A procedure is a historical example of a colonizer using a technique or sub-technique in the course of a specific campaign against a specific people. They are listed below and can be filtered by the peoples affected by Russian aggression.
The Tsardom of Muscovy exploited the critical position of the Hetmanate to impose a format of subordination, refusing from the outset to take on symmetrical obligations. The tsar's envoy demonstratively rejected the Cossacks' demand for a mutual oath, turning the agreement into an instrument of unilateral absorption: "Buturlin refused to swear an oath on behalf of the tsar, citing the fact that the tsar does not swear oaths to his subjects. No written treaty was concluded at Pereiaslav"[1].
The seizure of a neighboring state's territories was presented to the population of the Tsardom of Muscovy not as an act of political or military expansion, but as a great sacred mission. The use of Orthodox rhetoric helped justify Muscovite ambitions with the noble aims of protecting brothers in faith: "The return of these lands to Russia was then understood by everyone as Reunification"[2].
From the very beginning, Moscow laid an asymmetric foundation for the relationship, harshly cutting off the autonomy's international agency. Having satisfied the Cossacks' internal demands, Moscow categorically forbade them to conduct independent foreign affairs: "Tsar Alexei accepts the main demands — everything except an independent foreign policy"[2].
As soon as political interests changed, Moscow did not hesitate to conclude a separate peace with its recent enemy — Poland — cynically negotiating the division of spheres of influence behind the back of its Ukrainian ally: "In October 1656, negotiations between Russia and Poland begin in present-day Vilnius"[2].
The Tsardom of Muscovy physically and legally isolated the autonomy from participation in international politics, deciding the fate of the Cossack lands without regard for their national interests: "This is a true drama for Ukrainians: at the insistence of the Polish side, Ukrainians are not admitted to the negotiations"[2].
To deny the Ukrainian delegation any opportunity to influence the geopolitical arrangements or to protest the separate peace in time, Muscovite diplomacy imposed a rigid information blockade, not letting the Cossacks even onto the threshold of the negotiation hall: "at the insistence of the Polish side, Ukrainians are not admitted to the negotiations"[2].
Seeking to weaken the Hetmanate from within and prevent it from breaking its vassalage, Moscow began artificially fomenting civil war. The Tsardom generously sponsored and armed the internal opposition against the lawful government, provoking the period of the bloody Ruin: "The uprising of Pushkar and Barabash"[3].
When covert methods of destabilization proved insufficient, the Tsardom moved to open military invasion. The regular Muscovite army attempted to force the Hetmanate into submission, which ended for it in catastrophe at Konotop: "The flower of the Muscovite cavalry, which had made the fortunate campaigns of '54 and '55, perished in a single day..."[4].
Taking advantage of the political crisis and having surrounded the autonomy's leaders with its troops, the Tsardom coerced them into signing a new, utterly enslaving treaty. This document radically curtailed the Cossacks' rights and abolished their independence: "The Articles meant the rupture of the Hadiach Agreement of 1658... and substantially narrowed the autonomy of Cossack Ukraine within the Muscovite state"[5].
After forcibly coercing the signing of the new treaty, Moscow proceeded to the direct occupation of the autonomy's living space. Muscovite garrisons headed by voivodes were installed not only in Kyiv but also in other strategically important cities, ensuring physical control over the territory from within: "The Articles... substantially narrowed the autonomy of Cossack Ukraine within the Muscovite state"[5].
The logical culmination of the absorption process was the official partition of Ukrainian lands between the two neighboring states. The treaty was signed exclusively by representatives of Moscow and Warsaw: "On the Muscovite side the negotiations were conducted by... A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin... on the Polish side, by Commissar Jerzy Hlebowicz" [6]. The opinion of the autonomy itself was completely ignored: "The interests of the hetmans and of Ukraine were, of course, not taken into account" [7]. "For the Cossacks this is yet another blow — the decision about their fate is made behind their backs"[2].
In the legal partition of Ukrainian lands, the opinion of the people themselves or of their leaders was demonstratively ignored. The Hetmanate was treated exclusively as an object: "The interests of the hetmans and of Ukraine were, of course, not taken into account"[7].
The legal codification of the territory's division. Moscow deliberately fragmented a once unified country, turning such important regions as Zaporizhzhia into rightless buffer zones under joint administration: "...Zaporizhzhia (which under the treaty of 1667 was under the joint rule of Moscow and Warsaw)"[8].
Having gained political power over the Left Bank, Moscow immediately attempted to seize the right to collect taxes in order to extract resources directly: "the attempts of Russian voivodes... to introduce their own taxation system in Ukraine led only to revolts (for example... the attempted census of 1666...)"[8].
To provide ideological justification for the seizure and dismemberment of the territories, the Muscovite authorities initiated the creation of a new historical canon designed to legitimize the occupation retroactively: "Synopsis, or a Brief Compilation from Various Chroniclers on the Origin of the Slavono-Russian People and the First Princes of the God-Saved City of Kyiv"[9].
The implantation of an artificial narrative of an unbreakable historical bond between Kyiv and Moscow, which was meant to replace real history and serve Muscovite political ends: the author "proves the Muscovite tsar's right to rule in Kyiv"[2].
Within the framework of the new Muscovite state ideology, a deliberate erasure of a separate Ukrainian identity began. The author constructs a false myth of unity: he "tailors history to the scenario he needs in order to substantiate that Kyiv is directly related to Moscow"[2].
The imperial historical myth was directly grounded in religious manipulation: the expansion and absorption of Ukrainian territories were justified by an invented concept of religious unity. The author constructed an ideologeme in order to "give the Muscovite tsar the motivation to continue the struggle against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the liberation of the remaining part of the single Orthodox people from the rule of Catholics"[9].
The systematic dismantling of the autonomy's democratic institutions. Moscow categorically forbade the Cossacks to elect their leaders independently and to conduct an independent foreign policy: "and without a petition and without a decree of the great sovereigns... a hetman shall not be elected... nor shall they, on their own... write anything to anyone"[8]. The abolition of the historical right to grant asylum: the autonomy was forced to perform the functions of the Muscovite punitive apparatus and to hand over fugitives: "and those fugitives and people of all ranks shall not be received, nor kept among them"[8].
To ensure constant armed oversight of the autonomy's top leadership and to prevent uprisings, the Tsardom of Muscovy stationed its regular troops directly in the hetman's capital: "with the hetman in Baturyn, for his protection and safety, there shall be a Muscovite streltsy regiment..."[8].
The introduction of strict political censorship. Under threat of punishment, the population was forbidden even to say aloud that their lands constituted a separate state entity: "and let no one utter such voices, that the Little Russian land is of the hetman's regiment"[8].
The use of demographic engineering to accelerate assimilation. Moscow openly proclaimed a course toward erasing ethnic boundaries by encouraging marriages with Great Russians: "to unite the Little Russian people with the Great Russian people by all measures and means... through matrimony and other conduct..."[8].
"In this provision of the articles, the tsarist government's aspiration to turn Ukraine into a region incorporated into the Russian state on ordinary terms was openly declared for the first time"[7].
The Tsardom of Muscovy enshrined in state documents its course toward the complete absorption of the region: "Prince Vasily declared in the articles the beginning of the process of Russification"[7].
To guarantee acceptance of the treaty's enslaving terms, the tsardom bribed the local starshyna with guarantees that they would keep their offices, placing the elite's personal ambitions above national ones: "the hetman shall not remove anyone of the general starshyna from office without the will and decree of their most serene tsarist majesty..."[8].
To gain control over the church, Moscow employed corruption at the international level. "The Kyiv Metropolitanate was seized... through bribery, manipulation, blackmail..." [10]. The envoy of Constantinople "directly asked the Muscovite envoy for money in exchange for issuing the required charter"[11][12].
The introduction of censorship control over Ukrainian book printing. Patriarch Joachim prohibited publications without his sanction and sent a "reprimand for publishing books without prior permission." "The anathema of the Russian Orthodox Church on church books printed in the Ukrainian literary language of the time"[13]. [7][8].
The destruction of the Kyiv theological school and the declaration of its works as heresy: "All Ukrainian writings, beginning with the catechism of Petro Mohyla, were declared heretical... the council condemned virtually all the principal works of Kyivan theological scholarship"[8][7].
The annexation of the metropolitanate was disguised as the protection of co-religionists. The reform was carried out "relying on the Orthodox movement against the Turkish conquerors... Golitsyn's main project became the subordination of the Kyiv metropolitanate"[7][11][8].
Following the establishment of control over the metropolitanate came a gradual ban on the use of the Kyivan recension of Church Slavonic and of Ukrainian pronunciation in liturgy and books, which laid the foundation for the complete language bans of the 18th century[11].
The division of spheres of influence behind the back of the Ukrainian ally, accompanied by a financial transaction for territory: Moscow officially paid an enormous sum in silver for the cession of Kyiv[2][7][8].
The legal codification of the country's split into two parts, with the Right Bank turned into a buffer zone: "Under the terms of the Eternal Peace, the Right Bank remained with Poland... it was agreed and resolved that those places are to remain deserted, as they now are"[8][7].
The complete exclusion of the autonomy from participation in international negotiations about the status of its own territories. In the legal partition of Ukrainian lands, the opinion of the people themselves was ignored: "For Mazepa and all Ukrainians this was a colossal humiliation"[2][7].
The diplomatic entrenchment of spiritual occupation. Moscow secured the inclusion in the treaty of a clause on the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarch over the Orthodox in Poland: "the higher Orthodox clergy shall receive consecration from the Metropolitan of Kyiv [already subordinated to Moscow]"[11][10].
The shifting of the financial and logistical burden of imperial wars onto the shoulders of the autonomy: "Provisions for the volunteer troops were supplied by the commoners, who also stockpiled hay for the winter for the army artillery"[8][7][14].
The forced use of Cossacks to build imperial infrastructure under harsh conditions: "in the making of fortifications around the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery"[8][7].
The distribution of the highest imperial awards to buy the hetman's loyalty against the backdrop of Ukraine's resource exhaustion: Peter I "deigned to name me a cavalier of the glorious order of the holy first-called apostle of Christ, Andrew"[8][7][12].
The deployment of a network of military bases (Novobohorodytska, Kamianyi Zaton) near the Zaporozhian Sich. Under the pretext of protection, Moscow was establishing rigid military control: "The Zaporozhians... put forward the destruction of Kamianyi Zaton as a condition for any oath of allegiance"[8][7].
The dispatch of Cossack regiments to distant theaters of war (the Baltic countries, Poland), which led to their exhaustion. The troops were "wearied by year-round military service, worn down, left without horses, and destitute"[8][7][10].
The strangulation of the autonomy's economy through the system of billeting the regular army: "And when the kompaniytsi and serdiuks stand in winter quarters... 24 commoners feed a single kompaniyets without any excuses"[8][7].
The mass conscription of the population for the construction of military installations in Moscow's interests. The tsar officially thanked the hetman for "the considerable labors borne... in the making of the Pechersk fortification"[8][7].
The liquidation of the autonomy through the administrative reform of 1707: the transfer of Ukrainian affairs to the Razriadnyi Prikaz with the aim "to convert the Cossacks into a regular army... to break the rights and liberties of the Host"[8][7][10].
Preparation for the liquidation of the Hetmanate through the gubernia reform, into which Cossack towns were artificially inscribed. Moscow planned "to take the Little Russian towns into its own domain"[8][7].
A course toward the complete absorption and destruction of the very name of the Cossack state. The empire sought "to eradicate the Zaporozhian Host of the Lower Dnipro and erase its name forever... to enslave the entire Little Russian people to itself forever"[8][2].
The thrust of the regular army to physically destroy the defiant capital of the Hetmanate. "The strongest and most effective step... was Menshikov's attack... After that, all houses, churches, and monasteries were looted and, in accordance with the tsar's decree, burned"[7][8][15].
The wholesale massacre of the town's civilian population: "Funk slaughtered more than a thousand people... and ordered the killing of everyone encountered, in order to instill terror in others"[12]. "In total, about 15 thousand Ukrainians perished in the Baturyn tragedy, including all the women and children"[7][8][15].
The demonstrative destruction of the town as an act of intimidation for the rest of the country. Peter I personally gave the order: "and Baturyn, as a sign to the traitors (since they resisted), burn entirely as an example to others"[2][7][8][15].
A campaign to erase the name of the resistance leader (Damnatio memoriae): "For two centuries, Mazepa's name and deeds were expunged... His coats of arms were chiseled off the churches he had built, and his name was blotted out in books"[7][8][15].
Large-scale looting of state arsenals and the treasury during a punitive raid on the capital of the autonomy: "Menshikov managed to carry off part of the artillery"[7][8][15].
Deliberate removal of intellectual and historical heritage. The imperial troops did not merely loot — they seized unique documents: "Menshikov managed to carry off... the hetman's archive and Mazepa's library"[7][8].
Installation of a government fully controlled by Moscow after the destruction of the capital. Imposition of the loyal hetman Ivan Skoropadsky to ensure the uninterrupted exploitation of the Hetmanate[2][7].
Formalization of the occupation regime through sham democratic procedures. The starshyna, terrorized by the massacre, was forced to vote for the candidate favored by the metropole: "Under the circumstances that had arisen, the starshyna simply confirmed Skoropadsky, whom Peter had put forward"[7][2][8].
Systematic destruction of the Cossack starshyna who had supported Mazepa, through torture and executions, to eliminate the political leadership[8].
Public executions and torture in Lebedyn, aimed at the total intimidation of the population and the suppression of any support for the uprising[8].
The march of Colonel Yakovlev's and Halahan's troops to physically destroy the Lower Cossack Host and the base of the Sich[16][8].
Public executions of captured Cossacks, the display of heads on stakes, and the floating of rafts with gallows down the Dnipro for intimidation[16].
Total physical extermination of the garrison's defenders[16][8].
Confiscation and removal of the Sich artillery, treasury, river fleet, and food supplies[16].
Issuance of an official manifesto banning the use of the very name of the Sich in any documents[8]. Physical desecration of sacred sites: "the tombs of the Sich otamans were plundered"[17].
Sermons and decrees framing the destruction of the Sich as a "God-pleasing" punishment for "treason against the Orthodox monarch"[8].
Physical destruction of the armed forces of the supporters of independence in a general battle in order to eliminate the military potential of the resistance[8].
Mass executions of captured Cossacks after the capitulation at Perevolochna and Poltava for the final intimidation of the supporters of autonomy[8].
Liquidation of the statehood and international legal personality of the autonomy as a result of the defeat of the Swedish-Ukrainian forces: "From 1709 Ukraine loses its independence, its legal and international-law attributes, and therefore ceases to exist as a state"[17].
Refusal to sign a treaty: replacement of an agreement between equals with unilateral "resolutions" (decrees) of the tsar[18][8].
A categorical ban on the hetman conducting foreign policy or receiving foreign envoys[18][8].
Establishment of the institution of a ministerial resident for permanent surveillance of the hetman and his correspondence[18][8].
Introduction of an obligation to submit full financial reports on the region's revenues under the supervision of the center[18][8].
Mass mobilization of Cossack regiments for hard construction labor in Ingria[8].
The obligation of the Cossacks to supply themselves with their own provisions and tools for the entire duration of the works at their own expense[8].
Transfer of Cossack regiments under the direct command of imperial officers and officials outside the Cossack hierarchy[8].
Introduction of the collegium as a parallel organ of power to intercept judicial and fiscal functions from the hetman's administration[19].
Arrest of the acting hetman and the starshyna in St. Petersburg for attempting to defend autonomous rights through petitions. The physical elimination of the leader through his death in the Peter and Paul Fortress became an instrument for the final suppression of elite resistance[20].
Creation of a specialized agency in Moscow to govern the autonomy instead of the diplomatic Ambassadorial Prikaz. This action transferred the Hetmanate from the status of a foreign state to the rank of an internal colony[21].
Deployment of Muscovite garrisons headed by tsarist voivodes into the key centers of the autonomy (Kyiv, Pereiaslav, Nizhyn, Chernihiv, and others) to physically hold the territories under occupation[22].
Direct seizure of the autonomy's economic resources: the right to collect direct taxes from the local Ukrainian population was handed over directly to tsarist representatives[22].
A categorical prohibition on the hetman conducting independent diplomacy or any relations with foreign states, aimed at completely isolating the region in the international arena[22].
Interference in internal governance: the hetman was officially stripped of the right to punish Cossack starshyna or remove them from office without the approval and judgment of the Muscovite monarch[23].
Protection and encouragement of the part of the local elite loyal to Moscow, which allowed the metropole to control the hetman through the hands of his own subordinates (the "divide and rule" principle)[23].
The destruction of the Cossack regiments by the Polish Sejm was a direct, time-delayed consequence of the "Eternal Peace" (1686), under which Moscow officially ceded the Right Bank to Warsaw, handing the indigenous population over for suppression[24].
Abolition of the regiment-and-company administrative structure in favor of the imperial partition of lands: "as early as 1699 the Polish Sejm adopted a decision to liquidate the Cossack order on the Right Bank"[24].
Use of Orlyk's Tatar allies to break up the anti-Moscow coalition from within. On the Right Bank, the Tatars betrayed the Cossacks and turned to seizing the civilian population: "The betrayal of the Tatars... they dispersed across Ukraine, taking yasyr and destroying settlements"[25].
