Between Heaven and Earth: Human Rights and Politics in the Chechen War

Vladimir Boxer

The Caucasus and the Caspian: 1996–1998 Seminar Series

Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
John F. Kennedy School of Government
July 10, 1998

Presentation

Fiona Hill (Moderator): We are pleased to welcome Vladimir Boxer, a Fellow with the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project this year and a former Political Advisor to Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. In December 1995, during the Russian parliamentary campaign, Dr. Boxer was a campaign manager for Gaidar’s political party, the Democratic Choice of Russia. During this time, he produced a short documentary about the war in Chechnya to draw attention to the violations of human rights in the conflict. Before we show the film, “Between Heaven and Earth,” we have asked Vladimir to tell us about the content and purpose of the film, including a discussion of the broader political climate in Russia surrounding the conflict in Chechnya. Specifically, we have asked Vladimir to discuss his party’s attempts to broadcast the documentary during the election campaign, the general reaction among Russian politicians and the electorate to the war, and the impact of the war itself on both the 1995 parliamentary and 1996 presidential elections in Russia.

Vladimir Boxer: When the war in Chechnya began, it brought about a split among the members of my party, the Democratic Choice of Russia, because about one-fifth of all the members did not want any criticism of government policy. Perhaps they did not want this war — because it was not popular from the very beginning — but they thought that to have an active opposition meant to join the Communists and other political groups which were against that war simply because its beginning was associated with Yeltsin and a more or less pro-democratic government. However, most of the members of our party (the other four-fifths) decided not to pay attention to these circumstances. The first of these were Yegor Gaidar and Sergei Kovalyov, the former Russian dissident, as well as the friend, and — politically speaking — student of Andrei Sakharov. Kovalyov and other members of his group, as well as Deputies of the Russian Parliament, came to Grozny in the first days of the war and stayed there for its duration. They ran a high risk of getting killed by Russian bombs. Fortunately, they survived. Before this, Kovalyov was very popular among the general Russian pro-democratic populace. However, after his strong criticism of the war, we suddenly began seeing very unusual, but quite predictable, consequences: many people with strong pro-democratic records were very angry with him. In this documentary, he explains why there was such a reaction: people did not want to acknowledge that not only the government, but also they were responsible for this war because of their stance of passive support. This is reminiscent of what happened with Andrei Sakharov when he criticized Soviet policies in Afghanistan. At that time, most of the Russian intelligentsia which shared his views signed papers against him because of the old conformist mentality. They were later very sorry about this action, which in effect repeated the story of Christ in Scripture.

In the first days of January [1995], when the Russian army was defeated in Grozny, Kovalyov wrote his famous letter in which he told the young soldiers’ mothers “Don’t believe the generals. The generals are lying. When they write to you that your sons are alive, they are actually killed and lying on the streets of Grozny, and dogs are preying on their bodies.” The reaction to this was tremendous, e.g. “Don’t tell us about that! We don’t want that! Why does this old idiot tell us about it—we don’t want to know. Even if it is the truth, we don’t want to know.”

There are two hypotheses as to why Russia was eventually defeated in this war. The first one, which I sometimes come upon in Western newspapers, is that the Russian army has become weak, and will only keep getting weaker. From my point of view, this is not at all true. Actually, the Russian army was defeated for the same reasons as the American army was in Vietnam: because the war wasn’t popular. Seventy percent of all Russian people were against this war, and the soldiers themselves did not know its purpose. The Russian army was only good enough when its soldiers agreed with the goal of the war they were fighting, i.e. a patriotic war. However, every time they were involved in a meaningless venture like this, they were defeated.

The second is, “Who is the [real] patriot?” During this time, some television channels were against the war, and others were for it. The latter tried to portray Kovalyov’s group as traitors, and General Grachev and other generals involved as heroes, as well as to create patriotic hysteria among the Russians. They failed to do so, however. The event in Budennovsk serves as an important lesson from this, and forms the main part of the documentary . Budennovsk was the site of the hospital seized by [Chechen] terrorists—and terrorists they were, as they killed twenty or thirty civilians and took around one thousand hostages. You have to imagine what the atmosphere in Russia was like at the time. The whole country was glued to their televisions, and the expectation was that the only possible solution was a military one, since all the channels were reporting the terrorists’ unbelievable demands, such as signing a pledge for Russia to withdraw its troops from Chechnya—an impossible action at that time. So, the only way out seemed to be by storming the hospital, which would mean that at least five hundred women and children would be killed.

At this moment in time, Kovalyov with his group, as well as Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian Duma Deputy, and Stanislav Govorukhin, the former film director, came to the hospital in Budennovsk. However, none save for Kovalyov’s group came into the hospital. Overcoming serious obstacles, Kovalyov’s people entered the hospital and became hostages. While the Russian media was talking about Shamil Basaev’s fantastic demands, Kovalyov called his assistant and told him that he spoke with Basaev, the terrorists’ leader, and reached a preliminary agreement. It turned out that Basaev was interested in only one condition: the start of peace talks — for Russia to have a round-table conference with the Chechens. Kovalyov tried to pass this information on to the Russian government, but no one took the hint. Then, his assistant called Gaidar, who for two to three hours tried to reach any other official. It was impossible. He was told that Chernomyrdin is out; Oleg Soskovets, the First Deputy is out; the Minister of Defense is out; and so on.

