in the campaign “Demonstrative destruction of the aul of Dadi-Yurt and the construction of the Vnezapnaya fortress to force the Nokhchi off the Kumyk plain (1819)”
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, built in order to "squeeze unsubdued Chechnya with new fortresses and fortifications"[1]. 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 to the Dagestanis across the Salatau mountains," and it was linked to Groznaya by a chain of fortifications[2]. 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"[3].