Advance of regular Muscovite troops under the command of Golitsyn to suppress the liberation movement: "the Muscovite army was advancing... Orlyk was forced to retreat"[25].
Rejection of the treaty format: "The Decisive Points were issued in the form of a decree of the tsarist government to the hetman... indicated the transformation of the Hetmanate into an ordinary province of the Russian Empire"[26].
Complete diplomatic isolation of the autonomy. The decree categorically "prohibited the hetman from conducting diplomatic relations with foreign states"[26].
Transfer of the Left Bank's economy under the direct administration of St. Petersburg. "Taxes were to flow into the imperial treasury" under the control of Russian officials[26].
Blocking the election of a new leader and creating a hybrid administration for direct manual control. The body "consisted of 3 Russian and 3 Ukrainian officials... headed by the Russian prince Shakhovskoy"[27].
Imposition of the "Lubny Treaty" on the Zaporozhian Sich, legally codifying the transfer of the Cossacks "under the rule of Russia" with an obligation of military service to the empire[28].
Targeted demographic assimilation: "a secret decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna to the ruler of Ukraine, Prince Aleksei Shakhovskoy," which prescribed "to induce them and skillfully encourage their marriages with Great Russians"[13].
The final destruction of the office of the autonomy's leader. "On November 10, 1764, Catherine II abolished the hetman's rule"[29].
Establishment of a direct imperial body (the Second Little Russian Collegium headed by P. Rumyantsev), which "was to finally liquidate the autonomy of Ukraine"[30].
A secret instruction from the monarch on the complete cultural digestion of the local population: "so that they become Russified and stop looking to the forest like wolves"[29].
Liquidation of Cossack administrative units and imposition of the imperial division: "By the Manifesto of 1765, Catherine II abolished the Cossack order... and created the Sloboda Ukraine Governorate"[31].
Lowering the social status of the indigenous population for the purpose of economic plunder: "the Cossacks were turned into military commoners and subjected to taxation"[31].
Forced incorporation of the autochthonous armed forces into the imperial army: "the transformation of the regiments into regular hussar ones"[31].
Use of Ukrainian Cossack regiments for the grueling war against the Ottoman Empire: mobilization of the indigenous people's resources for imperial expansion[32].
Signing of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. Diplomatic severing of Crimea from the Ottoman Empire through recognition of its formal "independence" in preparation for the subsequent annexation[2].
The treacherous encirclement and forcible seizure of the Cossack stronghold by imperial troops under General Tekeli immediately after the Cossacks had helped the empire win the war. This event went down in history as the liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich[33].
Issuance of Catherine II's August manifesto, officially banning the very name of the Zaporozhian Sich and erasing its memory[2].
Arrest and lifelong exile of the Sich's top leadership. The last kish otaman, Petro Kalnyshevsky, was sent to solitary confinement in the Solovetsky Monastery[33].
The final liquidation of the Hetmanate's autonomy, including the abolition of the Cossack regimental system and the partition of the Left Bank into three ordinary imperial viceroyalties (Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Novhorod-Siverskyi)[29].
The final legal enserfment of Ukrainian peasants (the decree of 1783), depriving them of the right to free movement and cementing their social marginalization[29].
Secularization and confiscation into the imperial treasury of the lands of Ukrainian Orthodox monasteries (1786), depriving the local church of its economic base[30].
Use of Ukrainian peasants and Black Sea Cossacks as a military resource for storming Turkish fortresses (Ochakiv, Khotyn, Izmail) and consolidating imperial claims to Crimea[19].
Colonization of the Ukrainian steppes adjacent to Crimea by fugitives from other governorates and settlers from the Balkans in order to create a loyal rear around the annexed peninsula[19].
Erasure of the historical names of the southern Cossack territories, which had been used as a staging ground for the annexation of Crimea, and their renaming by Catherine II into the colonial construct "Novorossiya"[2].
Introduction of harsh territorial discrimination. The decree restricted the zone of residence and economic activity of the Jewish population, drawing the Pale of Settlement predominantly through colonized Ukrainian territories[34].
Diplomatic collusion with Prussia and Austria, leading to the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the liquidation of Polish statehood[35].
Seizure and incorporation into the empire of Right-Bank Ukraine, Volhynia, and Podolia as a result of the partitions of the neighboring state[35].
Erasure of the historical boundaries of the seized territories and their unification through the imposition of an imperial system of control over the Left Bank by establishing the Little Russian Governorate-General[36].
Use of Ukrainian resources and Cossack regiments in yet another Russo-Turkish war for imperial geopolitical expansion[37].
Severing of Bessarabia from the Ottoman Empire and its official annexation by the Russian Empire under the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812[38].
Mass conscription into the militia and formation of Cossack regiments for the war against France (the formation of 22 regiments and 75,000 militiamen) on the basis of the authorities' false promises to restore Cossack liberties[39].
Use of regular imperial troops to brutally suppress the revolts of the deceived population, which after the end of the war refused to return to the status of ordinary recruits[39].
Mass transfer of peasants and Cossacks to the status of rightless military settlers (the Arakcheyevshchina). The brutal exploitation of their labor provoked the revolt of the Buh Cossacks in 1817[40].
Luring the kish otaman Osyp Hladky over to the side of the Russian Empire in 1828, during the Russo-Turkish war[41].
The betrayal and defection of otaman Hladky provoked the Turkish sultan into reprisals against the remaining Cossacks, which led to the final liquidation of the last free Cossack community — the Danubian Sich[41].
A covert operation by Muscovite emissaries disguised as monks, aimed at destroying ancient documents of the 11th–17th centuries. The fire destroyed "the written memory of the independent Ukrainian political and spiritual life of the Lavra"[13].
Introduction of strict censorship of book printing: the "Decree of Peter I banning the printing of books in the Ukrainian language at the Kyiv-Pechersk and Chernihiv printing houses"[13].
A direct decree of the ruler banning the use of the local population's native language in book printing: the "Decree of Peter I banning the printing of books in the Ukrainian language at the Kyiv-Pechersk and Chernihiv printing houses"[13].
Mass confiscation of national educational and religious literature: the "Decree of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on the confiscation of Ukrainian primers and church books from the population"[13].
Destruction of the basic level of schooling in the native language: "A complete ban on primary education in the Ukrainian language"[13].
Displacement of the local population's language from the sacred sphere: "A ban on the use of the Ukrainian language in church services"[13].
Russification of higher education: "A ban on... teaching in the Ukrainian language at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy"[13].
Abolition of traditional local self-government: "The abolition of Magdeburg rights in the cities"[13].
Transfer of the courts to the language of the metropole: "made it impossible to conduct judicial proceedings in the Ukrainian language"[13].
Elimination of education in the native language: "Ukrainian Sunday schools were closed"[13].
Closure of the national press: "The publication of the Ukrainian literary and scholarly-political journal ‘Osnova’ ceased"[13].
Issuance of a circular that banned the use of the language: "The Valuev Circular..."[13].
Official refusal to recognize the language and identity: "There was no Ukrainian language, there is none, and there cannot be one, and whoever does not understand this is an enemy of Russia"[13].
Confiscation of historical documents: "Thousands of archival materials weighing poods were taken to Moscow after the judicial reform... many documents of liquidated institutions ended up there"[13].
Introduction of bonus payments to officials for the policy of denationalization: "By law, officials of all departments were granted a substantial bonus for Russification"[13].
Decree of Alexander II: "A ban on importing Ukrainian books from abroad, a ban on printing Ukrainian texts under musical scores, a ban on Ukrainian theatrical performances"[13].
Forcible imposition of the metropole's orthography: "a law permitting the printing of dictionaries... but only in Russian orthography"[13].
The censorship's refusal to consider national manuscripts: "The censor returned the manuscript of a grammar of the Ukrainian language without reading it"[13].
Ideological justification of the censor's refusal: "writing back to the author that there was no need to permit for printing a grammar of a language doomed to nonexistence"[13].
Official ban by Alexander III: "On the prohibition of the use of the Ukrainian language in official institutions"[13].
Assimilation at the highest level: a decree that included "a ban on... baptism with Ukrainian names"[13].
A ban on the use of the language during public cultural events: "At the unveiling of the monument to Ivan Kotliarevsky in Poltava, speeches in the Ukrainian language were not permitted"[13]. A ban on speaking Ukrainian at a scholarly congress: "In Kyiv, at the archaeological congress, papers were allowed to be read in all languages except Ukrainian"[13].
Destruction of the foundation for teaching children in their native language: "A ban on the Ukrainian primer and Ukrainian books for children"[13].
Direct prohibition and closure of legal educational societies: "The closure of ‘Prosvita’ in Odesa and Mykolaiv"[13].
Official recognition of the enlightenment of the Indigenous people as a hostile act: "A decree to the Senate stating that educational work in Ukraine is harmful and dangerous for Russia"[13].
Official reduction of rights and designation of the Indigenous population as aliens in their own country: «Stolypin's decree classifying Ukrainians as inorodtsy ('aliens')»[13].
A complete legislative ban on self-organization: Stolypin's decree «on the prohibition of any Ukrainian organizations»[13].
A ban on attending cultural events: «The trustee of the Kyiv educational district issued an instruction forbidding pupils and students from attending Ukrainian theater performances»[13].
Erasure of the memory of national heroes: «The ban on marking the 100th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko»[13].
Purging of the information space: «Nicholas II's decree abolishing the Ukrainian press»[13].
Destruction of civic and educational structures in areas of compact diaspora settlement: «The liquidation of the 'Prosvita' societies in the Kuban and in Zelenyi Klyn»[13].
Targeted physical annihilation (mass executions) of the national cultural elite — a tragedy that entered history as the «Executed Renaissance». «Stalin's telegram on ending Ukrainization and destroying the majority of Ukrainian writers» [13]. These repressions destroyed an entire generation of outstanding Ukrainian writers, poets, and intellectuals[2].
Forcible introduction of the metropole's language into the educational process: «The resolution of the Central Committee of the CP(b) on the compulsory study of the Russian language in the republic's schools»[13].
Displacement of national schools after the occupation of new territories: «After the 'liberation' of Western Ukraine — the closure of some Ukrainian schools and the opening of Russian ones»[13].
Legislative conversion of educational institutions: «The resolution of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the transition of Ukrainian schools to Russian as the language of instruction»[13].
An ideological directive to erase nations: «the new party program on the 'merging of nations' into a single Soviet people»[13].
Displacement of the national language from the academic sphere: «The order of the USSR Ministry of Education requiring all dissertations to be written and defended only in Russian»[13].
Continued administrative pressure on schools: the directive «On improving the study of the Russian language in Ukrainian schools»[13].
Ideological elevation of the metropole's language above all others: «The Tashkent conference — 'The Russian language is the language of the friendship of peoples'»[13].
Creation of artificial financial incentives to displace the native language: «A 15% salary bonus for teaching in Russian and the division of classes»[13].
An attempt by pro-Russian forces to legalize the marginalization of the state language in the regions: «The Kolesnichenko-Kivalov language law»[13].
Use of the regular army to forcibly suppress a mass anti-serfdom uprising of peasants in Slobozhanshchyna, known as the Shebelynka uprising[42].
Deployment of troops to forcibly suppress the liberation movement of Poles and Ukrainians during the November Uprising[43].
Reprisals against the insurgents to preserve imperial control over Right-Bank Ukraine[43].
A years-long military campaign by the Russian Empire against a large-scale uprising of disenfranchised Ukrainian peasants led by Ustym Karmaliuk in Podillia[19].
Institutional seizure and liquidation of an independent spiritual structure on the Right Bank: «In 1839, the tsarist authorities liquidated the Greek Catholic Church»[19].
Forcible transfer of the Uniate faithful of the Right Bank into subordination to the loyal Moscow Patriarchate for the spiritual assimilation of the population[19].
Destruction of the first political organization of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, known as the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, following a denunciation by the student Aleksei Petrov to the secret police[44].
Arrest, interrogations, and trial of the intelligentsia's leaders, including Mykola Hulak, who was placed in a solitary cell of the Alekseevsky Ravelin[44]. Neutralization of Taras Shevchenko through forced exile as a soldier, with a personal ban on writing and painting[2].
Mass conscription of peasants as recruits and militia for participation in the Crimean War, which was arduous for the empire[45].
Use of the army for the harsh armed suppression of the anti-serfdom peasant movement that went down in history as the Kyiv Cossack Movement[46].
Use of the regular army for the forcible suppression of the January Uprising. The Russian government decides to use force to "eradicate any preconditions for independence"[2][47].
Purge of civil communities: a ban on the activities of Ukrainian enlightenment hromadas on the Right Bank after the suppression of the uprising[19].
Systematic imposition of the logic of the metropole's superiority: the publicist Mikhail Katkov formulates the ideologeme that subjugated peoples "will have to submit to the state nation," that is, the Russian people[2].
Use of Ukrainians within the imperial army as cannon fodder for waging large-scale wars of conquest and subjugating peoples in the Caucasus and Central Asia[2].
Ideological justification of the aggressive Russo-Turkish War through religion and Pan-Slavism. Russia's historical mission to "protect the Slavs from the Turks" and to conquer Slavic lands "for their own good" is postulated[2].
Use of the inhabitants of the colonized Ukrainian governorates as cannon fodder in yet another bloody war in the Balkans[2][48].
Implanting colonial symbols in public space: the erection of the monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Kyiv in 1888. The monument was constructed by the empire as a symbol of the unity and submission of Little Russia under the tsar's rule[2].
Distortion of historical memory through monumental art intended to replace the history of the independent Hetmanate with an imperial myth[2].
Large-scale extraction of coal, metals, and other resources from the southern and eastern Ukrainian regions for the industrialization and enrichment of the imperial center[49].
Deliberate mass importation of labor from Russia's interior governorates into the industrially developing regions of the Donbas in order to alter the demographic balance[49].
Use of the local population's cheap labor in mines and metallurgical plants under conditions of extreme exploitation[49].
Official recording of Ukrainians exclusively as "Little Russians" (a subgroup of the Great Russian tribe) during the first general census, aimed at the bureaucratic destruction of the notion of a separate people[50].
Use of the population census as an instrument for depriving the Ukrainian nation of the right to independent historical and political existence[13].
Covert support and sponsorship by the empire of reactionary organizations, such as the Union of the Russian People, which propagated extreme Russian chauvinism and aggression[51].
Use of the Black Hundreds to organize mass and bloody pogroms against Jews and reprisals against the opposition with the connivance or direct support of the police[51].
Intimidation of the population and suppression of the liberation movement in Ukraine by radical monarchist gangs during the revolution[51].
Mass expulsion of millions of Ukrainian peasants from their native lands to Siberia and the Far East during the implementation of the Stolypin agrarian reform[52].
Economic strangulation and squeezing out of landless Ukrainian peasants, which forced them to resettle to the outskirts of the empire[52].
Harsh forcible suppression of any protests and peasant unrest, mass executions of those deemed undesirable[52].
Forced conscription of millions of Ukrainians into the Russian imperial army to take part in World War I for the alien geopolitical interests of empires[53].
Mass deportations of the Ukrainian population during the occupation: more than 12 thousand people were forcibly expelled from Galicia on charges of political unreliability[53].
Use by the Council of People's Commissars of local Bolshevik cells as a legal political force that was to speak on behalf of the Ukrainian proletariat against the Central Rada[54].
Deliberate transfer of loyal delegates and political agitators to the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kyiv in order to hijack the agenda from within[55].
An attempt, through the falsification of quotas and mandates, to turn their electoral minority (about 10%) into a procedural majority at the congress in order to legitimately vote for the dissolution of the Central Rada and subordination to Petrograd[55].
Holding a fake alternative congress in Kharkiv and creating the Moscow-controlled "People's Secretariat" to simulate an internal struggle[54].
Using the Kharkiv government as a formal cover for external aggression, in order to present the military invasion as a civil war within Ukraine[54].
The Bolsheviks' provocation of an uprising of workers at the "Arsenal" plant in Kyiv itself to draw away the reserves of the Ukrainian authorities at the very moment of the Red troops' offensive[2].
Direct deployment of Red troops under the command of V. Antonov-Ovseenko and M. Muravyov, heavy fighting for railway stations, and the storming of Kyiv, accompanied by the Battle of Kruty (January 1918)[2].
The Muravyov massacre in February 1918 after the capture of Kyiv by Red troops, which claimed the lives of about 3,000 people[2].
Political and military support for local radicals (the Artem group) in proclaiming a republic not subordinate to Kyiv[55].
An attempt at the bureaucratic resubordination of territories — declaring the Donbas an autonomous part directly linked to Russia, bypassing any Ukrainian authorities[54].
A full-scale offensive by the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army in early 1919 to recapture Ukrainian cities after the withdrawal of Austro-German troops[55]. The Red Army's counteroffensive in the fall and winter of 1919 against Denikin's forces, as a result of which the Bolsheviks recaptured Kyiv on December 16 and occupied most of Ukraine[55].
Forcible requisitioning ("prodrazverstka") and the non-stop export of grain, coal, and raw materials to the RSFSR without economic compensation, which provoked riots and the Hryhoriv uprising[55].
Introduction of a state monopoly on the grain trade and centralized control over the distribution of goods[55].