Earlier that day, we had a congress of our party, as a no-confidence vote in the Russian government was slated for the next day. Our Parliamentary faction was to be critical in the vote, since its forty-five members would decide to approve or disapprove the Chernomyrdin government. There was an hysterical atmosphere among the members of our Party, with everyone saying “no” to the government. Gaidar proposed that, if the [Budennovsk] situation were solved without bloodshed, then our faction would vote for Chernomyrdin. Thus, Chernomyrdin knew that he depended heavily on Gaidar’s decision.

It is difficult to explain here, but, at times, problems are solved not by rational thought, but by such emotions as jealousy. The government did not want the voters and the whole world to know of Kovalyov’s role in the outcome of the Budennovsk crisis; so no-one even mentioned that his group had been in the hospital.

We worked out the following plan to attract the government’s attention: invite five or six television crews (two foreign, and the rest Russian) from different channels so that Gaidar would give them an interview. In this interview, Gaidar said he had news that Kovalyov had reached a preliminary agreement with Basaev according to which all one thousand hostages would be saved without any humiliating conditions for Russia. The problem was that he, Yegor Gaidar, could not reach anyone in the government, and he was asking for their help. At 8:02 P.M. this information was on Russian Channel Two. Ten minutes later, Soskovets called Gaidar and told him: “Yegor Timourovich, of course, we are willing to talk, let’s do it as soon as possible.” Afterwards, Kovalyov got the opportunity to talk to Chernomyrdin, which was necessary since he needed some sort of authorization from him to proceed with the agreement. However, nobody in Russia knew that this authorization had been given, and few people do to this day. Two hours later, the agreement was signed. In the film, you can see Kovalyov doing the signing together with Basaev. It was a funny episode since Basaev did not have an official seal of the Chechen Republic for the agreement, and the only seal he was able to find said “Diversionary Battalion #4”—a military unit.

Ignatenko, the Public Relations chief, was the person responsible for the improvement in Chernomyrdin’s image. And so we saw on TV the live coverage of talks between Chernomyrdin and Basaev. The whole country watched intently for the outcome of the talks. In reality, everything had been decided long before that.

Our goal was to save the lives of one thousand people and prevent another catastrophic turn in the war in which the Russian army could destroy all of Chechnya completely. Chernomyrdin played a part in this, and we thank him for it.

During the same period of time, some of Chernomyrdin’s deputies, comprising the so-called “Party of War”, tried to convince Yeltsin of the opposite course of action; they wanted smoke and warfare [in Chechnya] and claimed that it would give him a boost in popularity while only killing a couple dozen soldiers. Those people did not want to save any hostages, but to create an atmosphere where they could use all one hundred percent of the Russian military force.

The intentions of the “Party of War” in the Budennovsk crisis point to another reason for the Russian army’s defeat in the war: the army could not use all of its resources. Although the army used such weapons as bombs, they later explained to the Russian people that they actually did not do so. That is a difficult situation: you bomb a village, and the next day, you’re supposed to say, “I don’t know who did it.” In this case, I am not talking about morality or ethics, but explaining the rationale from a military point of view. In such a situation, it is difficult to achieve victory.

During the standstill at the hospital, Kovalyov was deceived: he was told by the city administration that a conversation about the process of implementing his agreement was to take place. So, he left the hospital, and Russian soldiers meanwhile tried to storm the hospital. During the storming, about thirty hostages were killed and fifty or sixty were injured. Fortunately, some of the members of Kovalyov’s group, such as the former dissident and member of the Russian Parliament, Yuli Rybakov, stayed in the hospital. Rybakov called up Chernomyrdin, and the latter, aware of what was going on, ordered the fighting to stop. On the next day, Kovalyov and his group participated in the realization of the agreement. The deal was that they would join ninety volunteers, mostly male, and become temporary hostages. The Chechens brought them as far as their stronghold, which took about two days by bus, with helicopters hovering close by. Some provocations ensued, but, fortunately, everyone survived.

There was one more interesting point in this story: back in the Chechen stronghold, Basaev and his friends were greeted as heroes, and a rally was organized. Kovalyov was asked to speak at the rally, as he was very respected among the Chechens; only he and his friends could reach an agreement with them, as someone else, with blood on his hands, could not. The Chechens’ expectations were probably that he would do honor to them; instead, he spoke strongly against any kind of terrorism. His listeners — roughly five to ten thousand of them — hung their heads like children who have done something wrong.

