"They bring us those suspected of belonging to militants, but proving whether this person is a militant or not is practically impossible," a young man from Moscow's RUOP admitted to me.

No weapons are brought here; it's impossible to prove that a person just fired a shot and, stepping onto the street, turned into a peaceful passerby. The most suspicious are taken to Mozdok. There's a filtration point there, where (at least last Friday) 24 people were held. Recently there were about three hundred—the rest, according to an MVD officer, were recently released. Serious charges have been brought against almost no one yet, and hopes of catching hardened criminals are not really being met—only three such people have been detained today. I think some of the detainees are currently in detention centers in Krasnodar, Stavropol, Rostov, Mineralnye Vody.

No one here seriously thinks about investigations anyway — there's no time for that. Shooting is constant even in the so-called "protected" areas. But if in Dudayev-controlled areas there are active combat operations, here it's guerrilla warfare. Blockposts, which federal troops and the MVD use like markers to delineate their influence in Grozny, suffer particularly.

In the MVD-controlled city center, there are six such posts; each is attacked almost daily. They told me how the "partisans" operate.

"They fired—and moved. If a tank comes, they'll hit the tank. If an APC... By the time our guys jump out in a panic, they've already retreated. How can you fight if you don't see the enemy? They shoot from five-story buildings, from nine-story buildings, from behind any corner—how can you fight?"

"So," I clarify, "all this happens in the 'cleared' areas?"

"They appear... Both day and night... This story was told to me; I wasn't an eyewitness myself... A Zhiguli pulled up to our blockpost... Somewhere near the bridge over the Sunzha. Two riflemen and a grenade launcher operator got out. They missed the first time, hit accurately the second. They fired, got back in the Zhiguli, and drove off."

(I am not naming my interlocutor's name or rank, nor, for that matter, any of the others I spoke with. Not only because most of them work in a combat zone under pseudonyms — many gave their relatives and friends completely different, quieter and safer, addresses for their assignments.)

In "cleared" areas, you can become a target not only for militants but also for your own side — especially due to the lack of coordination between the army and internal troops. Often, an unknown sniper starts firing between two blockposts, one army and one internal troop, a battle breaks out among their own, and you can no longer tell whose bullet wounded or killed you.

We ourselves drove into such a "cleared" spot – right in the center of Grozny, where there wasn't an inch of living space left, and if anything could be restored, it would only be by leasing these ruins to Hollywood... Yes, we drove in and – came under sniper fire. "Turn around!" shouted Yuri, the commander of the combined SOBR detachment, when bullets punctured three tires of our APC. And then he cursed for a long time, remembering the tank crew who pulled out without informing anyone. They pulled out – and a few minutes later, militants appeared. Before my eyes, they shot down the Russian flag that flew over Dudayev's palace (though only an idiot would equate the former party regional committee building with the Reichstag).

There are no peaceful places in Grozny! War is raging, war... A war incomparable even for hardened men from the Internal Troops, whose fate had thrown them from Sumgait to Karabakh, from Ossetia to Osh.

Here's another conversation—with two SOBR officers from the Moscow region, guarding the line in southwestern Grozny (I present it as it remained on the dictaphone tape):

"— We work at a former strategic missile base... There's a very strong fortified center there, equipped with air defense... With a large number of pillboxes, communication trenches... Very modern weapons... Very serious underground communications..."

"— Naturally, Dudayev didn't build all that..."

"— Of course not... It all remained from the Soviet Army... As for us, we perform the functions of special internal troop units. The functions assigned to us at home, we certainly don't perform here. The guys are fighting... Actually fighting."

"— Who exactly is fighting on the other side?"

"— The contingent is very large... There are just Chechens, but also many professionals..."

"— Have you seen mercenaries?"