Systematic, demonstrative violence and intimidation by the forces of the Cheka (the All-Ukrainian Cheka, VUChK) to create an atmosphere of total fear and to coerce the peasantry into surrendering food[54].
Mass executions by shooting of unarmed civilians and participants in suppressed peasant uprisings, carried out by punitive detachments to physically eliminate pockets of resistance[55].
Use of military units and food requisition detachments for forcible raids on Ukrainian villages to confiscate grain[54].
The invasion of General Denikin's troops under the slogan of restoring a "united and indivisible Russia" and the armed ousting of Ukrainian units from Kyiv, which they had liberated, on August 31, 1919 (the "Kyiv catastrophe"), leading to the collapse of the front[55].
The ultimatum-style refusal of the White Guard command (General Bredov) to recognize the Ukrainian army and statehood, accompanied by the statement that "Kyiv has never been Ukrainian and never will be"[54].
General Denikin's occupation policy aimed at destroying Ukrainian culture by abolishing the right to education in one's native language and by the outright closure of Ukrainian schools[55].
The White Guard command's ban on the printing and distribution of Ukrainian books in the captured territories[54].
Forced closure of Ukrainian cultural and educational institutions by the White Guard administration[55].
Use of the "union treaty" format of June 1, 1919, and December 28, 1920, not to create an equal federation but as an instrument for legalizing direct, rigid rule from Moscow[55].
Transfer of control over the military affairs, finances, communications, and transport routes of the Ukrainian republic into the hands of the central bodies of the RSFSR[55].
De facto liquidation of the Ukrainian army (the disbandment of the Ukrainian Front) and the transformation of the government of the Ukrainian SSR into a nominal appendage of the Russian administrative machine[55].
The signing of the Treaty of Riga in March 1921: a backroom division of spheres of influence and Ukrainian territories with Poland behind the back of the Ukrainian people, legalized through the formal participation of the puppet Ukrainian SSR[54].
Moscow's seizure of direct control over the punitive apparatus through the decision to liquidate the independent All-Ukrainian Cheka (VUChK) in August 1919 and the appointment of its own special commissar, Ya. Peters[55].
Coercion of legal Ukrainian parties into self-dissolution (in particular, the Borotbists in the spring of 1920) and their absorption by the CP(b)U through political blackmail and the bribery of their leaders with official posts[55].
The tragedy near Bazar in November 1921: the execution by the Bolsheviks of 359 captured UNR soldiers who refused to defect to the Reds, as a symbol of the end of organized resistance[54].
Use of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR (December 1922) to formally declare a union of equal republics, masking the final centralization of power in Moscow[54].
Stripping the Ukrainian SSR of control over foreign policy, the army, foreign trade, transport, and communications through the 1924 Constitution of the USSR, transferring them to the jurisdiction of the all-union people's commissariats[55].
Forcible seizure of land, livestock, and agricultural implements from peasants as part of forced collectivization under slogans of socialist modernization[55].
Mass dispossession and forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of resisting peasants (the so-called "kurkuls") to remote special settlements in Siberia and the North[55].
Mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian peasants ("kulaks") and their family members to Siberia and remote northern regions of the USSR[55].
Mass arrests of peasants during the dekulakization campaign: according to the 1930 directives, in addition to deportations, tens of thousands of people were sent directly to concentration camps for isolation[55].
Use of dekulakized peasants, sent into the emerging GULAG system, as forced unpaid labor for heavy state projects[55].
Confiscation of absolutely all food, including the extraction of seed stocks, through the mechanism of crushing grain procurement quotas, which led to mass deadly famine[55].
Introduction of the "blackboard" regime — a total economic blockade of settlements, with a ban on cooperative and collective-farm trade and the removal of all goods from stores[2].
Deliberately starving millions of Ukrainian peasants to death as a direct result of Moscow's state policy[55].
Systematic psychological suppression through public show trials of "saboteurs" and the introduction of the punitive law on the protection of socialist property (the "law of five ears of grain")[55].
Arrests of starving peasants who tried to escape from blockaded villages: in early 1933, of 219 thousand detainees, tens of thousands were convicted and sent to camps[55].
Lethally dangerous exploitation of the labor of Ukrainian peasants, convicted en masse under the "law of five ears of grain" and exiled to corrective labor camps during the Holodomor[55].
Creation of an atmosphere of total paralyzing fear in society through the fabrication of cases (for example, the "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine") and the staging of public show trials[55].
Mass confiscation and destruction of literature declared "nationalist," and rigid control over the printed word and the arts[55].
The forced orthography reform of 1933, aimed at artificially bringing Ukrainian grammar and terminology closer to the Russian language[55].
Mass closure and destruction of churches, as well as repressions against clergy, aimed at the complete destruction of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC)[55].
Physical annihilation and isolation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, writers, and scholars, as well as of the party opposition (national communists), in the course of targeted repressions. Fabrication of cases (including the "UNC" case) and driving representatives of the national elite to death, including the historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, the writer Mykola Khvylovy, and People's Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk[55].
Institutional destruction of national historical scholarship, closure of research schools, and removal of the works of Ukrainian historians from scholarly circulation[55].
Construction of a new Soviet-imperial historical canon to supplant the Ukrainian past and deny the independence of Ukraine's history[2].
Conducting the secret mass "national operations" of the NKVD (Polish, German, Greek, Bulgarian, and others) for the physical extermination of members of ethnic minorities[56].
Forced closure of all national councils, pedagogical institutes, theaters, and cultural institutions of ethnic minorities in the Ukrainian SSR[57].
The 1938 resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee on the liquidation of all national minority schools and the mandatory introduction of large-scale Russian-language instruction in all non-Russian schools[57].
The secret protocols to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on the division of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and the legalization of invasion[2].
Direct armed invasion by the Red Army of the territory of Poland on September 17, 1939, for the military occupation of western Ukrainian lands[2].
Organization of fake, no-alternative "People's Assemblies" under the control of occupation troops to give the seizure a legal form[19].
Official forcible annexation of the occupied lands of Western Ukraine (1939), and then of Northern Bukovyna and Bessarabia (1940), with their integration into the administrative structure of the Ukrainian SSR[19].
Mass forced deportation of the "unreliable" population and the families of the repressed (hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Poles) to remote areas (special settlements in Siberia and Kazakhstan)[2].
Individual arrests and dispatch to prisons and corrective labor camps (GULAG) of more than 120,000 members of the local elite and politically active population, in order to isolate and physically destroy them[2].
Use of the GULAG camp system as an institution of state slavery for the forced and lethally dangerous exploitation of the labor of repressed Ukrainians[2].
Application of "scorched earth" tactics during the retreat in 1941: the deliberate blowing up of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, and the destruction of factories, warehouses, and communications[19].
Total removal of industrial equipment, food supplies, and agricultural machinery deep into the USSR during the retreat[19].
Mass forced conscription, by field military enlistment offices, of the population of just-liberated territories into the ranks of the Red Army[2].
Throwing thousands of untrained and unarmed Ukrainian peasants (the "chornosvytnyky," men in black homespun coats) into frontal attacks during the crossing of the Dnipro in order to exhaust the ammunition of the German troops[2].
Regular military operations by the NKVD and MGB to sweep western Ukrainian villages with the aim of suppressing UPA resistance[2].
NKVD reprisals against the inhabitants of villages suspected of supporting the UPA, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians[2].
Creation of an atmosphere of total fear through public demonstrative executions of insurgents and bloody provocations by NKVD special groups disguised as the UPA[2].
Coordination of actions with the pro-Soviet government of Poland to destroy the Ukrainian underground (Operation "Vistula" in 1947)[19].
Forced deportation of insurgents' families to Siberia, as well as of more than 140,000 Ukrainians of the Zakerzonnia region from their historical lands, in order to deprive the UPA of its social base[19].
Mass arrests of UPA fighters, OUN members, and those suspected of aiding them, followed by dispatch to GULAG corrective labor camps for isolation (by 1951, Ukrainians made up more than 20% of all GULAG prisoners)[2].
Use of captured resistance members as free labor in the concentration camp system (for example, dispatch to the Chernogorsk special camp in Krasnoyarsk Krai for hard labor)[2].
Total ideological control over art and the press, banning of literary works, and vilification of writers for alleged "bourgeois nationalism"[2].
Organization of public political persecution (attacks on M. Rylsky, V. Sosiura, and Yu. Yanovsky; the campaign to "combat cosmopolitans"), instilling an atmosphere of paralyzing fear and suspicion in society[2].
Fabricated repressions against figures of the Ukrainian and Jewish intelligentsia, culminating in the execution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the "Doctors' Plot"[2].
Use of regular troops and tanks to suppress large-scale revolts of Ukrainian political prisoners in the concentration camp system (in particular, in Kengir)[58].
Armed shooting of unarmed prisoners and mass killings during the forcible suppression of the Kengir, Norilsk, and Vorkuta uprisings[59].
A large-scale state campaign to construct the historical myth of "reunification" (instead of annexation) in order to provide historical justification for Moscow's colonial domination over Kyiv[2].
Use of monumental propaganda and celebrations of the Pereiaslav Council to impose the concept of a "single people" and to deny an independent Ukrainian identity[2].
Internal redrawing of administrative borders within the USSR: the formal transfer of Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in order to "relieve the RSFSR of the economic burden of rebuilding the peninsula" after World War II and the deportation of the Indigenous population[2][19].
Targeted arrests of the new Ukrainian intelligentsia, dissidents, and protest participants (including after the premiere of "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors") to suppress the nascent resistance[60].
Use of political trials, interrogations, and administrative pressure by the KGB on the signatories of the "Letter of 139" to create an atmosphere of fear in cultural circles[61].
Mass arrests of members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and fabrication of criminal cases, leading to the prolonged isolation and deaths of prominent dissidents (including Vasyl Stus) in special-regime camps[2].
Use of state healthcare institutions for the politically motivated diagnosing of dissenters (the diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia") and their indefinite confinement in psychiatric hospitals[62].
Administration of destructive pharmaceutical drugs (neuroleptics) as a means of physical and psychological pressure on healthy human rights defenders in closed institutions[62].
Deliberate concealment by the union leadership in Moscow of the scale of the Chornobyl NPP disaster from its own population and international organizations, depriving Ukrainians of information about the level of the radiation threat[63].
Creation of an artificial picture of radiological well-being and the criminal, forced marching of people into the May Day demonstrations in Kyiv under radioactive fallout to mask the catastrophe[63].
Use of crude physical force by representatives of the party nomenklatura: secretaries of CPU district committees and collective farm chairmen personally took part in brutal beatings of Rukh activists and dissidents (in particular, V. Ovsiienko and O. Hudyma) to intimidate the population[64].
Physical elimination of resistance leaders at the hands of the militia and law enforcement agencies: the murder of the head of the Volyn Rukh organization, the death of activist Melenkovskyi after a "conversation" at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and extrajudicial killings[64].
Organization of enforced disappearances of key functionaries of the movement (the abduction of M. Boichyshyn), followed by cynical sabotage of the investigation by structures controlled by the authorities[64].
Holding of the All-Union referendum with an artificially convoluted question on the preservation of a renewed USSR in order to legitimize imperial control and coerce the republics into signing a new union treaty[65].
The union center enlisted US President George H. W. Bush, who during his visit to Kyiv publicly called for supporting M. Gorbachev and tried to dissuade Ukrainians from sovereignty, calling the aspiration to independence "suicidal nationalism"[66].
Armed seizure of power by the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) to derail the signing of the treaty on the Union of Sovereign States and preserve centralized control over the republics[67].
Immediately after the start of the putsch, GKChP representatives announced the introduction of a state of emergency and the forced shutdown of most independent mass media[67].
Attempted physical elimination of democratic opposition leader V. Yushchenko at the height of the election campaign by dioxin poisoning, which resulted in severe disfigurement of the candidate's face[2].
Use of a landing party of Russian political technologists to wage an aggressive information campaign in which political opponents were demonized and groundlessly accused of fascism[2].
Instigation of a threat of splitting the country in response to the protests: the presence of official figures of the Russian Federation (in particular, Moscow Mayor Yu. Luzhkov) at the congress in Sievierodonetsk, where calls were made for the creation of a "South-Eastern Republic"[2].
Direct energy blackmail and the cutting off of gas supplies (January 1, 2006 and January 1, 2009) in the middle of winter to exert pressure on the pro-Western Ukrainian government and blackmail European consumers[2].
Imposition of corrupt gas supply schemes through an intermediary company (RosUkrEnergo), controlled by S. Mogilevich, a crime boss linked to the Russian security services, in order to buy up the loyalty of the Ukrainian elite[2].
V. Putin's attempt at the Bucharest summit to strike a backroom deal with the leaders of the United States and European countries, bypassing Kyiv, in order to block Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration under a direct threat of its territorial dismemberment[2].
Deliberate injection of false historical narratives on the international stage: V. Putin's statement to G. W. Bush that Ukraine is "not even a state" and that its territories were allegedly given away as gifts[2].
Use of economic blackmail and promises of a 15 billion dollar loan, coupled with a gas discount, to coerce V. Yanukovych into derailing the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU[2].
Use of regular troops without insignia ("little green men") to establish military control over the territory and blockade Ukrainian garrisons[2].
Official denial by the leadership of the Russian Federation of the participation of Russian regular troops in the seizure of the peninsula, in order to conceal the fact of aggression under the guise of actions by "local self-defense"[2].
Forcible herding of deputies of the Supreme Council of Crimea into the seized building for a coerced vote and the appointment of S. Aksyonov, a prime minister loyal to the Kremlin[2].
Covert transfer from Russia of hundreds of "tourists" (veterans, athletes, bikers) who posed as aggressively minded local residents and demanded Crimea's annexation to the Russian Federation at rallies[2].
Holding a sham referendum on March 16, 2014, under conditions of military occupation ("at gunpoint") to legitimize the severance of the territory[19].
Official legal ratification by the State Duma of the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014, of the forcible incorporation of the Crimean Peninsula into Russia[19].
Seizure of Sloviansk by the armed group of I. Strelkov and the formation of the separatist DPR/LPR under the supervision of Russian political technologists (A. Borodai) to destabilize the region from within[2].
A massive campaign of fabricating fakes to dehumanize Ukrainians (the myth of the "crucified boy" in Sloviansk, the invented death of a 10-year-old girl in Donetsk), as well as systematic editing of Wikipedia by Russian trolls to distort the facts about the war[68]. A targeted information operation to conceal the Russian Federation's responsibility for the destruction of passenger flight MH17 by simultaneously injecting numerous contradictory and absurd versions (the "Spanish air traffic controller Carlos," an attack by a Ukrainian ground-attack aircraft) to disorient the international community[68].
Use of the Fancy Bear hacker group, controlled by the security services, to compromise the software of Ukrainian artillery crews (through infection of Yaroslav Sherstiuk's application) in order to obtain geolocation data and destroy the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine[68]. Targeted cyberattacks by Russian security services on distribution substations of the Ukrainian power grid in the winters of 2015 and 2016, aimed at causing mass power outages for the civilian population[69][70].
Open crossing of the state border by regular troops of the Russian Federation in the summer and fall of 2014 and in early 2015 to save the separatists from defeat, which led to massive losses of the Ukrainian army (Ilovaisk, Debaltseve)[2][71].
Mass unlawful detentions and abductions of civilians: "people who take to the streets with Ukrainian flags are persecuted and detained"[2].
Systematic use of torture and physical violence against civilians in the occupied territories for any display of Ukrainian symbols or a pro-Ukrainian position[2].
Physical elimination of legitimate representatives of local government who put up open political resistance to the occupation (in particular, the brutal murder of Horlivka city council deputy V. Rybak for attempting to restore the Ukrainian flag)[2].
Engagement in combat operations of Russian neo-Nazi groups (such as the "Rusich" sabotage and reconnaissance group under the command of A. Milchakov), whose ringleaders openly called for unmotivated sadistic violence against civilians ("Slaughter the homeless, the puppies, and the children!")[72].
An attempted armed seizure of power in the spring of 2014 through the storming of regional administrations in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk by externally instigated separatists. In Kharkiv, the coup was quickly suppressed by Ukrainian law enforcement[2].
Instigation of armed clashes in Odesa on May 2, 2014, by pro-Russian activists (the "Anti-Maidan") with the aim of destabilizing the South of Ukraine, which escalated into street fighting and led to mass casualties in the Trade Unions House[2][71].
Use of armed gangs to seize Mariupol in the spring of 2014. The attempt to establish control over the city failed: on June 13 it was retaken and fully liberated by Ukrainian troops[71].
Large-scale exploitation of the tragedy at the Trade Unions House in Odesa (where pro-Russian activists died in the course of provoked street fighting) to create a state propaganda myth, invert the roles, and morally justify further aggression against Ukraine[2].
Publication by V. Putin of the manifesto "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" (July 2021), which constructs a pseudo-historical myth that modern Ukraine was allegedly "created by Lenin," while historical Russia was artificially dismembered by the Bolsheviks[2].
Official denial of the Ukrainian nation's right to state independence: articles and speeches by the top leadership of the Russian Federation directly declare that true sovereignty for Ukraine is allegedly possible exclusively in partnership with Russia[2].
Publication of an article by D. Medvedev (October 2021) in which the Ukrainian leadership is marginalized, called non-independent "vassals" of the West, and directly compared to Nazis, which served as an ideological signal that any peace negotiations were pointless[2].