This information has been concealed. This is not to say it wasn’t published; it appeared in two large newspapers, Izvestiya and Pravda. It is easy to understand that Izvestiya, a pro-democratic paper, which had always been against the war, would cover it. On the other hand, Pravda’s correspondent hated both Kovalyov and Gaidar. However, it so happened that he was among the people in Budennovsk. The experience affected him so much that he could only write the truth. None of the Russian radio stations, though, spoke the truth.

I was in charge of all single-mandate districts in the 1995 Parliamentary election campaign, and was responsible for helping Kovalyov and General Vorobyev to get elected. Vorobyev was one of the top Russian generals who was put in charge of the Russian army in the first days of the war. Being against the war, Vorobyev stepped down; he was immediately fired and even came close to being convicted. Finally, he became a member of our Party together with Kovalyov. There was a well-organized campaign to prevent Kovalyov from getting elected. Not only the Russian government, but also the office of the Mayor of Moscow was against him getting elected. In sum, they were categorically against two candidates: one, Murashov, for ideological reasons, and the other, Kovalyov. However, Kovalyov was still elected a third time.

We tried to show this film on the Russian channels, but did not succeed, because everyone was too scared. Finally, the Chairman of Channel 6, which had quite a large audience (fourth or fifth in the ratings) decided to show the film, although not during prime time and with no explanatory information. My estimate is that only 500,000 or so people in all of Russia saw it. It was then shown on the eve of the elections on St. Petersburg television, since Yuli Rybakov was a candidate for St. Petersburg. We also showed it on local cable television in Kovalyov’s districts, and it had some effect. I am sure, though, that in St. Petersburg, Rybakov would have been elected anyway because many people in his district knew him.

The master film was stolen twice during the making of the documentary. It was made by one of the best Russian documentary makers, Tatyana Aleksandrova, together with Sergei Balayan. Aleksandrova is known for her films about the death of the last Russian Tsar. As it was a documentary, most scenes were shot under real circumstances. The voiceover commentary was done by the well-known Russian actor Mikhail Gluzsky, someone who is trusted by people of all ages.

The main characters of this movie, besides Kovalyov and his group, are two soldiers’ mothers. Kovalyov did not permit information about the war to be concealed, which partially led to thousands of Russian women joining together to organize the Movement of Soldiers’ Mothers. In the documentary, two real mothers, who lost their sons in the war, are shown. Aleksandrova and Balayan conducted roughly 20 hours of interviews, and what they found out about how these women tried to find their sons was simply amazing. They spent months and even years in Chechnya. They were helped by the very same women who could theoretically be the mothers of their sons’ murderers, but who were not against Russia. However, these Chechen women were willing to help, their actions often going against what certain generals were trying to do. This was a kind of mothers’ solidarity.

I think this film shows the unusual quality of the Russian mentality, which was not taken into consideration either by Communist theoreticians or the Party of War. Every time there was a war, they believed that Russian soldiers would be swept up by xenophobia, which never actually happened. The same thing took place in 1991, when our respected Gorbachev ordered the seizure of the Lithuanian Parliament. He was met with protests and rallies outside the Russian Parliament, with people carrying slogans that said “Lithuania—today, and Russia—tomorrow.”

I can say that there are two different kinds of patriotism in Russia. The real Russian patriots are the members of the intelligentsia, such as Kovalyov and his friends. They are patriots of the nation, and I am proud to be part of them.

 

Documentary: Between Heaven and Earth (1995)

SCENE 1

At a session of the old Congress of People’s Deputies, one of the deputies denounces the scientist, dissident human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov.

Deputy: He gave an interview in the Canadian newspaper Ottawa Citizen, about how in Afghanistan, Soviet pilots who had been surrounded shot their own soldiers. We are outraged to the depths of our souls by this irresponsible action of the well-known Soviet scientist. (back of Sakharov’s head being shown.) We interpret his intentions as a malicious attack against the Soviet armed forces. Their existence flies in the face of our nation. (applause)

SCENE 2

Sakharov speaks to the CPD in his own defense, and says that his indictment falls not on the Russian people, but the criminal war they fought in Afghanistan. He is “outclapped”—a practice dating back from Stalinist times, when an unpopular speaker was silenced by loud clapping to hush the sound of his speech — as Gorbachev tells him “Take your speech away.” (Also, off camera: “Don’t disgrace yourself, Andrei Dmitrievich.”)

Andrei Sakharov: Least of all did I want to offend the Soviet army. I deeply respect the Soviet army and the Soviet soldier who had defended our country in the Great Patriotic War. Again, I do not accuse the soldier who shed his blood there and heroically carried out his command. This is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about here is that the war in Afghanistan itself was a criminal venture (clapping). That is what weighs down on us as a terrible sin, a heavy reproof. We have to wash off this shame, this terrible shame (clapping).

Sergei Kovalyov: Human rights activists are a certain vanguard of society, not of the ruling power because human rights are broken by the ruling power. That is why they are permanent opponents of the ruling power. A wise power understands the need for such opponents.

