a guerrilla," Ustuzhaninov said from his bed in a military hospital, where he spends much of his day curled on his side, trying to ease the pain.

Russia says it is after terrorists, what it calls religious guerrillas, and is waging a fierce military campaign aimed at annihilating them. For weeks, it has dropped hundreds of bombs and fired artillery shells, levelling villages, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians throughout the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The Russian public is visibly joyful, uplifted by its military's command performance, its leaders' steely resolve and a chance to flex its atrophied national pride.

But Russian soldiers who have seen combat tell a far murkier story than the one being portrayed by the government, or the flag-waving Russian media. In interviews with a dozen soldiers at military hospitals here and in the Volga River city of Samara, and with one officer recently returned from Chechnya, the military operation appeared less successful, the military less shining and the long-term prognosis less promising than portrayed by the nation's leadership.

Those interviewed said Russia's offensive has managed to destroy everything in sight - except large numbers of guerrillas, who the soldiers said move relatively easily through a terrain they know far better than their opponents. Russian soldiers fire their rockets, guns and artillery shells blindly into open fields, villages and forests. One officer said the official government estimate of thousands of guerrillas dead is, at best an exaggeration, an analysis supported by the soldiers who said they saw very few, if any, dead guerrillas.

"We have accomplished nothing," said Lt. Col. Alexander Tolmachyov, who works as a military journalist and spent several weeks in the combat zone. "There are thousands of terrorists there, but by bombing we don't reach any result. We have dropped enough bombs to destroy five armies, and still, we accomplish nothing."

Russia says it is in control of the northern third of the country. The soldiers say that is technically true, but not at night, when they sit nervously in trenches or tents, fearful they will be picked off by snipers. Russia's military is superior to the guerrillas', with planes and helicopters and expensive rockets, but the soldiers say there is little to eat, except the watery porridge they are served or the meat they butcher from cattle stolen from Chechens. They also are short of gloves, hats, blankets and other warm clothing.

On the world stage, Russia's leaders are defiant of Western criticism toward their campaign, and resolute in their determination to press on. But the soldiers depict a scene of uncertainty, with the military unsure of which way to go next, whether to press on, dig in or pull back.

"The Chechens are well equipped and ready for combat," said Nikolai Diyanov, a 19-year-old member of a special reconnaissance unit who was hit by shrapnel from a grenade during a firefight. "They have very powerful weapons. It is dangerous to send soldiers in. I think they should give peaceful civilians two days to get out then bomb the rest. Just go into the air and press the button."

When Russia invaded Chechnya in 1994, it waged a conventional war, going head to head with the guerrillas. It was a tactic that left tens of thousands dead and helped turn public opinion in Russia against the assault. This time, the military is avoiding close combat with the guerrillas and instead relying on bombs to do most of the work, sparing soldiers' lives. It is hard to tell exactly how many Russians have been killed, because the military lists only those who expired on the battlefield. Anyone who dies in the hospital remains listed as injured in action. The military also does not reveal the number of interior ministry forces who have been killed. Officially, Russia says 462 soldiers have been killed and 1,486 injured.

Nikolai Artumov is a 20-year-old sergeant who spent time in Chechnya working with an infantry unit responsible for "liberating" villages from terrorists. First, he said, his unit would arrange a meeting with the elders of the village and encourage them to leave before the shelling began. Then, after a short time, he said, they would open fire with artillery, sometimes backed by aerial bombing. When the smoke cleared, they would move into town.

"There was never any opposition," said Artumov, his hands still brown from Chechen soil, his leg, stomach and arms pitted with wounds incurred when the armoured car he was in rode over a mine. "It seems strange. It was too quiet. It was suspicious." Everyone is surprised at how little opposition the guerrillas have shown so far, leading some to think they are lying in wait.

Nineteen-year-old Alexander Yudin was a farm worker before he was called into action. He is in the hospital now, the lower half of his right leg blown off by gunfire, his right elbow shattered by a bullet. Yudin worked with an artillery unit, first helping to load the weapons until he volunteered for the more dangerous work of reconnaissance.

"It was our task to find groups of guerrillas," he said, adding that it was nearly impossible, unless they were holding weapons, to distinguish between civilians and guerrillas. He said that his unit was often short of bread and water, but that he supported his nation's effort to stamp out terrorism.

"I am calm about what happened," he said in a breathless whisper. "You know you cannot bring anything back. I am happy I was able to stay alive."

His father, standing over his bed, arms folded, eyes red, was less philosophical. Bending over to gingerly cover his son's bandaged stump with a sheet, he said over and over, "For what? For what has this happened?"-Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Newsday.

Agencies add: Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Sunday accused Western leaders of criticizing Russia's offensive in Chechnya to hide problems in Kosovo, which he said were now worse than before NATO's bombing campaign against Serbia.

"The situation in Kosovo is now potentially more difficult than before the NATO attacks. The problems are not sorted out there," Ivanov told ORT television.

This explained criticism of Russia's campaign in Chechnya which was made by, among others, the United States, France and Germany at a key European security summit in Istanbul this week, he added.

Yeltsin left the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit early, rejecting the West's criticism and insisting he had to return to Moscow to oversee his army's bid to rid Chechnya of "terrorists".