Total indoctrination of Russian society with the ideas of the philosopher I. Ilyin (so-called "white fascism") and the transformation of the "Russian World" concept into a state ideology (rashism) that justifies the metropole's cultural superiority and existential right to violence against its neighbors[72].
Invasion by the regular army of the Russian Federation and massive missile and air strikes on Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and other Ukrainian cities in the early morning of February 24, 2022[2].
Deliberate, brutal extermination of civilians in the occupied territories (in particular, more than a thousand local residents were killed in Bucha and its environs)[2].
The practice of "urbicide" — the deliberate erasure of entire Ukrainian cities from the face of the earth (for example, Mariupol), the destruction of infrastructure, and the entombment of the dead in concrete in the foundations of the ruins[72]. The deliberate mining and demolition of the Kakhovka HPP dam on June 6, 2023, which qualifies as a war crime and ecocide. The destruction of the dam led to the flooding of about 80 settlements; 16,000 people found themselves in the disaster zone, which physically forced the population to leave the territory[73].
Deliberate mass killings of people without regard to their ethnic origin, solely on the basis of their Ukrainian citizenship and affiliation with the Ukrainian state[72].
Total information control and a legislative ban inside the Russian Federation on calling the invasion a "war" (use of the euphemism "special military operation") in order to conceal crimes and create an alternative reality[72]. Information cover for energy terror: false claims by the authorities of the Russian Federation that the strikes on the power grid were a "response" to the attack on the Crimean Bridge, despite evidence that the missile strikes had been prepared in advance[74].
Open nuclear blackmail by the leadership of the Russian Federation and the armed seizure by its troops of the Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants to create a global threat of radiation catastrophe[72] [71].
Systematic cyberattacks on energy companies and municipal district heating enterprises amid the full-scale war, aimed at cutting off electricity and heat supplies to Ukrainian civilian consumers[75][76].
Systematic massed strikes with cruise missiles and kamikaze drones (Shahed) against generation facilities (the Zmiiv CHP plant, Kharkiv CHP-5, the Trypillia thermal power plant, the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station) and transformer substations to cause blackouts[73].
Large-scale operations by the security services of the Russian Federation involving cyberespionage, data interception (including through the hacking of public Wi-Fi networks), and the covert deployment of destructive software against Ukrainian organizations and citizens[77][78].
Massed cyberattacks on Ukraine's information and communication infrastructure using data-wiping malware directly during the invasion[71].
Organization of the mass deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia and Belarus for their subsequent cultural assimilation. For these crimes, the International Criminal Court officially issued an arrest warrant for V. Putin. Cultural figures of the Russian Federation have taken and continue to take part in the program of cultural assimilation of Ukrainian children[79]. The program of taking children away in many ways resembles the historical precedent of child abduction by Nazi Germany, above all in the territory of occupied Poland[80].
Creation in the occupied territories of a large-scale network of filtration camps for interrogations, the identification of pro-Ukrainian citizens, their isolation, and terror[72][74].
Deliberate restoration of old Soviet or imperial names to captured cities and streets (in particular, the renaming of Bakhmut to Artemovsk) in order to erase Ukrainian national memory and visually integrate them into the space of the Russian Federation.
Coercion of residents of the occupied territories (Mariupol, Kherson, and others) into obtaining Russian passports. Refusal of the aggressor's passport entails the threat of being deprived of housing, medical care, and basic social services.
The holding in the fall of 2022 of fictitious 'referendums' conducted under armed force in the occupied territories of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts to create a pseudo-legal pretext for their annexation[71].
Artificial alteration of the demographic composition of the population in the occupied territories (for example, in destroyed Mariupol) by incentivizing the relocation of citizens of the Russian Federation and their mass purchase of housing, against the backdrop of squeezing out the indigenous residents.
Large-scale plundering of economic resources: the removal of expensive industrial equipment (including steel from the Azovstal plant), illegal extraction of mineral resources, and the theft of more than 15 million tons of Ukrainian grain[71].
Systematic plundering of historical and cultural heritage, archaeological theft, and the mass removal of the collections of Ukrainian museums from the occupied territories to the Russian Federation[71].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy used religious identity and the concept of protecting co-religionists as ideological cover for military expansion: historian Michael Khodarkovsky states that the diplomatic apparatus positioned the tsar as a "universal Christian ruler who 'upheld the true Christian faith'"[81], while invasions were motivated by a "divine obligation to rescue Orthodox Christians from infidel captivity"[81]; as a result, as historian Michael Khodarkovsky summarizes, in the advance into new territories "Moscow's military and political interests could no longer be separated from the ideological and theological rhetoric of expansion"[81], because of which the North Caucasus "became a religious frontier"[82].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy fabricated historical narratives to provide legal justification for the invasion of new territories: historian Michael Khodarkovsky points out that in diplomatic correspondence officials deliberately constructed fictitious claims that the Indigenous peoples of the Caucasus had allegedly, since ancient times, been Muscovite "subjects in the Riazan region, who then fled from Riazan and settled in the mountains"[81].
The military forces of the Tsardom of Muscovy erected a fortified outpost on the lands of the Nokhchi: historian E. N. Kusheva states that in 1567 "the Russian town... was erected in that same year"[83].
To construct the base on the lands of the Nokhchi, the administration brought in armed detachments: historian E. N. Kusheva writes that in the spring of 1567 the voivodes A. S. Babichev and P. Protasyev were dispatched from Moscow "with many men, as well as ordnance, cannons, and arquebuses"[83], while historians A. S. Kulikov and V. A. Runov note that they were sent "with firepower and many men"[84].
The military forces of the Tsardom of Muscovy repeatedly rebuilt the fortified outpost on the lands of the Nokhchi: historian E. N. Kusheva writes that "in 1577 - 1578... the Russian town was reestablished on the Terek River at the mouth of the Sunzha"[83], while the compiler of the collection of documents E. N. Kusheva indicates that the military forces of the Tsardom of Muscovy "rebuilt the ostrog in 1590 and 1635"[85] and that "in 1651 a Russian ostrog was built anew on the left bank of the Sunzha"[85].
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy systematically brought armed detachments into the lands of the Nokhchi to hold the bridgehead: the compiler of the collection of documents E. N. Kusheva indicates that at the site of the fortress, "by order of the Terek voivodes, a detachment of streltsy and Cossacks was permanently stationed"[85], and during the siege of 1653 it held "Russian service men, Terek atamans, and Cossacks"[85].
The military forces of the Tsardom of Muscovy erected a new fortified base: historian E. N. Kusheva writes that they «were building it in 1588-1589... Mikhailo Burtsev and Kelar Protasyev... the main force of its garrison consisted of streltsy armed with «fire weaponry», with pishchal arquebuses»[83], while historians A. S. Kulikov and V. A. Runov add that in the early 17th century «the Terek fort had turned into a rather powerful fortress. Its artillery numbered 40 large guns»[84].
A permanent military contingent maintained at state expense was stationed in the territory: historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova quotes a tsar's decree according to which «in 1623, «upon the petition of the Terek and Greben Cossacks», a tsar's decree was sent to the Terek ordering the payment of salaries to 30 atamans and 470 rank-and-file Cossacks»[86]. New personnel were also sent in to hold the positions: historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova notes that «in 1589, soon after the town was built, 800 streltsy and Cossacks were to be sent there from Astrakhan, but the Astrakhan voivode sent only 600 men»[86].
The occupation administration systematically brought in regular troops to maintain the garrison: historians A. S. Kulikov and V. A. Runov note that in the early 17th century «the garrison numbered more than a thousand streltsy and Cossacks»[84].
The occupation administration imposed vassalage under the guise of an equal alliance: historian Murat Yasar notes that the rulers «regarded the shert rather as a military alliance»[87], whereas historian Michael Khodarkovsky points out that «in Moscow's eyes, the shert now signified an oath of allegiance by the tsar's new and loyal subjects»[81].
To secure the political subordination of the Nokhchi elite, the administration used financial incentives: historian Murat Yasar points out that «the signing of the shert went hand in hand with monetary allowances and gifts that the tsar gave to local rulers»[87].
As a guarantee of submission, the occupation administration detained representatives of the Nokhchi elite: historian E. N. Kusheva writes that «his nephew Batai was left as an amanat (hostage) in the Terek town»[85].
The occupation administration obliged the subordinated Nokhchi societies to take part in military campaigns: historian E. N. Kusheva points to documents «on the possibility of the participation of Murza Shikh... in a campaign of Russian men-at-arms»[85].
The metropole's occupation administration abolished Nokhchi self-governance, forcibly subordinating them to an alien elite: historian E. N. Kusheva states that in 1614 Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich ordered the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky «to be prince over all the Okochans... to judge them and to have charge of them in military organization and in all matters»[83].
The appointed administration forced the Indigenous population into unpaid labor: historian E. N. Kusheva points out that the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky compelled the service Okochans of the Terek town subordinate to him «to make all manner of wares for him, to plow the fields and to mow the hay»[83]. The metropole itself went years without paying for the military service of the Indigenous population: a report from the Terek voivode Pyotr Petrovich Golovin to the Astrakhan voivode Ivan Nikitich Odoyevsky records that they «serve the sovereign tsar... in all manner of the sovereign's Terek... services... yet have not been granted the sovereign's monetary and grain salary for the tenth year now»[88].
Representatives of the metropole's authorities openly seized property from the Nokhchi population, abusing their official position: in their petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the service Okochans of the Terek town reported that the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky «having taken from us by force 8 good horses from the herd, sent them off to his kabaks (villages) in Kabarda»[88][85].
The appointed occupation administration enslaved the Indigenous population: a petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich by the service Okochans of the Terek town stated that the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky «wrongfully sold 4 of our fellow Okochans»[88][85] and «took a wife into bondage and sent her off to his kabaks in Kabarda»[88][85].
The appointed occupation administration used corporal punishment and unlawful arrests: a petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich by the service Okochans of the Terek town stated that the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky «orders us to be thrown into prison and beaten with the knout without your sovereign knowledge and without guilt»[88][85].
The appointed occupation administration used unlawful arrests to suppress the resisting Indigenous population: a petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich by the service Okochans of the Terek town stated that the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky «orders us to be thrown into prison and beaten with the knout without your sovereign knowledge and without guilt»[88][85].
The occupation administration forcibly sent subordinated Nokhchi to fight against their own compatriots: historian E. N. Kusheva indicates in the heading of a primary document that there took place a «campaign of Terek men-at-arms and Terek Okochans... against the Endirey ruler Saltan-Magmut and the people of the Okotsk and Michkiz kabaks who had joined him»[85].
The occupation administration imposed tribute on the highland Nokhchi societies: an extract from the book of the Terek town's Prikaz office records that the administration sent people «to the Michkizes for the sovereign's yasak»[85].
The metropole deliberately ignored official complaints by the Indigenous population about the arbitrary conduct of the appointed rulers, depriving them of the right to protection: the compilers of academic document collections state that, as regards the petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, «the petition of the «Okochans» was not granted»[88].
The occupation administration of Tersky Town mobilized the metropole's subordinate allies: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sholokh reported that «the voivode Mikita Dmitreevich Velyaminov sent me... with my father on your sovereign's service... against your sovereign's disobedient ones — the Michkiz people, against their kabaks»[85].
The occupation administration of Tersky Town dispatched armed detachments which, as the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky and his son the Kabardian prince Sholokh reported to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, made their way «across the mountains and through mountain crevices, impassable places»[85] in order to suppress the defiant communities.
The occupation administration of Tersky Town deliberately organized a campaign of violent punishment: in his petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sholokh reported that the Terek voivode sent the armed detachments precisely «against your sovereign's disobedient ones — the Michkiz people, against their kabaks»[85].
During the punitive campaign, the military detachments burned entire auls to the ground: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky reported that they «burned down and utterly ruined many Shibut and Kalkan and Erokhan and Michkiz kabaks»[85].
The punitive detachments plundered and enslaved the population: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky reported that they «utterly ruined» the auls «and took many captives»[85].
The occupation administration of Tersky Town employed mass terrorizing violence: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky reported that the military detachments «burned down and utterly ruined many Shibut and Kalkan and Erokhan and Michkiz kabaks»[85] and «slew many peo[ple]»[85].
The punitive detachments physically exterminated the local population: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky reported that in the settlements they «slew many other peo[ple]»[85].
Under direct military threat, the mountain communities were forced to capitulate: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky reported that the mountaineers «brought their guilt... petitioned humbly and gave... the shert (oath of allegiance)»[85].
As a result of the devastation of their settlements, the subjugated communities handed people over to the occupation administration: in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sunchaley Yanglychevich Cherkassky records that they «gave amanats (hostages) to Tersky Town»[85].
The metropole's administration did not pay for forced labor and withheld food provisions for five years: a memorandum from the Posolsky Prikaz (Ambassadorial Office) to the Prikaz of the Kazan Palace records a complaint that the subordinate Okochans of Tersky Town «were not given the sovereign's grain allowance for the past years — for the 125th, and the 126th, and the 127th, and the 128th, and the 129th year»[85].
The occupation administration compelled the subordinate Nokhchi to take part in armed conflicts: in their petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Okotsky murza Kokhostrov Biytemirov and the serving Okochans of Tersky Town reported that «we, your sovereign's kholops (bonded servants), fight your sovereign's disobedient ones, not sparing our heads; for you, sovereign, we shed our blood and lay down our heads»[85].
The occupation administration deliberately exhausted the Indigenous population materially, forcing them to perform compulsory service at their own expense: in a petition submitted to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Okotsky murza Kokhostrov Biytemirov and the serving Okochans of Tersky Town reported that, because their allowance went unpaid, they «were left without grain, have utterly perished from hunger and every hardship, have fallen, sovereign, into great debt, and are dying a death of starvation together with our wives and little children»[85].
Representatives of the metropole confiscated the personal property of a deceased Nokhchi delegate into the state treasury: a memorandum from the Posolsky Prikaz to the Prikaz of the Kazan Palace prescribed an investigation into the death of the drowned Okotsky murza Kokhostrov Biytemirov, while of what was found they «took his clothing and all his goods into our treasury»[85].
The occupation administration used the physical loss of documents to artificially lower the social status of local residents for the purpose of taxing them economically: an extract of the Posolsky Prikaz concerning a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich states that after «the sovereign's charter of grant was lost», the heirs of the deceased Nokhchi delegate were stripped of their privileges and «made equal in everything with the Okochans, with the plowing people, and carts and wagons are exacted from them», whereas previously «no taxes whatsoever had been taken» from them[85].
The occupation administration and forces loyal to it sent the subordinate Nokhchi (Okochans) to take part in armed conflicts, including against their own compatriots: the historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova states that in 1626 the voivodes sent «252 Okochans»[86][88] on a campaign, and in 1628, during an armed incursion, the Kabardian murza Konshov-murza Bitemryukov «went against these "mountain people"... with the "Okochans"»[86].
Armed detachments loyal to the metropole carried out incursions into the territories of the Nokhchi mountain communities in order to suppress their resistance: the historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova notes that in 1628 the Kabardian murza Konshov-murza Bitemryukov «went against these "mountain people" together with the "free" atamans and Cossacks and with the "Okochans"»[86].
The occupation administration demanded that the Nokhchi mountain communities (the Shibutians) legally formalize their subordinate status: a report from the Terek voivodes Ivan Andreyevich Dashkov and Bogdan Gerasimovich Priklonsky to the Posolsky Prikaz records information about «the oath given by the Shibutians Lavarsan Yazyev and Zatyshka Lavarsanov on behalf of 20 households in 1627»[85], with a direct injunction that they «not fall away from the sovereign and remain under the sovereign's hand in outright bondage (kholopstvo)»[85].
The occupation administration imposed an annual tribute in kind on the Nokhchi mountain communities (the Shibutians): a report from the Terek voivodes Ivan Andreyevich Dashkov and Bogdan Gerasimovich Priklonsky to the Posolsky Prikaz states that when subjecthood was formalized in 1627, the mountaineers were required «to give yasak at one kul (sack) of honey per year»[85].
The metropole's occupation administration legally prohibited the free residence of the Indigenous population in Tersky Town, organizing the forced expulsion of unapproved persons and total demographic control: in 1631, Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich issued a decree to the Prikaz of the Kazan Palace ordering a census of the newly arrived Nokhchi (Michkizians and Okochans) and ruling that those of them «who cannot be trusted» must be «ordered to be expelled out of Tersky Town, and ordered to go back whence each had come»[88]; to ensure surveillance, in the state register of serving people for the region of the Prikaz of the Kazan Palace for 1637, the central authorities recorded in detail the number of subordinate residents of Tersky Town, including 350 «Okotsky people» and 680 newly arrived «Okochans, and Tatars, and Michkizians, and Shibutians»[85]; and in 1640, on the orders of the Terek voivode, the Terek syn boyarsky P. Lukin and the clerk F. Belkov compiled a name-by-name register of the population of the Terek slobodas, rigidly recording every household of the subordinate Nokhchi (Okochans)[88][85].