SCENE 3

Sergei Kovalyov, the Human Rights chief for the Russian government in 1995 (then fired by the Parliament because of his stance against the Chechen War) speaks briefly, followed by scenes from the Moscow airport: a handicapped man plays an accordion, and Anna Pesetskaya, the mother of one of the young draftees who fought in Chechnya, prepares for her flight to Grozny which she hopes will take her to her son. Pesetskaya’s story is part of the nationwide movement of Russian mothers, who acted in protest against the war and themselves traveled to Chechnya to try to retrieve their sons who were fighting there.

Kovalyov: Rights are the bridge between heaven and earth.

Narrator: Private Nikolai Pesetsky sent his last letter to his mother from Tula in early winter. However, when Anna Pesetskaya received this letter, her son was already in Grozny.

SCENE 4

Anna sits with her friend, and tells us how she did not know whether her son was dead or alive.

Pesetskaya: They found a personnel carrier and told me that my son Kolya [Nikolai] was killed and left in it. However, on January 25, they told me that Kolya was not in the carrier, that it was a different soldier.

SCENE 5

This is Grozny, wrecked by carnage and destruction. A handwritten sign says “Welcome to Hell.” Anna tells more of her story.

Pesetskaya: Until around December 28, they kept telling me: he’s not among the wounded and the dead, and, finally, on January 5, they told me: “He was killed.” There was the initial shock — you understand, it’s Christmas, New Year’s, some people are celebrating, while our kids are dying there. (Cut to soldiers shooting)

SCENE 6

Kovalyov sits and talks with the four people who made up his Human Rights Group, travelling to Chechnya and spending around half a year there under highly dangerous conditions. They are Yuli Rybakov, Mikhail Molostvov, Aleksandr Osovtsov, Valeriy Borschov, and Oleg Orlov.

Molostvov: While we were in Grozny, we certainly could have been killed by shrapnel, or a mine — not a Chechen or a Russian one, but namely a Soviet one. This is because, for more than seventy years, all of our country’s population — from the lofty intellectuals to the lowly workers, was preparing the weapons which were partially released in Grozny.

SCENE 7

A young Chechen, Mairbek Vachagaev, who fought in the war tells of its profiteering nature.

Vachagaev: It is a commercial war because everything there is bought and sold. Much in that war was written off as war losses. (Cut to war-ravaged streets, automobile carcasses, tanks, bodies lying around.) War technology, people — everything was written off.

SCENE 8

Kovalyov tells of Yeltsin’s response to the terribly high and unexpected casualties.

Kovalyov: It was to this that Yeltsin replied: “It is not yet time” on January 6 [1995]. What does “It is not yet time” mean? That not enough people have been killed?

SCENE 9

A Russian woman is in hysterics after she and her children have fled her house, which was bombed. She laments Yeltsin’s uncompassionate hard-line stance.

Woman: Why doesn’t he fly over and throw it on his own kids? Why don’t his kids suffer this? Why didn’t they let it happen all at once and let me die instead of suffering privation? But, if I die, my kids would suffer later.... What do these bastards do for humanity? They do nothing good, absolutely nothing good.

SCENE 10

Kovalyov discusses the role and attitude of dissidents and of the opposition.

Kovalyov: Wasn’t there a certain reversal of our status in the Sixties or the Eighties? What used to be the standard attitude? It was “Who are these dissidents? They are academic, impotent men: since things in academe haven’t work out, they want to assert themselves in a different field. Big deal—you write that democracy is good and immediately become a martyr, crowned with a crown of thorns.” I’ve met with different variations on these positions. The most honest one I’ve encountered was this: “I don’t want to know anything about it. Generally speaking, I understand what kind of government and justice system we have, and I understand our human rights and international duties. I understand all this no worse than you do. But — concrete, detailed, gory things I want to know none of, because the knowledge of them would make it uncomfortable for me to live. I would be ashamed of how I live.”

SCENE 11

Refugees flee their homes, gunmen press the attack amidst local Chechen women coming together to clap and sing.

SCENE 12

Anna has arrived in Grozny and is beginning the search for her son by asking the locals about him.

Narrator: In search for her son, Anna Pesetskaya spent the rest of the winter in Chechnya, then the spring, then the summer. Having lost any hope of finding her son, she left for Rostov, where remains of fallen Russian soldiers are kept until identification.

Pesetskaya: It’s a kind of refrigerator van where they transport things — food or what not. It’s a railway car where you see several tiers of stretchers on both sides. You come in and look on every shelf. In February, there were so many bodies that they were lying on the floor; it was practically impossible to pass through without touching them. You had to carry a flashlight because it was dark there, and light up every one’s face.

SCENE 13

Anna asks a Chechen woman about her son.

Narrator: Not having found her son among the dead, Anna continued to look for him among the living. Fate was preparing another encounter for her.

Chechen Woman (while Anna is holding up Nikolai’s passport): It is difficult for me to tell you this, but he is dead. They were only kids, born in 1976. Why did they bring them here? Who needed their deaths?

SCENE 14

Kovalyov explains what a stupid, useless war this had been, and how many people died to achieve nothing.

