Are Chechens Answer To Russian Armys Manpower Shortage?
This fall, young Chechen men will once again be drafted into the ranks of the Russian armed forces after an interval of several years. But estimates of the number of potential Chechen draftees diverge considerably, and it remains unclear where in the Russian Federation the Chechen recruits are likely to be stationed. When Chechnya gravitated out of Moscow’s orbit following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the draft system fell into abeyance, and an entire generation of young men avoided compulsory military service. Only in February 2001, after then-Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a victorious end to the “counterterrorism operation” in Chechnya did Putin’s envoy to the Southern Federal District, Viktor Kazantsev, who commanded the Group of Russian Forces in the North Caucasus during the 1994-96 Chechen war, order Chechen administration head Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov to prepare the necessary paperwork to enable young Chechen males to be drafted into the Russian Army. Kazantsev spec