The occupation administration handed out privileges and transferred to loyal Nokhchi leaders power over dependent people in order to win them over to its side: the register of cases of the Posolsky Prikaz for 1645 records a petition from the serving Okotsk murza Chepan Kokhostrov to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich and a report extract by the central apparatus «on granting him an increase to his salary and possession of the uzdens and «people» of his brother, murza Albir Kokhostrov»[85].
The occupation administration forced the mountain societies of the Nokhchi into legal subordination: in 1647, under pressure from the Terek voivodes, the Shibutians «placed themselves under thy sovereign high hand in direct servitude... and swore the shert oath on the Quran»[85], while the Michkiz people «with all the Michkiz land placed themselves in servitude under thy sovereign high hand... and swore the shert on the Quran»[85].
The occupation administration used the taking of hostages from among the Indigenous population to guarantee the loyalty of the mountain societies of the Nokhchi: a dispatch from the Terek voivode Prince Venedikt Andreevich Obolensky and his associates to the Posolsky Prikaz in 1647 officially records the fact of «the giving of an amanat to the Terek town»[85]; the metropole instructed the voivodes «to order that amanats be taken from them — kinsmen of notable people»[85], as a result of which the Highlanders «gave a good amanat to the Terek town, Kasa»[85][83].
The occupation administration dispatched emissaries to collect strategic, demographic, and economic data on the mountain societies of the Nokhchi: in 1658 the central apparatus of the Posolsky Prikaz instructed the Terek voivodes to find out «how many of them there are and what kind of people they are... and what fighting force they have... and what grows in their land, and what craftsmen there are»[85], in execution of which in 1659 the Terek voivodes Melenty Kvashnin and his associates «sent a streltsy commander into the Shibut land and ordered him to inspect in the Shibut land... the towns and places»[85], who, in an extract for the report of the Posolsky Prikaz to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of 1660, reported that «[to]wns they have none, nor any fighting forces»[85].
The occupation administration made attempts to force the independent societies of the Nokhchi (the Shibutians) into legal subordination: an extract for the report of the Posolsky Prikaz to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of 1660 states that the Terek voivodes Melenty Kvashnin and his associates sent a military emissary to the Highlanders and ordered him «to bring them to the oath»[85]; however, the attempt proved unsuccessful, and he «did not br[in]g the inhabitants of the Shibut land to the oath»[85].
The occupation administration set itself the task of extracting hostages from the mountain societies of the Nokhchi (the Shibutians), but the attempt did not succeed: in 1658 the central apparatus of the Posolsky Prikaz directly instructed the Terek voivodes «to order that amanats be taken from them — kinsmen of notable people»[85], after which the Terek voivodes Melenty Kvashnin and his associates ordered their military emissary «to take an amanat to the Terek»[85]; however, the extract for the report of the Posolsky Prikaz to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of 1660 records no handover of new hostages and merely states the old fact that «on the Terek [there is an amanat] of theirs»[85].
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy maintained the regime depriving the subordinated societies of the Nokhchi (the Okochans) of autonomy, officially formalizing the transfer of power over them to a new feudal lord loyal to the metropole: in 1661 Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued a charter of grant to the Kabardian prince Kaspulat Mutsalovich Cherkassky, instructing him «to be prince over the Okochans and over the Cherkas who serve us, the great sovereign, on the Terek, and to administer and judge them in military organization and in all our affairs»[85].
The central authorities of the Tsardom of Muscovy used an appointed ruler for the legal subordination of the region: in 1676 the Posolsky Prikaz sent an instruction to the Kabardian prince Kaspulat Mutsalovich Cherkassky on the necessity of arriving at the Terek town «to administer the oath of the population of the North Caucasus to Tsars Ivan and Peter Alekseevich»[88].
The appointed controlled administration sent subordinated Nokhchi (Okochans) to take part in the metropole's Crimean campaigns: a dispatch from the Kabardian prince Kaspulat Mutsalovich Cherkassky to the Posolsky Prikaz in 1675 states that for the campaign against the Crimean ulusy he had at his disposal «190 Okochan men»[88]; the historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova adds that in 1675 detachments fought in Crimea alongside the prince «with uzdens, with the newly baptized, and with «Okochans»»[86].
The occupation administration sent subordinated Nokhchi (Okochans) to take part in armed conflicts (the Chyhyryn campaigns) on the territory of Ukraine: the historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova notes that in 1678 the Kabardian prince Kaspulat Mutsalovich Cherkassky (under whose authority the Okochans were) received a tsar's charter «for having taken part in the Crimean and Chyhyryn campaigns»[86]; the document registers for 1678 record a dispatch from the Chuhuiv voivode Ivan Rykhtarov to the Razryadny Prikaz «on the march of the regiment of Prince Kaspulat Mutsalovich Cherkassky to Chuhuiv»[88]; and in 1679 Tsar Fedor Alekseevich issued a decree to the Posolsky Prikaz «on his regiment performing guard duty in the vicinity of Chuhuiv and Kharkiv»[88].
The regular army of the Tsardom of Muscovy carried out armed raids on the territories of Nokhchi societies: the historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1691–1700 «punitive expeditions were carried out by the tsarist authorities in retaliation against the rebel Cossacks and their Highlander allies»[89] and records «retaliatory punitive raids by tsarist forces»[89].
The diplomatic apparatus of the Tsardom of Muscovy expanded the legal subordination of Nokhchi territories: the historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records that in 1696 the metropole formalized «the expression of Russia's protection over the Braguny principality in Chechnya»[89].
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy imposed discriminatory levies on Nokhchi societies for the internal movement of goods: the historian Sh. B. Akhmadov emphasizes that «the Okochans (Akkin Chechens) living in the town of Terki were obliged without exception to pay duty on the various goods and wares they took out for sale to their compatriots in Chechnya and Ingushetia»[90].
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy engaged in systemic lawless arbitrariness against the Indigenous population: the historian Sh. B. Akhmadov states that «the venality and bribe-taking of the voivodes, who permitted themselves great abuses — all this was far from a new phenomenon»[90].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy organized military operations against Nokhchi societies: the historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that «the measures taken by Peter I to combat the Bulavin «rebeliya» and other uprisings, including on the Terek against Chechnya, were in essence punitive»[89].
The regular army of the Tsardom of Muscovy physically exterminated inhabitants who refused to submit to the occupation: the historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1708 «military detachments were sent to the Terek that physically annihilated any population showing the slightest disobedience»[89].
The diplomatic apparatus of the Tsardom of Muscovy concluded an alliance agreement with Kalmyk forces for joint actions against the Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that on September 30, 1708, "at the negotiations between Peter's military commander P.M. Apraksin and the Kalmyk khan Ayuka, an agreement of eight articles was concluded, including 'on the pursuit of the Chechens and Nogais'"[89].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy used demonstrative brutal executions to psychologically break the Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records that the captured leader of the uprising was "hanged by a rib on a hook in accordance with Peter I's order to P.M. Apraksin ('carry out a cruel death penalty')"[89].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy consolidated militarized settlements on the border with the lands of the Nokhchi to strengthen control: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1711–1712 "the small Greben Cossack towns along the Terek were merged, by order of Tsar Peter I, into 5 stanitsas - from Chervlyonnaya to Kurdyukovskaya"[89].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy organized expeditions to study and inventory natural resources in the territories of the Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records the 1717 "survey of mineral springs and other natural riches of the Terek River (including the Bragun warm springs) by Doctor Gottlieb Schober on the assignment of Peter I"[89].
The occupation administration of the Tsardom of Muscovy carried out armed raids into the territories of the Nokhchi societies: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1721 the Astrakhan governor A. P. Volynsky "invited the Don Cossacks and, together with the Terek Cossacks, organized raids to the Agrakhan and Aksai rivers against the Kumyks and Chechens"[89].
The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy organized attacks on the territories of the Nokhchi for the mass capture of prisoners: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1718 there took place a "predatory expedition of detachments of Don Cossacks and Kabardian princes allied with Peter I into the 'Chechen uezd' along the Sunzha and the Argun"[89], as a result of which "800 prisoners were captured, not counting 'belongings'"[89].
The diplomatic apparatus of the Tsardom of Muscovy used loyal elites of neighboring peoples for joint armed actions against the Nokhchi societies: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1718 an expedition into the lands of the Nokhchi was carried out by the forces of "Kabardian princes allied with Peter I"[89].
The government of the Russian Empire justified expansion with ideas of enlightening undeveloped societies: historian Michael Khodarkovsky states the ambition of the metropole's officials "to bring both Christianity and civilization to the 'wild and uncivilized' peoples along its borders"[81].
The government of the Russian Empire deliberately constructed an image of the Indigenous population as criminal savages: historian Michael Khodarkovsky records that in administration documents the highlanders were labeled as "inconstant and treacherous," while their actions were explained by references to their "predatory craft, to which they are predisposed by their very nature and upbringing"[82].
The government of the Russian Empire fabricated historical accounts to provide legal justification for invasion: historian Michael Khodarkovsky points out that in 1748 and in the 1770s officials deliberately constructed fictitious claims that the Indigenous peoples of the Caucasus had allegedly been Christians in the past, in order to contest the claims of other empires and "legitimize their efforts at their 're-Christianization'"[82].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire used religious pretexts for expansion: historian Michael Khodarkovsky cites a memorandum by Governor-General P. S. Potemkin, who in 1784 declared that under the pretext of returning the highlanders to the faith and sending priests to them, the empire would be able to shed "the light of divine bliss among all the peoples scattered in the mountains"[82].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire deployed armed contingents to suppress resistance in the region: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov records that "on July 23, 1722, a tsarist detachment headed by General Veterani... approached the village of Enderi"[90].
The government of the Russian Empire purposefully organized military actions to punish the defiant Indigenous population: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov points out that on August 4, 1722, by decree of Peter I, "a punitive expedition was carried out for a second time against the rebellious Chechens and Andreevtsy"[90].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire destroyed the settlements and the food supply base of the highlanders: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov states that a tsarist detachment "came to Enderi and completely devastated and burned it, leaving nothing but ashes behind"[90], while during the August 1722 raid "3 thousand houses were destroyed and the grain in the fields was burned"[90].
The diplomatic apparatus of the Russian Empire enlisted loyal forces of neighboring peoples for joint armed actions against the Nokhchi societies: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov states that the 1722 military expedition included "an armed detachment of Kalmyks, sent by Ayuka Khan at the tsar's request, numbering 3,730 men"[90].
The diplomatic apparatus of the Russian Empire expanded the legal subjugation of the Nokhchi territories under threat of military annihilation: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that having suffered defeat in 1722, the local princes took an oath of allegiance, "'including in it for the first time also their Chechens'"[89].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire founded a new military base for infrastructural entrenchment in the region: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in the autumn of 1722 Peter I "founded the fortress of the Holy Cross on the Sulak"[89].
Militarized Settlers of the Russian Empire were used for the mass settlement of new frontiers: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov points out that at the new fortress "1 thousand families of Cossacks from the Don are being settled"[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire forcibly resettled the subjugated Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records that "by 1724 the Terek town had been razed, and all of its population, including the Okotsk sloboda, populated by natives of Chechnya... was transferred to the new fortress"[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire levied discriminatory duties on the movement of goods of the Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov quotes the customs books, stating that in 1726 "on the travel document of the Terek resident, the Okochanin Kurman Bogomatov... duties of 24 altyns in money were collected by decree"[89].
The government of the Russian Empire dispatched specialists to collect data on the lands and population of the Nokhchi: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov points out that in 1728 the officer I. G. Gerber "on the government's assignment... compiled a description of the localities and population... as well as a map of this area"[90].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire dispatched armed contingents to preemptively suppress an anti-colonial uprising: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov cites a report by General Douglas, who ordered that the assembled rebel force must, «not being allowed to multiply, be averted and destroyed by the dispatched detachment»[89], after which, as historian Sh. B. Akhmadov states, «on July 4, 1732, the tsarist authorities dispatched a military detachment to Chechnya, headed by General Douglas, who commanded the troops at the Holy Cross fortress»[90].
The Government of the Russian Empire organized an armed raid to physically punish the insurgent Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov points out that General Douglas «halted the movement of the main forces and sent toward Chechen-Aul a detachment of dragoons under Colonel Koch, totaling 300 soldiers and 200 Cossacks»[89].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire physically eliminated a highlander settlement: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov states that the detachment under the command of Colonel Koch «entered the village of Chechen on July 7, burned it down completely, and began hastily withdrawing»[90].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire bought the loyalty of the local nobility with state payments: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that, according to General-in-Chief V. Ya. Levashov, the senior Chechen prince Aidemir «was accepted into Russian subjecthood and was assigned a permanent tsarist stipend»[89], and in general «The princes and their uzdens even began to receive monetary allowances from the Russian government»[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire institutionalized a system of holding relatives of the local elite: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records that «In 1735, two amanats from the Chechen domain were already being held in Kizlyar: from Aidemir - Bardykhan, and from the Chechen lord Alisultan Kazbulatov - Bamat»[89].
The Government of the Russian Empire built up a military line through the engineering construction of fortified militarized outposts to isolate the Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1736 «three new Cossack stanitsas: Borozdinskaya, Kargalinskaya, Dubovskaya»[89] were established, which, as historian I. Kh. Tkhamokova records, served as fortifications, since each such stanitsa «was in effect a small fortress serving for protection against enemy raids»[86].
The Government of the Russian Empire physically enlarged the buffer zone around the territories of the Nokhchi through the mass relocation of militarized settlers: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that «1736 - from the Greben stanitsas down the Terek to Kizlyar, three new Cossack stanitsas are established: Borozdinskaya, Kargalinskaya, Dubovskaya, and from Kizlyar to the sea another 430 Cossack families are settled»[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire continued to physically hold relatives of the Nokhchi elite: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records the existence of a document from 1738 identified as a «Letter from the Chechen lord A. Bartykhanov to Lieutenant Colonel Bunin regarding his loyal service to Russia and requesting the release of his sister from Kizlyar»[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire bought the loyalty of members of the local nobility with state payments: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov records «the granting of Russian stipends to 4 Chechen princes and their uzdens»[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire imposed on the Indigenous population the legal codification of subordinate status, exploiting their economic need and presenting the oath as a rigid ultimatum: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1747, in response to the highlanders' requests for resettlement, «official consent of the imperial court was given («to admit and assign») on the condition that the highlanders take an oath of Russian subjecthood»[89], while to those absent «officers were sent «to administer the oath»»[89]; similarly in 1748, when the mountain communities petitioned for subjecthood so that «traveling with merchandise to the town of Kizlyar... under protection would be free»[89], the administration «agreed to this proposal on the condition of the mandatory resettlement of the «Chebutlins» from the mountains to the lower reaches of the Sunzha»[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire expanded the system of holding relatives of the nobility: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that, to control the territories, «amanats are handed over as a pledge of fidelity to the oath to the Russian authorities»[89].
The occupation administration of the Russian Empire stripped the Indigenous population of the status of a legitimate adversary by applying an inversion of meanings: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that lawful defense was labeled with criminal terms, and «The anti-colonial and anti-feudal uprisings of the population of Chechnya, referred to in official documents as 'mischief', 'robberies', and 'murders', were perceived by the Russian autocracy as a challenge and an insult»[89], which served as a formal pretext for punitive actions.
The apparatus of the Russian Empire constructed an image of the Indigenous population as savages: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov points out that pre-revolutionary historiography described the highlanders' struggle as «the actions of barbarians devoid of 'civilized' notions of independence and freedom»[90], while the imperial historian and participant in the events V. A. Potto cites the words of General A. P. Yermolov, who declared that «the cruelty of the local mores cannot be tamed by mercy»[91]. In his «Notes», General Yermolov characterized the Nokhchi as a born breed of brigands: «the Chechens, the most vicious of the brigands, attacking the line», their land a refuge where «the villains of all other peoples, abandoning their own land on account of some crimes, were received amicably», while Chechnya itself «may justly be called the nest of all brigands», «were less filled than others with brigands who had previously taken part in all the raids of the Chechens on the line. In them predators gathered and took cover…»[92].
The propaganda apparatus of the Russian Empire used poetry to broadcast the logic of domination into society: the imperial historian and participant in the events V. A. Potto records that the poet A. S. Pushkin proclaimed in verse the inevitability of subjugation: «Submit, Caucasus - Yermolov is coming!»[91], while the poet V. A. Zhukovsky extolled the destruction of infrastructure by military commanders: «Scarcely at the villages - the villages blaze»[93].
The Russian Empire, through the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, addressed the elders of the Nokhchi with a proclamation offering economic benefits in exchange for accepting subjecthood and ceasing armed resistance. For submission, the elders were promised access to salt: they would be "permitted to take salt from the local salt lakes by tickets, irrevocably, paying a very small fixed price," as well as the right "to drive livestock to this side of the Terek and freely use the vacant pasture lands." The proclamation was conveyed to Chechen society and its elders (Kusu Al-Temir, Masarai, Idut), but subjecthood was not accepted; at the beginning of the following year the empire proceeded to armed invasion.[94]. The same offer is independently recorded by the imperial historian Dubrovin: the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, "promised… to release salt in unlimited quantity, for the most trifling payment; to permit the driving of livestock for pasture in wintertime to the left bank of the Terek River… and, finally, to make them equal to Russian subjects"[95].