Kovalyov: They had to kill several tens of thousands of people to come to the same conclusion. And those December [1994] agreements were met with by both sides, the Chechen side being represented by Dudaev. They only had to proclaim a cease-fire, to meet and to begin talks. And the situation would have been, in the worst case, the same as it is now.

SCENE 15

A young soldier attempts to talk about the war.

Soldier: You can imagine how one kills.

Interviewer: And how does one kill?

Soldier: You can’t describe it...

SCENE 16

We see more pictures of the slaughter in Chechnya, and hear Kovalyov talk more about it.

Kovalyov: It was savagery, unprovoked savagery, done with relish. You understand, war is war, and it cannot be reconciled with morality.

SCENE 17

Anna tells of the search for her son’s body, which took her to Rostov, and then again back to Chechnya.

Pesetskaya: I looked through all the registers. I looked to see if my son had been identified in the initial rounds. The bodies that had been identified had hospital labels, like the kind that babies get at birth. However, the officer told me that only 40% were put in the books. By February 2 [1995], there were around 6,000 [bodies] there.

SCENE 18

Pavel Grachev, former Russian Defense Minister, praises the bravery of the dead, and condemns Kovalyov for criticizing the war.

Grachev: These eighteen-year-old youths died for Russia, and they died with a smile. We should build a monument to them, while that Deputy, Kovalyov, accuses them. He should be branded with hot coal; he is an enemy to Russia, and meanwhile, people are still willing to greet and speak to him. Personally, I do not understand this. I do not mean to say that I am such an avid patriot of Russia. But you have seen that, in the trenches, everyone is a patriot: the eighteen- and nineteen- year-old youths, as well as the fifty-year-olds; everyone dies for Russia, from private to general. But not one leaves their positions.

Grachev’s statement is “illustrated” by showing dead and burned corpses whose faces are frozen in a macabre grin of death.

SCENE 19

Armored troop carriers invading Chechnya pass a human chain of women with their children, stretching from Grozny to the border. They are protesting the invasion and calling for peace in Chechnya. Local women carry water to their homes, and planes scream through the sky.

Kovalyov: We have again returned to the former Soviet ideology, having barely cleaned it up after Communism. The real Soviet ideology is that which is now reappearing. It is the Asiatic deification of the state: the state is outside society and above it, while society serves as a goal for the state. It should be the other way around. Meanwhile, we are reviving the old ideology that says: “I am merely a cog in the machine of society, and this society machine acts in the interest of the state, which is the highest goal. Here is a great superpower, here is a mighty army.” Of course, I am very rightly criticized, as I am wholeheartedly against this ideology. It is despicable to me. I state that this ideology is not only harmful, but also dangerous for our society. It leads to the GULAG, and there is no way to deny it, because, as soon as the collective right overcomes the individual right, it subdues the individual and then the collective itself, for whose sake all this is being done. All the rest is lies. Such an ideology is always necessary for those who have seized power, as they are the main interest of the state.

SCENE 20

Duma deputy and former film producer Stanislav Govorukhin criticizes Kovalyov for offending the Russian people.

Govorukhin: I think that a criminal case has to be started against Messrs. Ponomarev, Shabad and Kovalyov for spreading slanderous and provocative statements which denigrate the Russian Federation and Russian statehood, and, generally speaking, offend every Russian person.

SCENE 21

Inside the hospital in Budennovsk, Kovalyov and Basaev sign an agreement during the hostage standoff, while others crowd around a television.

Unidentified Woman in the Background: Of course they won’t kill them.

Basaev (to Kovalyov): “Sign here?”

Kovalyov: “Any place.”

TV Commentator: Chernomyrdin expressed his willingness to leave for Budennovsk. To questions about Dzhokhar Dudaev, he replied that this issue should not be raised, as Dudaev’s whereabouts are presently unknown, and he cannot be gotten in touch with.

SCENE 22

Chernomyrdin is on the telephone with the Chechen terrorists in Budennovsk:

Chernomyrdin: There will be no shooting whatsoever. It is completely out of question. Once again: while we are talking with you, we will be taking measures, and there will be no shooting.

SCENE 23

Kovalyov complains of the perfidy of the Russian military during the Budennovsk standoff.

Kovalyov: And this whole deal with our arrival at the hospital. Chernomyrdin’s direct mandate was needed; without it, they would have never let us close to it. And, as soon as we signed this paper, we were taken out of the hospital. What was happening in this interim? Several sniper shots were fired at the hospital; and, at the same time, the BTRs were coming closer and closer. We constantly had to ask by telephone: “What is happening? Why are BTRs approaching?” — (mimicking the reply) “Why? What’s happening? Oh, the BTRs are moving? Oh well, then we’ll find out who’s in command there.” Meanwhile, the BTRs were coming closer and closer.

SCENE 24

Yuli Rybakov describes the Russian assault on the hospital at Budennovsk, and his call to Chernomyrdin from where he was, inside the hospital, as it took place.

