Massacre of Russians in Meken

On September 30, 1999, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated:

“Military operations are already under way, our troops entered the territory of Chechnya several times, two weeks ago they occupied the dominant heights, liberated them, and so on. We need to be patient and do this work - to completely clear the territory of terrorists. If this work is not done today, they will return, and all the sacrifices made will be in vain. ” ^[2]

On the same day, the tank units of the Russian army from the Stavropol Territory and Dagestan entered the territory of the Naursky and Shelkovsky districts of Chechnya ^[3] .

As soon as the units of the federal troops reached the outskirts of the village of Meken , many Chechens left it, who left the Terek , the territory controlled by the militants. A militant battalion remained in the village, among which was the 43-year-old resident of the village of Meken, Ahmet Ibrahimov. Ibrahimov worked as a postman in the village for a long time and knew all the inhabitants well (at the time of the murder he was a driver) ^[4] .

On October 8, 1999 , a week before the control of federal forces was established over Meken, the militant Ahmed Ibrahimov deliberately committed the murder of 34 Russian residents of the village, including women, old men and three children, as well as one Turk-Meskhetian. In total, Ibragimov killed 35 people. The reason for the murder was the refusal of one of the residents to dig trenches (at the beginning of the Second Chechen War in Meken and other villages of the Naursky region , as well as in other areas of Chechnya, there was evidence of massive involvement by militants of the non-Chechen population in the construction of fortifications) ^[1] . He did not choose the Wide Street for a massacre by chance: it was mainly the Russian population of the village who lived here ^[5] .

Ibrahimov was seized by Chechen fellow villagers. The Naur and Meken elders, the Chechens , probably before the fact of the Russian troops coming to Meken, decided to give the murderer-tribesman to the relatives of the victims. Two days after the tragedy, two Russian men were beaten with iron crowds at the Ibragimov stanitsa stanitsa. I finished the dying Ibragimov local resident-Chechen ^[6] . The local mullah forbade burying the body of the criminal, after which his remains were thrown on the street ^[4] .

A week after the massacre, control of the federal forces was established in Meken. On October 5, 1999 , the press service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that for refusing to dig trenches, Chechen militants shot 61 civilians in the villages of Meken and Alpatovo ^[7] . Ibragimov's victims were buried near the Russian cemetery. In fact, they did not dare to bury the cemetery - the retreating gangsters mined it ^[6] .

In December 1999 , Igor Kiselev, the acting prosecutor of Chechnya, was prosecuted for the massacre . On December 17, in order to clarify the circumstances of the crime, the bodies of the dead were exhumed ^[4] . On December 21, Aslan Maskhadov , the leader of the Chechen gangs, was summoned by the Main Directorate of the Prosecutor General's Office for the North Caucasus to testify in the criminal case of the murder in Meken. Center for Information and Public Relations of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation : “ The investigation has accumulated enough questions that need to be answered by Aslan Maskhadov ” ^[8] . Subsequently, the criminal case on the fact of the massacre in Meken became one of the constituent charges of violating the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Chechnya against the President of the ChRI Aslan Maskhadov . On December 23, it was reported that the General Directorate of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation for the North Caucasus is conducting an investigation of this case and that the bodies of the dead are being exhumed, expert examinations have been scheduled, and witnesses are being questioned. In early January 2000 , the criminal case on the murder in Meken was closed due to the death of the accused Ibragimov ^[9] . Ibragimov’s murderers were not arrested - their actions were probably qualified as necessary self-defense ^[6] .

The massacre in October 1999 forced dozens of Russian residents of Meken in one day to leave their native village ^[5] . According to some data, in the former Cossack village of Meken in 2001, out of 4,000 inhabitants, only 42 Russian families lived ^[1] .