in the campaign “"Constriction of Chechnya from all sides": blockade, secret war, punitive expeditions and the Sunzha Line (1840-1846)”
From the cut clearings and the new fortifications imperial detachments swooped on the Chechen auls, plundering and burning them. Historian N. I. Pokrovsky describes the practice of 1846: "Russian troops systematically fell the forests to run wide strategic roads... and the tsarist detachments from time to time swoop on the auls, plunder and burn them"[1]. The plunder here is not an excess but the regular mode of operations of the troops from the line.