Rybakov: After everyone already knew that the talks had taken place, the firing continued. Then, towards night-time, the BTRs began approaching, and grenades were fired at the hospital. It was over; our talks had taken place; and it seemed that the duties assigned to [the Chechens] had to be carried out. I had to call Chernomyrdin in the middle of the night and tell him that a new offensive had begun. He didn’t believe me, saying, “But I have ordered everything to stop.” So I had to lift the phone up to the window so he could hear the shots.

SCENE 25

Kovalyov describes the horrific scene inside the hospital after the assault. An injured Chechen is shown lying in the hospital during the standoff.

Wounded Soldier: There are bullets and shrapnel flying everywhere.

Kovalyov: In half an hour the hospital was burning, and it was not until the next morning that we found out what happened there as a result of this shooting. I saw with my own eyes pieces of human flesh stuck to the walls and the ceiling, and burned corpses, and two demolished surgery rooms, and a burned intensive care unit, and those hostages who were throwing themselves at us as their saviors: “Ah, Kovalyov came! You won’t leave us, will you? Maybe then we’ll survive?”

SCENE 26

Sergei Kuznetsov, governor of the Stavropol region, accuses Kovalyov of being lazy and engaging in nothing but useless interviews.

Kuznetsov: I was outraged at the appointment of one of the participants of the talks, our “respected activist,” Kovalyov. This person should not be let close to politics. This is a “bum” who came only to give interviews. According to public opinion from yesterday, it is outrageous that such people exist.

SCENE 27

Inside the hospital, Kovalyov is on the phone with Chernomyrdin complaining about the Russian handling of the Budennovsk crisis, while Basaev stands by.

Kovalyov: ... not to mention the humiliation and deceit that I was subjected to yesterday.

SCENE 28

Kovalyov’s team and roughly ninety more Russians accompany the Chechens on buses which would eventually take them back to freedom and their families in Chechnya. For two days, Kovalyov and the others acted as human shields during the bus journey, with the Chechens ready to shoot them at any sign of trouble. Meanwhile, we hear the words Basaev spoke in apology to Kovalyov—a testimony to the enormous influence and popularity the Russian Human Rights activist has in Chechnya.

Basaev: Those were extreme measures. We ask you to understand and forgive us, if you can.

SCENE 29

Rybakov relates a conversation with one of the Chechens after the Budennovsk crisis had been defused. The freed hostages meet their families back again in Budennovsk.

Rybakov: When I was coming out into the street, one of Basaev’s men came up to me and asked: “So who do you take us for?” And I said, “Terrorists.” Of course, that was not to his liking. But it is so. What they did was terror.

SCENE 30

Anna and her friend, Tatyana Ivanova, tell how they finally found her son, Kolya, and we see pictures of his corpse, which had originally been misidentified and taken to Altai.

Ivanova: This boy looks very much like his mother, and I kept thinking: if I find him alive and in a prison camp, I will come up to him and say, “Kolya, it’s you.” With this hope, we looked for our children. When I was watching the videotape [of bodies], I was looking for my own son. When we got to number 157, I said, stop the tape. We called in the experts and I said, “Number 157 is Kolya Pesetsky.” And they replied, “No, Number 157 is Zhenya Girev; he was buried in March in the Altai region.” I told them, “It’s not true.”

Pesetskaya: There had been a mix-up, as only one person signed the identification form. But there was somebody else! They could have called Girev’s mother. When I was looking through railway cars on the third of January, my Kolya had already been boxed up and prepared for departure.

SCENE 31

Tatyana Ivanova is shown meeting her own son’s corpse in an airplane terminal

Narrator: Nikolai Pisestky was buried in Altai, in early spring. Five months later, in October, he was finally brought home to his mother. Two weeks before that, in Tatarstan, Tatyana Ivanova was meeting her own cargo.

SCENE 32

Kovalyov and the Duma deputies remember the victims of the war.

Rybakov: Let us remember those who have been spared, and those with whom our soul — its better part — remains. Let us drink to all those who have fallen victim.

SCENE 33

Anna Pesetskaya recites a poem about a mother looking for her son, who was killed in a senseless, cruel war, and not being able to reconcile herself with his loss. Meanwhile we pan through Kolya’s personal effects. Bread and salt, traditional Russian symbols of peace and hospitality, stand next to his photograph.

 

Discussion

Ruth Daniloff: I am referring to Tatyana, the woman who identified number 157 on the videotape they were showing. Did the Russian military videotape the corpses?

Boxer: Yes, they had a special place in Rostov with several thousands of bodies which were not identified, and the mothers were allowed to watch videotapes of them. However, the greatest number of bodies was in a so-called refrigerator wagon, as the woman, Anna, related. Yet it was often impossible to identify the burned bodies. That is why some of the bodies were misidentified, and the mothers got the wrong bodies.

Nicholas Daniloff: I know that American soldiers have so-called “dog tags,” metallic labels to identify them. Is that the case with Russian soldiers?

