Aggressors may loot: appropriate residents' property during assaults, sweep operations and searches, divide the "spoils" between soldiers and commanders, carry off livestock, household goods and valuables. Pillage is not limited to combat: on occupied territory it is any appropriation of residents' property - by soldiers or by representatives of the aggressor's administration - for private or institutional benefit without the owner's consent. The Hague Regulations forbid giving up a locality to pillage "even when taken by assault" (Article 28) and "formally forbid" pillage on occupied territory (Article 47); pillaging a town or place is a war crime (Rome Statute, Article 8(2)(b)(xvi)), and both organized seizure of property and acts of individuals for private gain qualify as pillage (ICTY, Celebici case, 1998).
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»[1][2].
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»[2].
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"[3]. 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"[4].
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"[3]. General Yermolov himself admits this in his "Notes": after the destruction of Dadi-Yurt, "the soldiers came away with rather rich spoils"[4].
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»[3].
In December 1830, during the encirclement of the village of Daut-Martan, the troops of General Velyaminov appropriated the property of the fleeing inhabitants: the imperial historian Potto records that "the inhabitants managed to flee, but all their property became the booty of the detachment"[5].
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"[6]. Driving off 250 head of livestock in the middle of winter deprived the inhabitants of the devastated hamlets of their basic means of subsistence.
In the campaign of August - September 1832 the troops of corps commander Rosen appropriated the property and livestock of the residents of the villages being devastated. 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", and near Tsentoroy "6 horses and 50 head of cattle were seized"[6]. Rosen reported to Minister of War Chernyshev that on September 15, near the village of Dungen-yurt, the cavalry "seized 140 sheep and 9 head of cattle"[7].
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 Rosen reported to the Minister of War: "our troops received as booty the property of the inhabitants and 384 head of cattle"[7].
In the course of the extermination of Kishkeroy-Yurt on 28-31 December 1836, Pullo's detachment appropriated the inhabitants' property, including weapons taken from the bodies of the slain: "all the property of the inhabitants and the weapons taken from the slain fell to our troops"[8].
Throughout Feze's spring tour (February-April 1837), the troops took the Chechens' livestock and property. According to Rozen's reports to Minister of War Chernyshev: on 5 February the livestock of mullah Udi's detachment was taken - "148 head of livestock of various kinds"; on 11 February "213 head of livestock of various kinds belonging to the unsubmissive Chechens were seized"; against those hiding in the forests "searches were made in various directions... and livestock of various kinds and property were seized from many of them"[7]. The April raid on the Gertli settlement, according to the report of 30 May, took "465 head of small livestock"[7].
In the marches of 1839-1840 the troops fed themselves on cattle taken from the Chechens and carried off the goods of the auls they were devastating. Of the December 1839 march of the detachment of general Pullo, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), the imperial historian Yurov wrote: "on the march the men subsisted on ration cattle taken from the natives by way of fine"[9] - the army supplied itself with the population's property, framing the seizure as a fine. In the summer of 1840 the troops of general Galafeyev plundered the auls of Lesser Chechnya they were devastating: historian D. A. Khozhayev - "The detachment rode out onto the clearing with the goods looted in the devastated auls"[3]. In November, at the destruction of the aul of Mirti-Irzau, the imperial historian Yurov recorded: "150 head of horned cattle were seized"[9].
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"[10]. The plunder here is not an excess but the regular mode of operations of the troops from the line.
At the destruction of the aul Khan-Kala, also known as Syurin-Kort, the troops of the march of Baryatinsky, who commanded on the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), entered the inhabitants and their cattle as their booty. Imperial historian Volkonsky drew up the account: "three hundred fifty Syurin-Kort people and more than three thousand head of horned cattle became our asset, our, so to speak, property"[11].
The military teams and Cossack units brought in at the beginning of the 20th century for sweeping searches of the mountain auls robbed the residents with the authorities' encouragement: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that the searches "were as a rule accompanied by robberies and other unlawful actions of soldiers and Cossacks, which was encouraged in every way by the Terek command"[12].
The troops that occupied Chechen territories during the suppression of the 1877 uprising plundered the population. During the destruction of the five villages of Cheberloy the detachment of Nakashidze "arrested up to a thousand people and seized a large number of livestock"[12], and historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova records the practice beyond the orders: "the soldiers looted with impunity in the occupied territories, and also ravaged crops, took horses away from the population, slaughtered livestock even without any need for it"[13].
In 1920 the Red Army looted the Chechen villages where it was stationed: the units quartered in Chechnya, historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write, "received almost no property or food allowance", which pushed them into "self-supply" - "...the Red Army not only ran riot, but took away grain, cattle and so forth, terrorizing the population with senseless killings"[12]. In the summer of 1920, in Tsentoroy, the Chechens routed a unit of the Caucasus Labor Army "engaged in outright plunder"[12]. The property of the killed was taken too: during the disarmament of May 1922 "up to 30 'bandits' were captured and shot, and their property was confiscated by the authorities"[12].
Deporting the Chechen people in February 1944, the colonizer looted its emptied homes. The Chechen historian Dalkhan Khozhaev writes: "In the days of the deportation, parallel to the human stream, columns of military trucks moved toward Grozny in an unbroken flow, loaded with the valuables looted from the emptied homes of the Chechens and Ingush. The items the guards deemed most valuable - carpets, burkas, Caucasian mounted belts, weapons ornamented with gold and silver (daggers, shashkas, flintlock rifles made by Chechen masters of the last century), jewels - were carried in canvas-covered vans"[14]. Drozdov, head of a brigade of the People's Commissariat (Ministry) of State Control of the RSFSR, who inspected the districts handed to Dagestan in August 1944 on the instructions of the government of the RSFSR, reported "unrestrained theft and squandering of the property of the special settlers," begun "soon after the deportation": Yusupov, acting chairman of a district soviet, "fully outfitted himself at the expense of the property of the special settlers" - he was short four hand-operated and four treadle sewing machines, 26 rugs, 30 carpets and 6 bicycles; Khashaev, prosecutor of Dagestan, received a house, an orchard, a vegetable garden and an "ownerless" cow; people's judge Suleimanov formalized his haul with a receipt: "Goods received, money not paid, to which I hereby subscribe"[14]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov sum up: "Implicated in the unrestrained theft of other people's goods was the entire party-economic and militia top brass of Grozny Oblast, Dagestan, Stavropol, North Ossetia and Georgia"; those caught were dismissed and tried, but "in the end the arrests had to be abandoned, since no one would have been left at liberty to govern"[12].