in the campaign “Destruction of the Refugee Aul of Uzeni-Yurt, Extortion of Hostages from Geldigen, and Capture of Samashki Residents at Harvest (1826-1827)”
On the night of January 10, 1827, General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, forced four hundred Chechens of subordinated 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"[1]. 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"[1]. The subjugation of these communities was maintained by a system of hostages, as documented by Laptev's same practice with regard to Geldigen.