The Russian Empire sent troops into the lands of the Nokhchi in order to force its way deep into Greater Chechnya and break the resistance of its communities. The historian D. A. Khozhaev describes General Bulgakov's troops as having "come with fire and sword to the Chechen land," and the Khankala battle of 1807 as bloody[96]. In February 1807, three detachments under the overall command of the commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, crossed the Terek; on February 13, the troops broke through the Khankala Gorge by storm, which the inhabitants had fortified with barricades, ditches, and abatis. The commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, reported that he had entered "for the exemplary punishment" of the Nokhchi communities, that the inhabitants, having gathered in number about 10,000, "resolved to perish rather than let the Russian troops pass through the gorge"; during the storming of the gorge, of the defending Chechens, according to his report, there were "about 1,000 killed on the spot"[94]. The imperial historian Potto admits that after Bulgakov's storming of the Khankala Gorge, Russian attempts to penetrate deep into Chechnya "were never renewed"[91].
The Russian Empire dispatched troops to the lands of the Nokhchi to compel submission. The plan of the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, was to strike the unprotected: to catch the inhabitants before "their livestock and families… are sheltered in the mountains," for "then… their punishment and complete success in the matter would be surer and more convenient." When the commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, delayed by an expedition in Dagestan, gave the inhabitants time to fortify the Khankala Gorge and took it by a bloody storm, General Gudovich, in a directive of March 20, 1807, refused to take this "on his own account" and stressed that he had not sent him to wage war: "you were sent not to wage war with the Chechen peoples, but to punish them and bring them into complete submission." The commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, considered the outcome of the campaign to be that the Chechens had by force of arms been "brought to such a state that they will long feel the blow dealt to them and, certainly, will not soon regain strength"[94].
The Russian Empire burned the villages of the Nokhchi, depriving the inhabitants of shelter and means of subsistence. General Ivelich reported that the village of Bolshaya Chechenskaya Ataga was "consigned to fire" by the detachment of the commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, while the remaining inhabitants, "whose villages were destroyed by fire," agreed to subjecthood[94].
The Russian Empire compelled the Nokhchi communities by force of arms to swear an oath of subjecthood. After the devastation of the villages, the commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, presented the Chechen people with a resolution by which the elders declared: "we submit ourselves with the whole Chechen people… into eternal loyal subjecthood… in witness whereof we give an oath according to our custom on the Holy Quran," and for any violation the people subjected itself "to the strictest punishment and to the devastation of our dwellings without resistance"; the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, reported that the Chechens had been "completely subdued by force of arms and brought to an oath of eternal fidelity of subjecthood"[94].
The Russian Empire held hostages from among the Nokhchi inhabitants as a guarantee of submission. Under the resolution presented by the commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, the Chechen elders undertook: "we give the foremost among us as amanats, at the choice of the Russian commander in this region"; the villages of Bolshaya Ataga, Malaya Ataga, and Gekhi "gave 3 amanats from the best families," whom the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, ordered "to send to Kizlyar… to keep watch over them and to issue for their maintenance 10 r. per month each"[94].
The Russian Empire bought the loyalty of Nokhchi elders in order to use them to bring recalcitrant villages into subjecthood. The commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, instructed the Andreyevo elder Hadji-Redjeb to incline the villages "into submission and subjecthood," and assigned a salary to the Chechen uzden Bik-Bulat — "I persuaded the Chechen uzden Bik-Bulat… to whom I said… a salary of 300 r. in silver per year"; for winning over the remaining villages, "about 3,000 r. in silver for bringing them into loyal subjecthood" was allocated[94]. The same bribery, from the Nokhchi side, is recorded by the historian D. A. Khozhaev: through the intermediary Hadji-Redjeb, in the name of the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, the very head of the Chechen resistance, Beibulat Taimiev, was won over and took "an oath of fidelity of subjecthood to Russia," while Hadji-Redjeb asked the generals for another 3000 rubles in silver "for bringing the remaining unpacified Chechen villages into loyal subjecthood"[96].
The Russian Empire set neighboring Indigenous peoples against one another so that their mutual enmity would weaken the resistance of each and prevent them from uniting. For the 1807 campaign against the Chechens, the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, coerced Kabardians into marching against the Nokhchi: for failure to appear, those "designated from the ranks of uzdens and begauls" faced a fine "of 50 r. in silver and 2 oxen." General Delpozzo reported that he had "inclined the Kabardians to set out on the campaign and to assist together with our troops in punishing the Chechens," and although "it was very difficult to persuade them," he gathered over 3,500 men who "crossed the Terek River and arrived… at the Sunzha River" against the Chechen and Karabulak villages; at the same time, the Kabardians themselves refused to go directly "against the Chechens," as their co-religionists, agreeing to act only "against the Karabulaks alone." General Gudovich stated the aim of this incitement outright — "to set these two peoples at odds with each other and bring them into enmity against one another, and thereby weaken them over time"[94].
The Russian Empire bought the loyalty of the Nokhchi elders in order to use them to incline the Chechens toward submission. To this end, the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Tormasov, through Esaul Chernov, ordered that the Chechen elders and clergy be given «250 rubles each, and others 150 silver rubles each, as a one-time payment, for which the required sum, 1,400 r. in total»[97]. Historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov notes that the colonial authorities generally acted by relying on the social elite, «bribing them with all manner of rewards and privileges for their service to the benefit of Russia»[90]. Historian D. A. Khozhaev cites the same formula with a direct indication of where the money came from: the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Tormasov, agreed «to win over the principal Chechen elders and their clergy… to give 250, and others 150 silver rubles each, and to collect the said money from their own villages» — that is, the bribery of the elite was paid for by exactions from the Chechen villages themselves[96].
The Russian Empire funneled the Nokhchi's supply of grain and salt through trading points under its control, making vitally important goods dependent on its administration. The sale of grain and salt to the Chechens was permitted only through barter yards under quarantine, established «for the peaceful Chechens in Naur… for the mountain Chechens in Lashchurin», with a duty paid to the treasury and disputes adjudicated through an imperial pristav (overseer)[97][90].
The Russian Empire shifted the blame for the devastation it had wrought onto the victimized people itself. In a proclamation to the inhabitants of the Chechen land, the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Tormasov, presented the pogrom of 1807 as a consequence of the inhabitants' own actions: «the raids and depredations that you carried out within the borders of Russia brought upon you righteous wrath… you yourselves were the cause of the misfortune that befell you three years ago» — and threatened a new invasion, «to bring sword and flame upon the guilty», offering «mercy» in exchange for submission[97].
The Russian Empire set neighboring Indigenous peoples against the Nokhchi in order to weaken Chechen resistance through their enmity. In July 1810, while pursuing a retreating Chechen party, the commanding general Ivelich, according to the imperial historian Potto, «talked the nearest Ingush auls, in view of the prospect of great gain, into cutting off its retreat»; the incited Ingush attacked the Chechens, and the latter «suffered such a loss that they abandoned even the body of their leader on the battlefield»[93]. The commander of the Caucasian Line, General Delpozzo, reported that the peaceful elders who had pledged to act against the Chechens were «promised rewards according to their merits»[97].
The Russian Empire carried out punitive raids beyond the Terek in order to force the Nokhchi into submission. The imperial historian Potto writes that Colonel Eristov «crossed the Terek a second time and, after a stubborn battle, destroyed several villages along the Sunzha»[93]. The punitive, rather than defensive, character of these raids was acknowledged by the imperial leadership itself. Commander-in-chief General Rtishchev condemned «such expeditions» and demanded that the mountaineers be won over «not by arms, but by kind treatment»[93]. Emperor Alexander I, upon learning «of yet another raid on peaceful Chechnya by Colonel Eristov», ordered by a special rescript «to establish tranquility on the Caucasian Line through friendliness and gentle indulgence»[96].
The Russian Empire razed and burned Nokhchi villages. The imperial historian Potto writes that Colonel Eristov, having crossed the Terek, after a stubborn battle burned and razed «several villages along the Sunzha»[93].
The Russian Empire used the devastation of villages to force the Nokhchi to hand over hostages. The imperial historian Potto writes that after Colonel Eristov had laid waste to the villages along the Sunzha, the Nokhchi «gave amanats (hostages), promising to trouble the Russian borders no more»[93].
The Russian Empire set neighboring peoples against the Nokhchi in order to weaken the Chechens through their enmity. In 1816, the Nokhchi led by Beibulat Taimiev took Major Shvetsov prisoner[96]. In response, the commander on the Terek, General Delpozzo, in a letter to the Kumyk lords of Endirey, Aksai, and Kostek, pressed them to go to war against the Chechens: «I ask you, I advise you, I order you to form among yourselves one council, one will, to return immediately by force of arms the captive Major Shvetsov, to put an end to the brigand people… to adopt such a resolution as would reduce the Chechens to weakness, to obedience to us, to complete slavery before you»[98]. The Kumyk lords signed «Obligations» in which they pledged «to cease all mutual enmities… and to form a brotherhood», «to receive none of the Chechens… but wherever any of them is encountered, to kill him or deliver him alive to the nearest Russian authorities», and to let no goods pass through to them[98].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire moved troops onto the Nokhchi lands between the Terek and the Sunzha in order to forcibly shift the forward fortified line deep into Chechen territory and place the region under military control. Historian D. A. Khozhaev defines the meaning of moving the line as squeezing unsubdued Chechnya «with new fortresses and fortifications»[96]. The imperial general Yermolov, in his «Notes», attests to the deployment of troops: «on May 24 the entire detachment crossed over… in a single march it moved from the Terek to the Sunzha River»[92].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire built a fortress on the occupied territory as a stronghold, in order to keep the approaches to the Chechen lands under fire and cut the inhabitants off from their lands. Historian D. A. Khozhaev records that the fortress was built «on Chechen land»[96]. The imperial general Yermolov attests in his «Notes» that the fortress, «constraining the inhabitants in their possession of the best lands… not far from the entrance through the Khan-Kale gorge, was named Groznaya», and that the earthworks were completed by mid-October 1818[92]. The imperial historian Potto confirms the founding on June 10, 1818: «to the thunder of cannon, a strong fortress of six bastions was laid, which Yermolov named Groznaya»[91]. As early as his most humble report of November 1817, Yermolov directly named the purpose of the Sunzha fortresses: «We must occupy the Sunzha River and build fortresses along its course: then the Chechens will be confined in their mountains, deprived of land suitable for cultivation and of the pasture grounds where throughout the winter they shelter their herds from the harsh mountain climate»[99].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire, having moved troops onto the Sunzha and occupied Chechen land, demanded that the elders of Chechen villages renew their oath of submission under threat of reprisal as against "open enemies." Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that in May 1818 "the elders of almost all the principal Chechen villages were summoned to me," to the military camp, and he demanded "that henceforth such [depredations] no longer be committed, and in confirmation they must renew their old oath of submission and return the captives held by them"[92]. The demand went unfulfilled: the elders "promised nothing"[92].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire demolished Chechen villages to clear ground for a fortress. Historian D. A. Khozhayev records the destruction of eight villages: to make way for Groznaya, "eight flourishing Chechen villages (Bugun-Yurt, Amirkhan-Kichu, Kuli-Yurt, Sorochan-Yurt, Sunzha, N. Chechen, Topli, Alkhanchu) were destroyed"[96].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire drove the population of the destroyed villages off their lands, which passed into the conqueror’s possession. Historian D. A. Khozhayev records that the inhabitants of the eight villages near Groznaya were "driven off the lands"[96]. Imperial general Yermolov wrote to Emperor Alexander I that if the population refused to submit, they would be offered "to withdraw and join the other brigands," and then "all the lands will remain at our disposal"[96].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire held representatives of the villages along the Sunzha as a pledge of submission. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that when the troops advanced to the Sunzha, "amanats (hostages) from their villages were taken into the camp"[92]. Imperial historian Potto confirms that Yermolov "took amanats from all the auls sitting along the Sunzha"[91].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire compelled the Indigenous population to perform military service on the conqueror’s side, including against their own kin. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that "instead of tribute it was ordained that men be sent out for service at the requisition of the commanders," and admits: "there has not yet been an instance of anyone being able to force the Chechens to use arms against their own countrymen, but the first step toward this has already been taken, and it has been impressed upon them that this will always be demanded of them"[92].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire shifted the cost of the imposed military service onto the Indigenous population itself. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that the men levied by requisition were sent out "with their own arms and at their own expense"[92].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire forced Chechen villages to make deliveries and perform labor for the construction of the fortress. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes": "the villages from which we held amanats were ordered to deliver timber for the construction"; the nearest villages "dared not show disobedience"[92].
The Regular Army of the Russian Empire instilled submission through fear of the demonstrative destruction of families. Imperial general Yermolov, in his "Address" to the Chechens, declared: "The slightest disobedience… and your auls will be destroyed, your families sold off into the mountains, the amanats hanged, villages exterminated by fire, women and children slaughtered"[96][91].
Solzha (Sunzhenskaya), one of the wealthiest villages, the Russian Empire kept as a source of supply for the fortress of Groznaya, and having seized the village by force, it spent several days carting away its stores. Historian D. A. Khozhayev records the ravaging of Solzha (Sunzhenskaya), as a consequence of which "most of the peaceful neighboring auls fled into the mountains, and the flourishing banks were left deserted for a long time thereafter"[96]. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that he had earlier ordered the troops to spare the village so that the fortress "could obtain from it all necessary supplies," and when the troops seized the village, "grain, forage, and timber fit for building were carted away for several days"[92].
Solzha (Sunzhenskaya) the Russian Empire took by storm and ravaged as punishment for the village’s refusal to hand over a fellow villager who had shot at a soldier who was taking his ox. Historian D. A. Khozhayev records the ravaging of Solzha (Sunzhenskaya)[96]. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that a villager shot at a soldier "when they would not give him back an ox from a state wagon, which he called his own," and the attempt to seize the shooter failed — the officer whose "horse was seized by the bridle" was nearly killed, and the detachment retreated; to the demand to hand over the shooter the villagers replied "that they would not surrender the man who shot at the soldier and would defend themselves if the troops came," after which the chief of the corps staff "went himself with several companies… but was met with gunfire," while "the wives and children and the best property had already been sent away; only men remained to defend the houses"; during the storming the troops were ordered to cut off the withdrawal — "to intercept the retreat in the forest" — but the defenders had withdrawn earlier[92].
The Russian Empire built a ring of fortresses around Chechnya in order to squeeze it and cut it off from its neighbors. Historian D. A. Khozhayev writes that following Groznaya, the fortress Vnezapnaya appeared in 1819, erected in order to "squeeze unsubdued Chechnya with new fortresses and fortifications"[96]. Imperial historian Potto confirms its purpose and date: founded on the eighteenth of July 1819, it "separated the Chechens from the Kumyks" and "barred [the Chechens’] way across the Salatau mountains," and it was linked to Groznaya by a chain of fortifications[91]. General Yermolov had planned this fortress as early as his most humble report of November 1817, proposing that "by extending the Line through the Aksai and Andreyevo villages to the Sulak River, Kizlyar will be covered"[99].
The Russian Empire sent troops to ravage Nokhchi villages as punishment for insubordination. Historian D. A. Khozhayev writes that general Yermolov ordered Major General Sysoyev and Colonel Bekovich-Cherkassky to "surround the peaceful village of Dadi-Yurt" and to "punish it by force of arms, giving quarter to no one"[96]. Yermolov confirms his order in his "Notes": to surround the aul, offer the inhabitants the chance to leave, "and should they resist, to punish them by force of arms, giving quarter to no one"[92]. On the fifteenth of September 1819 the aul was surrounded by six Kabardian companies and seven sotnias of Cossacks and taken by storm[91].
The Russian Empire destroyed a single village demonstratively, in order to terrorize the rest of the Nokhchi into abandoning their lands. Imperial historian Potto writes that general Yermolov decided to clear the Kumyk plain, "forcing the Chechens to withdraw… beyond the Kachkalyk mountain ridge," and they could be compelled to do so "only by an example of terror," and the aul of Dadi-Yurt "was chosen as the expiatory sacrifice"[91]. Yermolov himself admits this calculation in his "Notes": "only an example of terror can compel them to remove their wives," and after the destruction of the aul "the example of Dadan-Yurt spread terror everywhere"[92].
During the storming of a Nokhchi aul, the Russian Empire exterminated its inhabitants without distinction of sex or age. Historian D. A. Khozhayev writes that "the brutalized punitive forces spared neither women nor children," and, breaking into the houses, "slaughtered everyone without mercy"[96]. The organizer himself, general Yermolov, admits the toll in his "Notes": "all who bore arms were exterminated, and their number could not have been fewer than four hundred," while "a far greater number were slaughtered or perished in the houses from the effect of artillery and fire"[92]. Imperial historian Potto confirms that the aul was taken only when "every one of its defenders had been exterminated to a man," and those slaughtered or killed in the fire numbered twice as many as the one hundred forty who survived[91].
The Russian Empire led the Nokhchi who survived the destruction of an aul away as captives into its own territory. General Yermolov himself writes in his "Notes" that women and children "were taken prisoner numbering up to one hundred and forty"[92], and the imperial historian Potto confirms this[91]. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that during the crossing of the captives over the Terek, 46 captured girls, "not wishing to endure abuse in captivity," perished, "dragging their guards with them into the turbulent river"[96].
