But this is only a prelude, cruel, bloody, but at least explicable by the pathological incompetence of our generals. And then the most interesting part begins: then money begins. Huge money for those who have already won this war.
Even in Moscow, before leaving for Grozny, an Ingush writer I knew asked me: "Doesn't it seem to you that a very strange war is going on in Grozny... After all, the road to the south is completely open, and, as I know, it's precisely along that road that Dudayev receives weapons and ammunition..." I didn't believe it, and upon arriving in Mozdok, I started to clarify if such a thing could really be true. It turned out, yes, it could. Not just one, but two roads connected Dudayev's militias with their bases: you could freely transport whatever you wanted.
But that's not all! Already in Grozny, I learned about radio intercepts of Dudayev's staff: it was about where 100,000 dollars would be deposited as payment for weapons to be parachuted. But it wasn't a Luxembourg plane that crossed Russian airspace, was it?!
And that's not all! According to one high-ranking officer, Dudayev's army is armed with AKSM rifles from 1994, with eight magazines, optical and night sights. These rifles, my interlocutor said, are manufactured in Tula and Izhevsk and have not yet been supplied to either the army or the internal troops.
Some shed blood, others get rich from it.
Yes, in war as in war: vileness and nobility, courage and filth—close, side-by-side. But there's something very wrong about this war, so wrong that I increasingly come to a strange theory: wasn't this whole story with independent Chechnya concocted simply to make it easier, more convenient, safer to amass millions? Not just for those in Grozny, but for those in Moscow too? On oil, on weapons, on gold? Take, for example, the counterfeit avisos that cost Russia two trillion rubles in 1992 prices. They are called "Chechen," but I am sure it was impossible to carry out this operation without Russian, Moscow banking structures. And the people who are now officially involved in this criminal case live—or lived—not in Grozny at all and bear very un-Chechen surnames: Gorshkov, Kostyuchkov... (I name only those that have already been mentioned by us, in "Litgazeta").
Perhaps such a Chechnya and such a Dudayev were necessary for that? How else to explain why he—since he is such an enemy of Russia—has not yet been stripped of his title as a Russian general? Why did he freely travel all over the globe—not on a ballistic missile, but by plane, crossing Russian airspace? Why did the Russian authorities themselves flirt with him from time to time? I would consider this theory pure madness, if I hadn't suddenly found a curious document in Grozny that sheds light on Chechnya's clandestine economic activity in Russia, or... or Russia's in Chechnya.
Judge for yourselves:
CONTRACT
Cultural and Trade Center "Erkheeni" (Republic of Sakha), hereinafter referred to as "supplier," on one side, and the Ministry of Finance and Economy of the Chechen Republic, hereinafter referred to as "buyer," on the other side, have agreed as follows:
- SUBJECT OF AGREEMENT:
The "supplier" ensures the delivery to the "buyer" of 999 purity gold in ingots in the amount of 5000 (five thousand) kg at a price of 556,000 (five hundred fifty-six thousand) rubles per kilogram for a total amount of 2,780,000,000 (two billion seven hundred eighty million) rubles 00 kopecks.
AGREEMENT SIGNED BY:
On behalf of the supplier:
General Director Krivoshapkin
On behalf of the Ministry of Finance and Economy of the Chechen Republic T. Abubakarov.
As far as I know, this deal took place at one of Azerbaijan's small airfields...
War is a dirty business. Very dirty. Perhaps my interlocutors are right when they told me that the only "surgical" strikes by Russian aviation in Grozny were those on the bank and the Ministry of Finance and Economy. I am no longer surprised by anything. Not even by the fact that the weapons, on which someone is now making colossal money, will be the last operation, after which the very existence of an independent Chechnya will become unnecessary.