Today I’ve climbed ahead with the advance-guard scouts, who will be the first to descend from the glaciers. On the whole, I prefer to go with the reconnaissance group, as they are the first to go into action. And I also need to film the skirmishes. If I were at the tail of the column, I might not make it to the site of combat in time. So I need to be something of a scout myself. A fearsome blizzard is howling and the summit, licked clean by the winds and flat as an airfield, offers no place to shelter. There are not even glaciers or snow here – everything has been blown away by the powerful winds. Neither the thermal insulation mat nor the sleeping bag can save me. It occurs to me to get up and walk round in circles until morning. But I quickly realize this idea wouldn’t work. First, I’d waste a lot of energy – and there’s no telling what lies ahead on the journey. And second, I’d start to freeze, not from the low temperature, but from the icy winds – the wind chill would cancel out any chance of warming myself by moving about. If I take off my jacket and wrap it round my legs, I’ll soon feel like a lump of ice, because all I have under the jacket is a thin polo neck. But praise be to God! The summer nights – it’s August – are not very long and I’m still alive by dawn. And at dawn the group continues on its dangerous journey.
If you look up to the summit from which we’ve just descended, at the route which barely resembles a trail, it’s extraordinary to think we’ve just travelled this way. And the men were carrying not just their rucksacks and their personal weapons but also the heavy MANPADS missiles. The scene looks so sinister and terrible that a treacherous chill of fear creeps into my heart. The next day, the main column will traverse this route. Despite everything, we won’t lose a single man or horse, and not even one cartridge. No matter how tired, a guerrilla never discards any cartridges. A cartridge is your chance to survive the battle, a chance for the enemy to die before you do.
24
I often talk at length with the fighters, trying to understand what makes them endure such inhuman physical and psychological strain. What motivates them to condemn themselves to such a life? After all, despite the Russian claims that only a handful of criminals are left in the mountains, who have nothing left to hope for and nowhere else to go, the vast majority of these men (around 98 per cent) could legalize their positions easily enough and live a peaceful life. From all these conversations one conclusion emerges: they are fighting for freedom. They think it was a mistake for the Chechen volunteers to go to the aid of their ‘Dagestani insurgent brothers’, believing, quite reasonably, that it was a set-up, a pretext to begin a second war against Chechnya. They criticize Aslan Maskhadov’s policies in the three interwar years, but they remain convinced that Russia would have found an excuse to attack Chechnya in any case. I marvel at their profound, sincere faith in God. No, they don’t smack of radicalism, and they’re not fighting for their faith. I have met very few people in this war who are fighting for their faith. It’s simply that Islam says it is the duty of every Muslim to defend his home against aggressors. Russia has never felt like a home to the Chechens. A home is not about state boundaries or political ideologies. It is something that lives in the heart, something a person is born with and dies with. In the entire history of Russian-Chechen relations, the only time the Chechens viewed Russia as a common home was during the Second World War – and we all know what came of it.
I had many conversations with Angel. He was a man whose reputation remained spotless, despite all the enemy’s efforts. Even his bitterest enemies acknowledged the sincerity of his motives and his military prowess. He had made no enemies among the Chechens during all these bloody years, while continuing to be the gravest of enemies to the Russian Army, and he intrigued me. We’d known each other since the late 1980s and my interest had not faded. From my numerous conversations with him, there was one short monologue that succinctly summed up his stance towards what was happening in Chechnya.
‘If a man’s dangling over an abyss, clinging only to a branch, it doesn’t matter who saves him. All that matters is for someone to reach out his hand and pull him up. The Chechen people today are dangling over a physical and spiritual abyss and they need to be saved. It doesn’t matter who saves them – Maskhadov, Kadyrov[52] or somebody else. The enemy has come to our land and now they’re violating our most sacred concepts of honour and dignity. The enemy is like a slave who has suddenly found power over free men, and now he’s madly imposing his slave values on them, destroying the very spirit of freedom. And whoever is on the side of such an enemy cannot be the one to reach out his hand and help. If someone says, “I’ll save the people from their physical and spiritual destruction,” then I’m ready to follow him and help him. Whoever he might be. But he has to prove beyond doubt, by his actions, that his motives are pure, so the people will believe him. I’m not a politician – I’m a warrior. I don’t want to delve into all of the political intrigues, but one thing is clear to me: the Chechen people have a right and duty to live by their culture, their beliefs and national spirit. And yesterday’s slaves (it wasn’t long ago that the Russians were serfs, the chattels of their own masters)[53] cannot lord it over this land with their slave mentality. In any case, I believe in the Chechen people and in our victory. I believe that our people will survive and keep their spirituality alive, just like they’ve done so many times in history.’
As I listened to this man, I realized the secret of his strength. Why the men trusted him implicitly and why there was nothing and nobody who could dent his reputation in their eyes. He had a clear sense of his role and was fully focused on his mission, something that was true only of a select few. He was sincere not only with his friends, but with the whole world, with his enemies too. He never deluded himself or tricked others. The fighters could see this, and that was why they believed in him. And it was this – the men’s trust in him – that made him a grave enemy to the Russian Army. He was almost unknown to the world at large as he did not court attention through sensational actions. But the Russian generals who met him in battle knew him well and respected him highly.
52
Akhmad Kadyrov, who changed sides and became President of the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration. He was the father of Ramzan Kadyrov, who succeeded him as President.