Boxer: No. The problem here, from my point of view, was the general philosophy or ideology that put the state first and the people second. So the mother is supposed to be happy that her son has the right to be killed for the state. I think that, now, this issue is in transition because of the consequences of the war. Public opinion was quite powerful, and, afterwards, some improvements were made. I don’t know about the tags, but I am sure that at least something has changed. I know that the laboratory which did corpse recognition has purchased equipment to do DNA testing because, still, hundreds of bodies remain unrecognized and stored in the refrigerator wagon.

One more detail concerning the final scene, when the mother recites a poem. She actually wrote this poem herself, despite the fact that she is not a professional. It is a bit naïve, but this woman began to write only in her forties [around the time when her son died], which shows how circumstances can change people’s minds and attitudes. Many of these women had some creative power within them which they only unleashed when the tragedy happened.

Fiona Hill: Do you think, if more people had seen this film, given the wealth of contradictions shown, if it were widely broadcast on national television, do you honestly think it would have made an impact?

Boxer: Yes, a very strong one. I see two aspects to the problem. The first, that some time had elapsed; if the movie had been made and shown within, say, two months of Budennovsk when everyone remembered, its effect would have been tremendous. My estimate is that, if this documentary were shown on major Russian broadcasting channels, it would have at least doubled the number of voters for the Democratic Choice of Russia. This is why the executives of most television channels were strongly against doing so. Some of them did not want a negative reaction against the government; others, like Igor Malashenko, the director of Chas program, did not want more voters for The Democratic Choice of Russia, because he had other parties he wanted to support.

Matthew Lantz: Could you have shown parts of it on guaranteed air time during the election campaign, or told people about it during your guaranteed air time? I know that every party is guaranteed a certain amount of air time.

Boxer: It couldn’t have been shown under any circumstances even in our free time. I know what I am talking about. Once, I worked as an advisor to the Chairman of the Ostankino Tower Television Center, and I know how one would be able to prevent a program from being aired. I know people who can indeed do whatever they want to with Russian programs. For example, in 1993, the popular favorite was Russia’s Choice — not yet called the Democratic Choice of Russia ₁ — and the channels had guidelines for backing it. They often did not want to because they were mostly comprised of old-timers nostalgic for CPSU times.

It was estimated that ten minutes of indirect advertising for the Russia’s Choice would do the trick. For example, in a conversation with a famous Russian actor, the actor would say “I love Gaidar,” or Chernomyrdin, or whomever. However, this produced an averse reaction in the Russian people, since the people don’t like unfair games.

The national TV stations showed only what was happening in Moscow, but Russia has plenty of local media in different time zones. In Siberia, the local media broadcast an advertisement, created by someone who wanted to back Russia’s Choice, thirty-five times in a very short time period. As a result of this over-broadcast, the voting result for this region was dismal. Furthermore, it is quite possible for the media to simply show someone from a bad angle and make them look ridiculous.

Most directors and studios were “bought” for a special government salary, which they were oftentimes not even able to pick up, since this would draw undue attention to them. At that time, in 1993, I was sixth or seventh in the Ostankino hierarchy, and it so happened that I participated in the making of a documentary titled “From Greeks to Varyags,” comparing Ukraine and Russia in 1993. There were two different films made: one, created by order of the government and constituting one’s own paid work, and the other, which the studio made on an outside order. In this case, it is understandable that the director and the crew received most of their money from the outside. Everyone became accustomed to bribes. Thus, when we created this movie, I was asked to bribe the director, although I was wondering how he could receive money from me for his job duties. This used to be the atmosphere of Russian television.

Fiona Hill: So, if you had shown up with a hefty bribe in 1995, would you have been able to push through the political opposition?

Boxer: In 1995, it was a bit different, because, in that year, Channel One went private, as have most channels by now. From the theoretical point of view, this is for the better, but, in reality, all Russian channels are now controlled by different groups of oligarchs. Any games that could be played with the government are out of the question with these oligarchs. Otherwise, you would probably end up killed the next day. This is a very different discipline, when the whole personnel behaves strictly according to the oligarchs’ guidelines.

Ruth Daniloff: I would be very interested in your opinion of the current situation in Northern Caucasus and Chechnya. Things seem to be pretty chaotic there, especially in Dagestan. Do you think the everyday situation of the Russian army there could be aggravated again and how would the Russian public opinion feel about that?

Boxer: Actually, I am not an expert on this topic and have never been, since I do not possess enough knowledge [about what is going on in that region]. I can, however, give you some of my impressions and hypotheses. I would say that Russian intervention is impossible, because our military was not happy with the war back in 1994, when its biggest promoters were not at all military. As far as I know, the main promoter was Nikolai Yegorov, the former Vice Premier and Yeltsin’s Chief of Staff; to an extent, Sergei Shakhrai, the young hero from 1991; and Oleg Lobov, the former Vice Premier. Even back then, the military was reluctant; now, I believe they will be even more reluctant. This is exactly as it was after Afghanistan, and after Tbilisi in 1989, when any use of the army became quite impossible. Without Tbilisi, we would not have had the outcome of the so-called military coup in August of 1991. The military did not want to participate in the coup, which then failed; they knew that the generals would be held responsible for this coup at the end, while the government officials would shrink from responsibility.

