“There’s no stability whatsoever in Chechnya. Russia has no policy for Northern Caucasus – only an attempt to use bayonets that leads to numerous victims only”. This was stated by Svetlana Gannushkina, a human rights defender, chair of the committee “Civil Assistance”, a member of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) “Memorial” and a member of the Board on Human Rights at the President of the Russian Federation, last week in Moscow in the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Centre during expanded debates “Conflicts in the Caucasus” from the general cycle “War and Peace”.

“Russia has no policy for Northern Caucasus; there are actions and convulsive moves aimed at preservation, and in some cases – at restoration of the empire, by acting with bayonets only, as the empire did. It results not in success, but in terrible, irreplaceable and unforgivable victims. I think that we have passed behind the non-return point in this respect, and we’ll fail to set up stability,” said Ms Gannushkina.

During the discussion, she also told about her visit to Chechnya as the chair of the Committee “Civil Assistance”, engaged in humanitarian projects.

“I feel very sad, when the words ‘Chechnya’ and ‘Kadirov’ are accompanied by the word ‘stability’. There’s no stability whatsoever,” she said. “Chechnya is overwhelmed by fear, coppering, immorality and barbarian corruption.”

Ms Gannushkina told how members of her committee presented the project of methodical and psychological help to teachers of mountain schools in those areas of the republic, as she said, “life is still dangerous, and everyone who is there is under threat.”

According to her story, a school mistress told about her son, whose schoolmates went to the mountains. “And every time, when they conduct a special operation there, he is taken away and interrogated, and how they interrogate – it’s clear; and she doesn’t know what to do. The only way out is to remove that guy out of there completely. Since either he joins freedom fighters, where they naturally entice him, or just perish at the next interrogation,” Svetlana said.

She also reported that in the course of their visit to Chechnya activists of the committee “Civil Assistance” rendered material aid to people, whose houses were burnt down.

“It was done to punish them. It has announced on TV and told by Delimkhanov and Kadirov: ‘this would be punishment for those who just thought about any contacts with militants’. This is what the today’s Chechen stability looks like. People whom we invited: there were 10 families – two of them didn’t come for fear of consequences,” she said.