Caharkala/Agency Caucasus – The Chechens were shocked to hear of plans by the Chechen government of Ramzan Kadyrov, a political proponent of the Russian Federation, to name a street after the Russian troops who were killed in a battle with the resistance fighters of Chechnya.
It further shocked the Chechens when they heard of the new government statements that the relatives of members of the Russian Pskov Paratroop Regiment who had been killed in February
The Chechen government’s plans received instant public criticism. Jaid Alkhazurov, Caharkala, was angry in his verbal reaction to the government: "I don’t understand why the government decided to pay
Heda Dakaieva, 58, was even angrier in her response: "I won’t live in the street that will be named after the Russian Pskov Paratroop Regiment. In my opinion, the two wars only damaged the public impression of the Russian military. The Russian military behaved here like invaders; they killed, raped and robbed. The Russian military is hero neither in my opinion nor in the public opinion of Chechens. A military would not normally fight against its own nation; however, the Russian military did exactly the opposite… It just shocked me when I heard that a street in Caharkala would be named after the Russian troops who had been killed in a battle against the resistance fighters. It even further shocked me when I heard that relatives of those Russian troops would be granted 50,000 rubles in compensation. It is worth asking why the naming of the Caharkala street after the Russian troops will be done on February 23, the anniversary of the 1944 exile into both Kazakhstan and the Central Asia, which had cost almost half of the population at that time. This [the naming of the Caharkala street after the Russian troops] is sheer disrespect not only for those who had to suffer from the extremely bad treatment by the Russian military of them but also for our ancestors who died of hunger, cold and poor health in the 1944 exile. KU/ÖZ/FT