When laying waste to a Nokhchi aul, the Russian Empire handed its property over to the soldiers as spoils. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that the punitive raids under Yermolov proceeded "with the destruction of the population, houses, crops, orchards, and forests, the driving off of livestock, and the plundering of property," while Russian commanders invaded peaceful lands "to distinguish themselves or to seize booty"[96]. General Yermolov himself admits this in his "Notes": after the destruction of Dadi-Yurt, "the soldiers came away with rather rich spoils"[92].
The Russian Empire drove the Nokhchi from the lowland to clear it for itself and for loyal neighbors, and blocked their return with fortresses. Historian D. A. Khozhaev cites the admission of General Orbeliani that this expulsion was a system applied everywhere: "in all of Chechnya there remained not a single aul, not a single household, that had not been resettled from one place to another several times over"[96]. General Yermolov himself, in a report to the emperor, admits this with regard to the Kachkalyk Nokhchi: to clear the Aksai riverside he drove them out of it and placed the fortresses of Amir-Adzhi-Yurt and Vnezapnaya in their place, for the sake of "freeing it [the Aksai] from the Kachkalyks, whom I immediately ordered to be driven out of it; I established the fortress of Vnezapnaya"[99].
The Russian Empire sent troops to lay waste to Nokhchi villages and drive their inhabitants off the land. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that under Yermolov "cruel punitive raids on peaceful Caucasian auls, disgracing Russian arms, with the destruction of the population, houses, crops, orchards, and forests, the driving off of livestock, and the plundering of property, became the rule"[96]. General Yermolov writes in his "Notes" that on September 30, 1819, he "went in person with 6 battalions and 16 artillery pieces toward the Kachkalyk villages" and on October 2 attacked "the village of Goryachevskaya, the strongest of them," while Major General Sysoyev simultaneously invaded from the direction of Groznaya through Khan-Kale, drawing the Chechens’ forces away from the Kachkalyk plain[92]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that the Apsheron men "burst into the aul and consigned it to the flames"[91].
The Russian Empire wiped Nokhchi villages off the face of the earth. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that following Dadi-Yurt, the Kachkalyk villages of Isti-Su, Noiberdy, Alleroy, and others were "taken by storm and destroyed"[96]. General Yermolov writes in his "Notes" that Noyen-Berdy and Allayar-Aul were "utterly devastated"[92]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that "both villages were completely devastated"[91].
The Russian Empire sent troops on a punitive campaign to ravage Nokhchi villages and cut military roads through their lands. The imperial historian Potto writes that in the spring of 1820 Grekov, commander of the left flank, moved on the aul of Germenchuk "with a musket in one hand and an axe in the other," and on the night of March 6, 1820, covertly moved a detachment across the Sunzha, falling suddenly upon the aul of Topli[91]. General Yermolov himself, in an order to Grekov of March 15, 1820, sanctioned the design: "only the squeezing of the Chechens in their essential needs can make plain to them the advantage of submission, and I have long since authorized you to employ every possible means to that end"[99].
The imperial historian Potto describes how, on the night of March 6, 1820, the Greben Cossack regiment "burst without resistance into the aul [Topli], still sunk in deep sleep," the Cossacks "rushed through the saklias with daggers," and "part of the inhabitants were slaughtered before they could rise from their beds"[91].
The imperial historian Potto writes that after the night attack the aul of Topli was left as "smoldering ruins," and at the close of the campaign the troops "advanced forward, burned Germenchug, and drew back to Groznaya," even though the aul stood empty[91].
The Russian Empire forcibly compelled the Nokhchi to work for the conqueror — to cut clearings through their own forests. The imperial historian Potto writes that Grekov, commander of the left flank, "gathered the elders of the surrounding villages and ordered them to send out workers with axes for the felling at once," and under threat of reprisal "compelled the Chechens to obey," after which the conscripted inhabitants cut a clearing through their own forest[91].
The Russian Empire cut down the forests of the Nokhchi to strip their villages of natural protection and open a path for the troops. The imperial historian Potto writes that the "dense forest" stretching from the Argun to the Dzhalka, which served as "an obstacle to the destruction of the Germenchug fields and pastures," was cut through in three days by a wide clearing "opening onto a large glade on which stood Germenchug and a multitude of auls"[91].
The Russian Empire placed a chain of fortifications on the land taken from the Nokhchi to consolidate the seizure and hold the population in submission. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that Yermolov, moving the Caucasian Line to the Sunzha, was "squeezing unsubdued Chechnya with new fortresses and fortifications," and that "on the occupied territory fortifications were built… Neotstupny Stan, Zlobny Okop, Vnezapnaya (1819), and others"[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that in the summer of 1820, having barely finished the Germenchuk clearing, Grekov "set about felling the forest along the Sunzha and building on the cleared glades two new fortifications: the Ust-Martan redoubt and Zlobny Okop," and on the site of the demolished Kachkalyk village of Isti-Su he placed "Neotstupny Stan"[91].
The Russian Empire sent troops on punitive campaigns to punish the Nokhchi for resistance and drive them off the plain. Historian D. A. Khozhaev cites the report of Grekov, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, who stated the campaigns’ purpose plainly: to drive the Chechens into the forests, where "only snow and cold weather were lacking for the Chechen people… to feel the necessity of submitting," and notes that Grekov’s expedition "destroyed… two auls — Shali and Malaya Ataga, whose inhabitants had taken a more active part in the unrest"[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms: on March 1, 1821, the troops "surrounded the village of Oisungur… and, to punish the inhabitants who had fled before their arrival, destroyed it completely," and in February 1822 Grekov "burned the villages of Shali and Malye Atagi"[91].
Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that the expedition of Grekov, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, "destroyed… two auls — Shali and Malaya Ataga"[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms: on March 1, 1821, the troops "destroyed completely" the village of Oisungur, and in February 1822 Grekov "burned the villages of Shali and Malye Atagi"[91].
The Russian Empire compelled the Nokhchi themselves to cut military clearings through their own forests. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that in imposing the line, the conquerors "compelled the subjugated Highlanders to heavy labor building roads and bridges," while those who evaded it were "fined mercilessly, with their livestock and property confiscated"[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that the clearings from Amir-Adzhi-Yurt to Oisungur, Isti-Su, and Gerzel-Aul "through the narrow forested strip… were worked by the natives themselves, under the supervision of the Aksai princes"[91].
The Russian Empire cleared the forests of the Nokhchi to deprive their villages of natural protection. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that under Yermolov, punitive raids proceeded «with the destruction of the population, houses, crops, orchards, and forests»[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that on March 1, 1821, the forest was cut down «in one direction as far as Isti-Su, in the other — as far as the Michik», and in February 1822 «wide clearings were cut through the Gekhi, Goity, Shali, and Germenchug forests all the way to Mayurtup»[91].
The Russian Empire held hostages from among the Nokhchi and used them to compel submission. Historian D. A. Khozhaev cites Yermolov's «Address» to the Chechens containing a direct threat: at the slightest disobedience, «the amanats are hanged, villages are exterminated by fire, wives and children are slaughtered»[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that Grekov, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line, compelled submission precisely through hostages: any attack on a detachment «will inevitably entail the death penalty or exile to Siberia for the amanats», and therefore «the Chechens willy-nilly reconciled themselves to the fact that the forests — their age-old protection — were falling and disappearing»[91].
The Russian Empire exterminated people for show in order to terrorize the highlanders. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that at the Gerzel-aul fortification «the tsarist generals decided to stage a demonstrative execution to intimidate the highlanders», for which they summoned «318 respected men from the Aksai (Kumyk and Chechen) villages», whom General Lisanevich, «calling out those assembled one by one… threatened and subjected to insults»[96].
The Russian Empire exterminated unarmed people whom it had itself convened under the pretext of an inquiry. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that after General Grekov attempted «to inflict a physical insult» on the Chechen mullah Uchar-Hadji from the village of Mayrtup and was killed by him, «after Lisanevich's command „Stab them! the mass extermination by the soldiers of all the unarmed highlanders present in the fortification began»[96]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that both generals «fell at the hand of a fanatic»[91]."
The Russian Empire eliminated the leadership stratum of the resistance by luring it in under the pretext of an inquiry. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that under the guise of a «demonstrative execution», «318 respected men from the Aksai (Kumyk and Chechen) villages» — elders and revered men of the communities — were summoned to the Gerzel-aul fortification; General Lisanevich, «calling out those assembled one by one», after the killing of the generals ordered their extermination: «after Lisanevich's command „Stab them!" the mass extermination by the soldiers of all the unarmed highlanders present in the fortification began»[96].
The Russian Empire sent troops to ravage the lowland villages of the Nokhchi, choosing the moment most vulnerable for the inhabitants to strike. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that «in January 1826, having waited for a period inconvenient for the inhabitants of Chechnya, when the frosts made it difficult to shelter families, Yermolov launches a large punitive campaign into Chechnya», occupying the aul of Bolshaya Ataga on January 26[96]. General Yermolov himself, in a report to Emperor Nicholas I dated May 28, 1826, reported that the troops were methodically cutting roads and occupying villages: on April 12 «the village of Kurchali was occupied without a shot», on the 16th «the troops moved to the village of Gekhi», and on the 24th he «moved to the village of Malaya Roshni, which was found empty»[99].
Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that after February 17, 1826, Yermolov's troops «ravaged and destroyed the auls of Lesser Chechnya - Urus-Martan, Roshni, Gekhi, Belakai, Daut-Martan, and Shelchikhi», and by the end of the campaign «flourishing villages had been destroyed»[96]. General Yermolov himself, in a report to Emperor Nicholas I dated May 28, 1826, confirmed: during the storming of Urus-Martan «the village was burned», Bolshaya Roshni was «put to the torch», and the village of Shali, whose inhabitants «give an amanat, asked for time, and deceived», he «ordered to be destroyed»[99]. The imperial historian Volkonsky specifies that Shali stood empty by the time the troops arrived: Yermolov «did not find a single inhabitant there: all had scattered through the forests», after which he «burned their dwellings»[100].
Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that by May 18, 1826, the Nokhchi's «splendid fruit orchards had been cut down, fields burned»[96]. General Yermolov himself, in a report to Emperor Nicholas I dated May 28, 1826, admitted that at Urus-Martan «its splendid orchards were cut down», and for the village of Shali he gave the order «to cut down the orchards»[99].
The Russian Empire drove off livestock and plundered the ravaged villages of the Nokhchi. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that by May 18, 1826, «livestock had been driven off», and after the troops returned, Yermolov «sent a detachment of 500 Cossacks against Daut-Martan», and «the village was ravaged and plundered»[96].
Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that by May 18, 1826, «women and children had been taken captive» from the Nokhchi[96]. General Yermolov himself, in a report to Emperor Nicholas I dated May 28, 1826, specified the number: in the surprise attack on the village of Stavna-kul on May 2, «16 souls of both sexes were taken captive», and in the attack on Malaya Ataga on May 16 he «captured 15 souls of both sexes»[99]. The imperial historian Volkonsky confirms the seizure at Stavnokol: the sudden movement «brought us sixteen captives»[100].
The Russian Empire condemned the Nokhchi inhabitants to famine by ravaging their villages, crops, and stores. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that after Yermolov's campaign, deprived of shelter and food, «people were dying of hunger, cold, and disease»[96].
The Russian Empire set a neighboring people against the Nokhchi in order to weaken their resistance. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that Yermolov, «attempting to provoke a clash between the Chechens and the Ingush… forcibly conscripted the Ingush into a militia and sent them together with tsarist detachments against Chechen auls», although the Ingush «refused to go against their kin… deserting from the militia»[96].
On the night of January 10, 1827, General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line, led a detachment of 350 Line Cossacks with two horse guns and four hundred Chechens of subjugated communities compelled to take part against the village of Uzeni-Yurt - a refuge for the inhabitants of villages ravaged by troops in Yermolov's punitive campaign of 1826 - in order to destroy it as punishment for raids on the Line and in the absence of the Karabulak leader Astemir. The imperial historian Potto wrote: «Laptev decided to take advantage of that moment to strike a blow in Astemir's absence... and, quickly assembling a detachment, on the night of the tenth of January led it against Uzdeni-Yurt. By dawn the troops already stood before the aul»[101].
At dawn on January 10, 1827, the Cossacks of the detachment of General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line, having burst into the village of Uzeni-Yurt, cut down unarmed inhabitants fleeing across the Argun. The imperial historian Potto recorded: the Cossacks, «having barely managed to overtake the tail of the fleeing, seized only three women and killed and wounded some fifteen people»[101]. The killed and wounded were unarmed people overtaken in flight. Armed resistance, as the same Potto wrote, was mounted later only by those inhabitants who had managed to take refuge in the forest.
On January 10, 1827, the troops of General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line, razed the village of Uzeni-Yurt on the bank of the Argun, whose inhabitants had fled across the river. The imperial historian Potto acknowledges: «the village of Uzeni-Yurt, with all its property... was destroyed to its foundations»[101]. The village had served as home to people whose former auls had been exterminated by troops in Yermolov's punitive campaign of 1826 and who had refused to resettle under the conqueror's control.
On January 10, 1827, during the razing of the village of Uzeni-Yurt, the troops of General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, destroyed the inhabitants' livestock — the basis of a peasant household's sustenance. The imperial historian Potto recorded: the village, "with all its property and even its livestock, was destroyed to the ground"[101]. In the summer of 1827, the Cossacks of General Engelhardt, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, after seizing the population of Samashki, destroyed the standing crops of the Galgai who lived near the aul at mills and farmsteads. Potto wrote: "beforehand they ordered that they be shown the fields belonging to those Galgai who lived at the mills, and burned their grain where it stood"[101]. The destruction of livestock in winter and of ripened grain at harvest time deprived people of sustenance for a year ahead.
During the destruction of Uzeni-Yurt on January 10, 1827, Cossacks of the detachment of General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, took captive three women from among the fleeing inhabitants. The imperial historian Potto recorded: the Cossacks "seized... three women"[101]. In the summer of 1827, having encircled the population of the aul of Samashki in an ambush during the harvest, the Cossacks of General Engelhardt, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, took captive the families of resistance leaders: the leader Tara-Adzuev and the family of Bakar-Bulatov; Bulatov himself managed to break through the cordon. Potto wrote: "Tara-Adzuev and Bulatov's family they carried off with them"[101].
In the winter of 1826–1827, General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, extorted amanats (hostages) from the village of Geldigen, using a captured young man of Geldigen as leverage. The young man agreed to a staged "captivity" in order to avert the strike being prepared against the village: the occupation left the village no other way to buy safety than by handing over hostages. The imperial historian Potto admits: Laptev, having got the man into his hands, "rejected all offers and demanded one thing only — amanats. Willy-nilly this condition had to be accepted, and the people of Geldigen, who had always stood at the head of bloody movements, left in our hands the hostages of their tranquility"[101].
On the night of January 10, 1827, General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, forced four hundred Chechens of subjugated communities to take part in a raid on the Nokhchi village of Uzeni-Yurt with a combat mission against their compatriots. The imperial historian Potto wrote: they "swam across the Argun and were to go by a roundabout road in order to cut off the inhabitants' retreat to the forest"[101]. In the summer of 1827, General Engelhardt, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, compelled to take part in the ambush on the inhabitants of Samashki, alongside a hundred Mozdok Cossacks, as Potto recorded, "as many peaceable Chechens"[101]. The subjugation of these communities was maintained by a system of hostages, as documented by Laptev's same practice with regard to Geldigen.
In the spring of 1829, Commander-in-Chief Paskevich built the governance of Chechnya through the deliberate maintenance of a split of the people into two rival parties — the Shamkhal party and the Beibulat party. In his instruction of May 16, 1829 to Emanuel, commander of the troops on the Caucasian Line, Paskevich wrote: "it is not without use for us to have two parties in Chechnya which, both remaining obedient to our government, will through internecine strife be restrained from hostile designs against the Russians"[102]. To this end he dispatched couriers (messengers with a special commission) to the elders of the Beibulat party, instructed Engelhardt, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, to "assist as far as possible" in summoning them, and by the regulation of August 2, 1829 placed the son of the Shamkhal of Tarki over the Chechens as commissar[102].
On March 6, 1829, in Tarki, Beibulat Taimiev and 120 elders of Chechnya were forced to take an oath of allegiance through the Shamkhal of Tarki. The historian D. A. Khozhaev recorded the coerced nature of this step: the elders "tried to avoid subordination to the tsarist superintendents, to avert from Chechnya the threat of constant raids"[96]. The Chechens themselves, in a petition to Paskevich in April 1829, documented the backdrop against which the submission was being signed: the imperial command "arrested, took captive, hanged and exiled to Siberia and to other places many of those who, being obedient, served the great Sovereign"[102]. Emanuel, commander of the troops on the Caucasian Line, in a report to Paskevich of May 15, 1829, made the recognition of submission conditional: it "will be recognized as well-intentioned only when they unconditionally take the oath and hand over amanats"[102]. Holding Beibulat in Tiflis, Paskevich sealed the subjecthood with the "Regulation on the Submission of the Chechens to Russia" and the statute of August 2, 1829[96][102].