I think that, right now, the use of military force in the form of aggression or intervention would be impossible. There may only be some small operation in Chechnya. If you consider Dagestan, the situation there is different, because the people in Chechnya and Dagestan are different. First of all, in Dagestan, the people are of different ethnicities, and usually don’t get along with each other. Hence, I think that a united aggression of these people against Russia is impossible. Joining all these people, though mostly Muslim, against Russia, is as inconceivable to me as Armenia and Azerbaijan uniting against Russia.

Chechnya is a special case, because, back in the 19th century, Russia had a 25-year conflict with it. However, I still think that Chechnya’s time for independence is gone. It was already gone in 1994, which the Russian government did not realize. From my point of view, Mr. Yeltsin wanted to win this war primarily out of the fear that Ruslan Khasbulatov might seize power in Chechnya, which at the time was quite possible. So, the situation might have been the same as it was in Georgia, with the war against Zviad Gamsakhurdia and other people with questionable criminal records. Then, Eduard Shevardnadze was portrayed as a mediator, and people were glad to have someone who could get in the middle of the war and break it up. The scenario in Chechnya was similar to this, with Khasbulatov in Shevardnadze’s role. At that time, he was quite popular in Grozny and the pro-Russian part of Chechnya. I do not know if he had a 20-percent or a 100-percent chance of victory. Yeltsin was under the impression that Khasbulatov was about to seize power. Then, he was told by Yegorov and Shakhrai, “Look, Boris Nikolayevich, we just had October of 1993—and what for? For the possibility that Khasbulatov might become the President of Chechnya and, by Russian law, an automatic member of the Federation Council?”— [Yeltsin’s reply]: “Oh, then he’ll probably be elected Chairman of the Federation Council.” This illustrates the saying “Watch what you wish for.” Yeltsin was sure of this possibility, because his political way of thinking is quite personalized and centered on his opponents, such as Gorbachev and Khasbulatov. Right now, I do not think that the possibility of war exists, although some complications might arise. The worst scenario would be to have local and micro-conflicts.

Arthur Martirosian: I have a question about oligarchs and those whom they were backing throughout the war. It is a well-known fact that NTV covered the war well, and we know who was behind this. We know that Berezovsky sponsored a movie by Nevzorov [an ardent nationalist TV-anchor from St. Petersburg] on Chechnya, which is probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen. So how would you assess [the oligarchs’] role: did they have any interest in Chechnya? How did they perceive their role in it? How did they see the entire war, and how did they influence the media to protect their interests?

Boxer: In the three times that I met Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, I never spoke to him on the subject of his interests in Chechnya. I did speak with some people who were close to him, and, during the first days of this conflict, a big discussion on the subject was held among the Democratic Choice of Russia leadership. The executive of the Democratic Choice of Russia was Oleg Boiko, who was the Chairman of Olbi and National Credit Bank, companies with close ties to Boris Berezovsky. He had much influence and was among the people who launched ORT. I participated at their meetings in which ORT was launched and Sergei Blagovolin, who was on the board of Olbi and National Credit, was appointed the General Director. Boiko argued with Gaidar about the Chechen War, and they actually stopped communicating because Boiko stated that he himself was against war, but his policy was to back the government in whatever it did. Maybe he wanted to be closer to Yeltsin and his government, or maybe he had some strategic views—I do not know the real reason. Nevertheless, Boiko has recently stated that he was the one who brought about peace in Chechnya.

At the time, Berezovsky and Gusinsky, the Chairman of MOST, were sworn enemies. Berezovsky claimed that Gusinsky had sponsored an attempt to kill him, and Gusinsky said the same about him. Just before 1996, they actually joined forces to back Yeltsin, as they realized that, due to their feud, the Communists were moving too close to seizing power. Berezovsky and Gusinsky then fought another enemy, Anatoly Chubais, which helped them maintain their union up to this day. However, back in 1994–1995, Gusinsky was strongly against the Chechen War. Channel Four (NTV), which Gusinsky owned, was much more professional, and its argumentation was much more clever than the straight propaganda of ORT. ORT behaved as if it was still the old Soviet time when people has access to only one channel. But its propaganda mechanism failed horribly—since now people had the opportunity to simply change the channel and find out what was really happening in the war.

Generally speaking, I think that the oligarchs’ behavior is quite rational. No one expects them to be human rights activists; they would then have to switch places with Sergei Kovalyov. In any country, oligarchs would behave as they are wont to behave: they would try to maximize their profit. In Russia, that means backing the party that puts money in their purses. This is what they did, and would do again if presented with such a possibility.

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Endnotes

Note 1: In June 1994, the Russia’s Choice faction in the State Duma held a congress at which they created a new party—called the Democratic Choice of Russia. Gaidar remained at the head of the new party, and the platform was essentially the same as that of the Russia’s Choice faction. Back.