The officers nod understandingly...

And again the question: "Will we get apartments after these two years?"

Baskaev answers a question with a question: who has apartments?

Only three hands go up...

"Who promised you all this?"

They show an official military enlistment office leaflet, which states that those who go to Chechnya can earn as much as two thousand dollars a month. Well, and in the city of Kazan, they went so far as to display a scrolling ticker on TV with these fantastic conditions... We blush. We have nothing to answer.

And suddenly—a blow to the gut:

"And why does the Ministry of Communications deduct eight percent for transferring money to families from our already small salaries?"

We say something, promise something... Thank God, Baskaev managed to arrange with the governor of the Moscow region, Gromov, that he would take patronage over the 46th brigade. Maybe he'll build homes for officers? Maybe he'll supply some diesel?

They believe us. Or they don't. These men are used to doing their job honestly. Regardless of whether the government will deceive them again or not.

Arkady Baskaev looks in surprise at the tracked APC:

"Where did that come from? Such vehicles were decommissioned twenty years ago."

"Well, it's something..." the battalion commander says sheepishly.

And such is the case in each of the five battalions we visited.

I ask an artillery colonel: "What was that cannonade all night? Were they shelling militant bases?" He honestly replies: "We have so many shells that it's cheaper to fire them than to destroy them..."

Well, well! If Americans test new weapons in Afghanistan, our concern is how to dispose of old ones, accumulated over the past decades in such quantities that there would be enough for grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And I understand the surprise of the commander of the Volga District Internal Troops, whom I accidentally met in Gudermes: he sent men to fight, not to guard the oil wells of local magnates! I saw this in both the first and second Chechen wars. Just as soldiers from some Moscow region garrison are sent to build generals' dachas, our soldiers and officers in Chechnya are constantly used not only to fight terrorists, but also for a more important task—to protect corrupt officials. It is no coincidence, incidentally, that passenger buses and army APCs are blown up by landmines almost daily, while not a single fuel tanker or oil train has ever been blown up!

What is happening in Chechnya today?

Everyone wanted to return
Home, to their hearth,
But now they are orphaned
Of one soldier.
Caucasian crosses...
Behind them, widows' tears.
You'll get it on your chest,
But a friend on your head.

No fighting. But people die every day.

Shelling, landmines... Even in the Gudermes commandant's office, a landmine was found in an ammunition depot. But it's not always possible to find them.

How many militants are currently "in formation"?

"Gangs are in all districts," says Lieutenant General Yevgeny Abrashin, commander of the Internal Troops group in the North Caucasus.

Maskhadov has approximately 250 men. Basayev—300-350, Khattab (or rather, those who replaced the "black Arab" after his death)—approximately 500, Barayev—up to 600...

According to our commanders, Maskhadov's army, as such, no longer exists; that is, there is no unified command. Are they capable of partisan operations? Yes, of course. Of active combat operations—no.

The figures: 250, 300, 500—do not at all mean that all these fighters are divided into companies or battalions. No, most of them have long been in their villages. They have, as our special services say, "legalized." But there is another strange thing about this war, which I cannot help but tell.

I constantly want to name those responsible for the bloody harvest of this war. Now I know who. There are two of them: Kvashnin and Maskhadov.

Remember the attack on Grigory Yavlinsky, when—after the events in Dagestan—he proposed stopping our troops at the Terek Ridge and not going further? Thousands would die... What accusations weren't hurled at him then!

And it turns out, most generals held the same opinion. Yes, stop. Yes, block the Chechen regions disloyal to Russia. No need to take Grozny, sacrificing the lives of soldiers and officers...