In the spring of 1829, Commander-in-Chief Paskevich neutralized the leading stratum of the Chechen resistance by luring Beibulat Taimiev and 60 elders of his party to Tiflis under the pretext of negotiations and holding them there by force. The historian D. A. Khozhaev wrote: "On arriving in Tiflis, Beibulat learns that Paskevich is with the army in the field. Realizing that he has been deceived, he tries to return to Chechnya immediately, but he is forcibly detained in Tiflis"[96]. Paskevich admitted the deception in his own hand in his instruction to Emanuel of August 2, 1829: "I at once resolved to summon to myself, under the guise of explanations, their elders and the elder Bei-Bulat known to you, so that, having drawn them away here, I might deprive this tribe of the possibility, in case of discontent, of undertaking anything hostile"[102].
From spring until the end of summer 1829, Commander-in-Chief Paskevich forcibly kept with the field army the Chechen elders who had been summoned for negotiations, directly calling them hostages. In his instruction to Emanuel of May 16, 1829, he wrote: "The mere absence of these people, who will be with us in the manner of amanats, will restrain the unpacified Chechens from any hostile attempts"[102]. He summed up the result on August 2, 1829: "The Chechen elders, having been graciously received by me, remained with the detachment and were with me in military operations against the Turks. Having kept them in this way for a whole summer, I secured tranquility for the Line on their part"[102]. By the same document, hostage-taking was entrenched as a system of governing Chechnya: "As a pledge of the submission of the said Chechens, the amanats presented by each eldership are to be kept in the fortress of Grozny; and if from any one an amanat has not yet been delivered, then the elder, until the amanat is delivered, is obliged... to remain himself as a pledge in the fortress of Grozny"[102].
By the regulation of August 2, 1829, Commander-in-Chief Paskevich locked the Chechens' access to trade onto a commissar appointed by the empire: travel to imperial territory was permitted only with tickets (written passes) — "To him is also granted the right to issue tickets to the said Chechens for travel into our domains on trade business"[102]. In practice, the pass system was supplemented by arbitrariness: Chechen society wrote to Paskevich on November 21, 1829 that Engelhardt and Khasai-Musa "order their subordinates to place under arrest all those Chechens who come to them with tickets from Shahbaz," while those obedient to Khasai-Musa act so "that we may thereby be deprived of the means of sustenance"[102].
In 1830, during an ongoing earthquake, General Rozen 4th, who commanded the troops on the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the eastern section of the empire's fortified border along the Terek and Sunzha rivers), on the orders of commander-in-chief Paskevich sent proclamations out to the auls, instilling in the people an artificial picture of the world: the natural disaster was declared God's punishment for resisting the empire. The historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov wrote about how this lie sounded among the Nokhchi: "supporters of the Russian orientation claimed that the earthquake was caused by the wrath of Allah over the attempt at an armed uprising"[103]. The imperial historian Volkonsky acknowledges the source of the suggestion: the commander-in-chief "ordered General Rozen 4th to spread entirely opposite rumors among the people, namely, that the earthquake had been sent down by God upon the Mountain Peoples for their ill-intentioned acts against the Russian government"[100]. The imperial historian Potto recorded the act: Rozen "resorted to proclamations in which he sought to assure the people that the earthquake had been sent down upon them as punishment for their treason and their ill-intentioned acts against the Russian government"[101].
From December 18, 1830 to January 26, 1831, General Velyaminov conducted a sweeping march through lowland Chechnya as punishment of the people for supporting the resistance, systematically devastating villages from the Sunzha River to the Kachkalyk Ridge. The imperial historian Potto wrote of the method: Velyaminov "would usually mark out a point toward which he advanced unswervingly with his entire detachment, and then, upon reaching it, immediately set up camp and established a fortified wagenburg (a camp enclosed by wagons), from which the troops were dispatched in turn in small columns to exterminate the neighboring auls"[101]. Potto acknowledges the outcome of the campaign: "the whole of lowland Chechnya, traversed through and through as far as the Kochalyk Ridge, was put to fire and sword by Velyaminov"[101].
At dawn on December 19, 1830, Cossacks of General Velyaminov's detachment, having burst into the sleeping village of Dzulgai-Yurt, cut down the inhabitants caught unawares. The imperial historian Potto recorded: "thirty-nine people were taken prisoner, and about twelve were cut down. The rest, having taken cover in the forest, opened an exchange of fire"[101]. Those cut down were inhabitants overtaken during the sudden nighttime seizure of the village; armed resistance was mounted later only by those who managed to reach the forest.
In December 1830 – January 1831, General Velyaminov's troops razed and burned the villages of lowland Chechnya: Kiter-Yurt, Pkhan-Kichu, Edin-Yurt, Daut-Yurt, Engeli, Uzeken-Yurt, Besenber with its hamlets, Avtury, Geldigen, and Mairtup with the surrounding auls. The imperial historian Potto wrote: Kiter-Yurt "was immediately given over to the flames," "over the following two days the Butyrsky and Tarutinsky regiments burned the village of Pkhan-Kichu," "along the way they burned two more unsubmissive villages: Edin-Yurt and Daut-Yurt," the troops "managed to exterminate one more aul, Engeli," the regiments "burned the unsubmissive village of Uzeken-Yurt," "exterminated in the vicinity the aul of Besenber, with all the hamlets adjoining it," and on January 21, 1831, "the same fate befell Maiortup itself"[101]. The submission offered by the villages of Avtury, Geldigen, and Mairtup, together with the handing over of hostages, Velyaminov rejected, demanding the impossible — the surrender of all Russian captives and fugitives — in order to preserve a pretext for exterminating the villages: submission, as Potto admits, "was not at all part of Velyaminov's designs, as he understood the necessity of punishing these auls cruelly"[101].
At dawn on December 19, 1830, during the seizure of the village of Dzulgai-Yurt, Cossacks of General Velyaminov's detachment captured the family of a resistance leader — the Karabulak chieftain Astemir, who himself managed to escape into the forest. The imperial historian Potto wrote: "his family — a young son, a daughter, a grandson, and a cousin — fell into the hands of the Cossacks. Besides them, thirty-nine people were taken prisoner"[101].
In the autumn of 1830, General Velyaminov introduced collective property levies on Chechen villages that bore no responsibility for the actions of others: for the driving off by Chechens of ten head of cattle from the stanitsa of Chervlennaya, he "immediately ordered that ten head of cattle likewise be taken from the inhabitants of the two villages of Braguny and Novy-Yurt, past which the party had traveled, and returned to the Cossacks"; for the driving off of a herd of horses in the Nogai steppe, "Braguny once again paid with exactly the same number of head"; and Shakh-Girei, the owner of Novy-Yurt, was confined to a casemate — a prison cell of the Groznaya fortress — for the inaction of the village watch. This was recorded by the imperial historian Potto[101]. In December 1830, during the encirclement of the village of Daut-Martan, "the inhabitants managed to flee, but all their property became the booty of the detachment"[101].
In December 1830 – January 1831, General Velyaminov's troops deliberately destroyed the winter stores of food and fodder of the villages being devastated. The imperial historian Potto wrote: during the burning of Edin-Yurt and Daut-Yurt, the troops "destroyed enormous stores of harvested hay"[101]; on January 17, 1831, Geldigen was put to the torch "with all its stores"[101]. The destruction of hay and grain stores in the depths of winter condemned the inhabitants, who had fled to the mountains and forests, to famine.
In January 1831, General Velyaminov's troops cut a clearing and cleared a road through the forest between the settlement of Aldy and the Groznaya fortress, depriving the inhabitants of forest cover for the sake of a military passage to the south. The imperial historian Potto wrote: Velyaminov "set about cutting a clearing and clearing a road between Aldy and Groznaya in order to prepare for himself a secure gateway to the south"[101]. On January 21, 1831, Mairtup was exterminated "with its luxuriant gardens and plantations" — orchards of many years' standing, the foundation of the village's way of life, were destroyed[101].
On July 14, 1831, near the Tashkichu fortification, Beibulat Taimiev, leader of the Chechen resistance and head of the uprising of 1825–1826, was killed from ambush — eliminated after open repression had been deemed too dangerous by the command. The historian D. A. Khozhaev wrote: "The tsarist command intended several times to do away with Beibulat, but feared to repress him openly... Preparations for the murder of Beibulat began, and it was soon carried out"[96]. The killer — Prince Sali, who was in imperial service — went unpunished, although other cases of blood vengeance were harshly prosecuted; commander-in-chief Paskevich wrote back that Beibulat "was a traitor to the end, and therefore the killer should not be punished"[96].
In the winter of 1831–1832, General Velyaminov, from his camp near the Groznaya fortress, dispatched troops against Chechen settlements in revenge for their support of the uprising: on December 23, 1831, Lieutenant Colonel Zass, commander of the Mozdok Cossack Regiment, devastated the hamlets on the right side of the Sunzha opposite the village of Chertugai, and in February 1832 Velyaminov "undertook an expedition to punish the Chechen villages lying up the Sunzha from the Groznaya fortress" — this is acknowledged by the imperial survey of military operations[104]. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote of the purpose of the raids: "to harass the enemy and divert his attention from our borders"[100]. The historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov recorded: "Another large expedition was directed against the Chechen auls situated along the banks of the Sunzha"[103].
On December 23, 1831, during the devastation of the hamlets near the village of Chertugai, Cossacks of the detachment of Lieutenant Colonel Zass, commander of the Mozdok Cossack Regiment, took three women captive. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: Zass "delivered three captive women to the camp"[100].
On December 23, 1831, the detachment of Lieutenant Colonel Zass, commander of the Mozdok Cossack Regiment, dispatched by General Velyaminov, drove off the livestock of the inhabitants of the devastated hamlets near the village of Chertugai. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: Zass "delivered to the camp... up to 250 head of cattle"[100]. Driving off 250 head of livestock in the middle of winter deprived the inhabitants of the devastated hamlets of their basic means of subsistence.
From August 22 to the end of September 1832, corps commander Baron Rosen conducted a campaign through Chechnya and Ichkeria (the mountainous southeastern part of the Chechen land) in retribution against the people for the uprising, applying a uniform scheme: a village that failed to meet the conditions was exterminated. Rosen acknowledged the scheme in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev: the villages, "being unable to agree among themselves on the release of our prisoners, have been punished by the destruction of dwellings and plowed fields"[104]. Historian D. A. Khozhaev wrote: "In the summer and autumn of 1832, the troops of General Rosen swept through Chechnya, leaving death and destruction in their wake"[96].
On August 23, 1832, during the storming of Germenchuk, the troops of corps commander Baron Rosen burned alive about 60 encircled defenders of the village, led by Mullah Abdurakhman, who had refused to surrender. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev: a group "numbering about 60 men ... led by ... Mullah Abdur-Rakhman, was cut off and surrounded by us in one large house"[104]. The imperial historian Volkonsky, writing on the basis of Rosen’s dispatches, acknowledges the method of the massacre: "Major General Volkhovsky ordered burning firewood and hay to be thrown into the chimneys. This had its effect... while the greater part, together with Mullah Abdurakhman, perished in the flames, continuing to chant verses of the Quran"[100]. The demonstrative burning of people alive served to terrorize all of Chechnya; Volkonsky acknowledges the calculation: the destruction of Germenchuk "was bound to have the most crushing effect on the Chechens"[100].
From August 22 to September 23, 1832, the troops of corps commander Baron Rosen razed dozens of villages of Chechnya and Ichkeria: Belgatoy and Dzhan-yurt, the houses of the six-hundred-household Germenchuk, Shali (except for 11 households), Alkhan-yurt, Sala-yurt, Katar-yurt, Lyalsin-yurt, Nazari-yurt, Uzden-yurt, Uruzbey-yurt, Khyzin-Erzo-yurt, Anzeli-yurt, Chingaroy-yurt, Said-yurt, Anto-yurt, Askhor-yurt, Taba-yurt, Kudish-yurt, Mairtup, Shoni, Tsentoroy, the hamlet of Khamer, Ali-yurt, Bey-Bulat-yurt, Bachin-yurt, Khelboyn-yurt, Benoy, and others. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev on the dispatch of Colonel Shumsky, by whom "Alkhan-yurt, Sala-yurt, Katar-yurt, Lyalsin-yurt, Nazari-yurt, Uzden-yurt, Uruzbey-yurt and Khyzin-Erzo-yurt have been exterminated"[104], and summed up the result himself: "Of unsubmitted villages, 61 have been exterminated"[104]. Historian D. A. Khozhaev wrote: "The general’s troops burned Benoy and other Chechen villages"[96].
In August–September 1832, the troops of corps commander Baron Rosen destroyed the crops and plowed fields of the villages being ravaged — the people’s food base on the eve of winter. Rosen acknowledged this in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev: the unsubmitted villages were "punished by the destruction of dwellings and plowed fields"[104]. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: on September 1, the residents of Avtury, for refusing to hand over prisoners, were "punished by the destruction of crops and dwellings"; on September 3, near Geldigen, the detachment "exterminated their plowed fields and houses"[100].
In August–September 1832, the troops of corps commander Baron Rosen appropriated the property and livestock of the residents and exacted monetary fines. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: the property of 50 families who had taken refuge in the forest near Mairtup "fell as booty to the detachment"; near Tsentoroy "6 horses and 50 head of cattle were seized"[100]. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev: on September 15, near the village of Dungen-yurt, the cavalry "seized 140 sheep and 9 head of cattle," and in total over the campaign "tribute and fines in money and livestock have been paid... about 5 th. r. s. [five thousand rubles in silver]"[104].
In September 1832, corps commander Baron Rosen imposed on the villages of Chechnya and Ichkeria an annual tribute from each household as a condition of being spared. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: "from the village of Metso-erzo-yurt, amanats (hostages) were taken along with a tribute of one ruble per hearth"; the villages of Eshta-kale and Eyni-kale undertook "to pay henceforth a tribute of 1 ruble per hearth"[100]. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev: the village of Gurdali "handed over an amanat and undertook to pay tribute"[104]. The tribute was exacted from a people whose villages and crops were in those very days being exterminated by the troops.
In August–September 1832, corps commander Baron Rosen coerced the villages of Chechnya and Ichkeria into handing over amanats (hostages) under direct threat of extermination. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev regarding the village of Miskit: "when it was announced to them that in the event of the slightest resistance the entire village, the grain and the hay would be exterminated, they immediately presented amanats"[104]. Rosen summed up the result in the same report: subjugation through hostage-taking covered "more than 80 Chechen and Ichkerian villages"[104].
On September 9, 1832, during the seizure of the village of Tsentoroy in Ichkeria, the column of General Volkhovsky from the detachment of corps commander Baron Rosen took captive a woman from among the residents who had not managed to flee. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: "one woman was taken prisoner"[100]. On September 15, near the village of Dungen-yurt, the cavalry of Major Boreysha took captive residents caught while attempting to leave their homes. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev: the cavalry "managed to take prisoner 4 persons and 1 woman"[104].
In 1836, corps commander Baron Rosen sent covert topographers through Chechnya for the clandestine surveying of the unsubdued land. In a report to the emperor, Rosen acknowledges: "in 1836, to survey the direct route leading from Kakheti to Chechnya, a topographer was sent who, having crossed the snow ridge, came out onto the Caucasian Line at the fortress of Groznaya, and from there, through Chechnya and the lands of the Kistins and the Didois, returned to Kakheti"; at the same time "I sent from Vladikavkaz Ensign Prince Utsmiev of the Life Guards Grenadier Regiment with a topographer, through Chechnya, to Andia"[104]. Rosen named the method outright: "covert surveys of the lands of the mountaineers hostile to us"[104].
In 1835–1836, Colonel Pullo, chief of the Sunzha fortified line, conducted systematic expeditions against Chechen villages that supported Imam Tashu-Hajji. The imperial review of military operations acknowledges: Tashu-Hajji’s attempts "were preempted in good time by the expeditions of the chief of the Sunzha line, Col. Pullo, which inflicted utter ruin on the residents"[104]. On August 23, 1836, Pullo led a detachment by a covert night march to the aul of Zandak on the Yaman-su River. Corps commander Baron Rosen reported to the Minister of War on the objective: "in order to shake the influence of Tashev-Hajji and to quell the unrest among the Chechens and instill fear in them, I resolved to undertake movements to punish the residents of the village of Zandak"[104].
On August 23, 1836, the detachment of Colonel Pullo, chief of the Sunzha fortified line, ravaged the aul of Zandak on the Yaman-su River. Corps commander Baron Rosen reported to the Minister of War on the destruction in the aul of the houses of murids and of "other principal adherents of Tashev-Hajji"[104]. The Chechen writer Abuzar Aydamirov, in his "Chronology of the History of Checheno-Ingushetia," recorded: "Punitive expedition of Colonel Pullo to the auls on the Yaman-Su River. Destruction of the aul of Zandak"[105].
On August 23, 1836, during the sudden seizure of the aul of Zandak, the detachment of Colonel Pullo, chief of the Sunzha fortified line, took captive residents who had not managed to escape through the ravines and the forest. Corps commander Baron Rosen reported to the Minister of War: the infantry drove out the defenders, "having taken prisoner 31 souls of male and female sex"[104].
On August 23, 1836, during the destruction of the aul of Zandak, the detachment of Colonel Pullo, commander of the Sunzha fortified line, appropriated the property and livestock of the inhabitants. Corps commander Baron Rosen reported to the Minister of War: "our troops received as booty the property of the inhabitants and 384 head of cattle"[104].