Everything that the Russian government has done since: invading Georgia and Ukraine, annexing Crimea, meddling in Syria, Venezuela and the Central African Republic – is the echo of the Chechen campaigns. The first steps in developing an effective information war and discrediting the Western media were also taken during the second Russian – Chechen War.

Putin, who became Russian Prime Minister in 1999 and President in 2000, made a special effort to prevent information from coming out of the region: during the second Russian – Chechen war foreign journalists were practically refused entry into the so-called “counter-terrorist” operation zone, and their brave Russian colleagues, such as Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006) and Natalia Estemirova (1958 -2009), who tried to expose what was going on in Chechnya, were ruthlessly killed. The key problem, however, was that the world did not want to know about Chechnya. Eager to buy Russian oil and gas the West turned a blind eye to Putin’s imperial ambitions and his crimes against humanity so unabated he carried on.

During the event at the Frontline Club in London, on February 19, 2020, Luke Harding, Guardian’s foreign news journalist in Moscow, discussed these issues in conversation with Mr Akhmed Zakayev. Let’s recall that Mr Zakayev, the London-based Chechen leader whom Russia has long sought to extradite from the UK, fought in both Russian-Chechen wars, and was variously a minister, a military commander, a negotiator, a presidential candidate and the current Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government.

You can see Mr Zakayev’s speech at the following link :