Novogroznenskoye is a village between two blockposts, where, a few days before our arrival, the Novosibirsk OMON officers, captured near Pervomaysk, were located, before they were moved to the mountains.

An ordinary village, where nothing reminds one of war. Except for one thing: it is here that the meeting and negotiations about the fate of prisoners with Aslan Maskhadov are scheduled.

I expected to see trenches, posts, heavily armed militants, to hear: "Stop, hands up! I'll shoot!", I expected to finally experience a sense of danger from touching what was happening. But nothing of the sort! A village like any other, people like any other, roads like any other, cars like any other, life like any other. Only the meetings were unexpected.

Former zootechnician, now field commander Nasir Hadji introduces a guy:

"This is Ibrahim. He carried out the operation to unblock Pervomaysk. Tell us, Ibrahim..." And then to me: "He's a modest guy. Doesn't like to talk."

Here there are their Matrosov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, their Rokossovsky and Zhukov. Here are those who fight against federal troops. That is, against us. Against us, against us. With whom "us"?..

"When your troops surrounded Pervomayka, and there were over seventeen thousand of them there, and ours..." says Ibrahim, the famous field commander... And then immediately: "Ours, yours... We were all one, and then suddenly..."

And further about how they already planned to take another village to exchange Raduyev's group for other hostages, how fiercely his guys fought, how they broke through the encirclement. In his voice, the excitement of a victor over Barsukov's mighty army can already be heard, when suddenly—again about the same thing: how did it happen that we became enemies—I, a Russian, and he, a Chechen?

"When one of our fighters dies, it's a tragedy for us, but for you, an entire battalion perishes—and everyone sleeps soundly. We feel sorry for your guys. With contract soldiers, we are merciless, but these boys..."

Should I believe him? Or not believe him?

Should I believe that our prisoners are treated with care, or dismiss it as just a propaganda game? I don't know, I'm not ready to answer... But the animal and the human always coexist in people. And here, their nationality doesn't matter anymore.

An army major, just half a kilometer from Novogroznenskoye, where famous Dudayev militants walk around, exchanging news, told me that a day ago they detained a fifteen-year-old Chechen boy who was selling vodka diluted with clonidine to a soldier. "They detained him—and then what? They thought about exchanging him, and then decided—to hell with it, let him go wherever he wants."

There's that too. There's both. Blood and atrocities, heroes and scoundrels. But above all this—money.

Later, returning to Moscow, I heard from my colleague, State Duma deputy Hamid Gamidov:

"Raduyev told me: 'It seems that Barsukov and Dudayev have one owner. And he sits in Moscow.'"

I apologize to my colleague for relaying our private conversation, but I heard the same thing from many, many people during this assignment. Everyone—both federal officers and Dudayev's militants—is convinced that colossal financial interests are behind this war. And even when some talk about independence, and others cannot understand what the Kremlin wants from them: to strike down all Chechens or to leave, everyone together asserts that such savagery and nonsense, such dirty games, can no longer be tolerated.

Well, okay... Everyone knows about that anyway.

So, Sunday.

We sit with Aslan Maskhadov. First, the entire delegation. Then—one on one.

"Go to Moscow. Tell them there to hand over our fighters," I heard from Maskhadov. Just a few minutes before this, in the cramped room of a house at the entrance to Novogroznenskoye, I saw the mothers and wives of the Novosibirsk OMON fighters and realized that our mission—to return the prisoners—would most likely fail.

But we didn't come just to bring back a few. We wanted to free everyone. Both ours. And not ours. Our former ones. Our future ones, if they want to be with Russia again.

"No," Aslan Maskhadov told me, "we won't hand anyone over for free anymore. Enough. We've given too much already. Our conditions are an exchange of everyone for everyone."