Perfidy: Sham Corridor

In the autumn of 1994, Russia attacked the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the name of a puppet opposition, and on 11 December 1994 the Russian army openly invaded the republic. The occupiers announced "corridors" for Chechens to leave surrounded villages and towns, and then fired on those leaving, detained men at the exit and bombed the villages together with those who had not managed to get out.

The "corridors" were announced by the command of the occupation forces when it surrounded a village or town before an assault^[1]. Russian commanders passed the conditions for leaving to the head of the village at their checkpoint or announced them through the ITAR-TASS agency, and gave the Chechens from two hours to two days to get out^[1][2]. The occupiers began shelling before the appointed time or closed the "corridor" before it ended. Russian generals declared that all Chechen civilians had left, and the troops fired on everyone who remained in the village^[1].

On 7 April 1995, a Russian general who refused to give his name gave the Chechens in Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria, until four in the afternoon to leave, announcing this at one o'clock, and 15-25 minutes before the deadline the occupiers began shelling the village with mortars. Of the five thousand people in the village, 100-150 managed to get out before the shelling, and even before the appointed hour the Russian military killed two teenagers and mortally wounded a woman who were leaving the village^[3]. On 1-2 June 1995, the command of the occupation forces, by agreement with the Assistance Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, opened a "corridor" for Chechens to leave the Shatoy district in the mountains in the south of Ichkeria, only in the daytime, from ten in the morning to seven in the evening. Russian tank crews fired on a column of refugees from Borzoy, a village in this district, and pilots bombed it and killed at least four refugees^[1]. On 18 December 1995, while Russian troops were shelling Gudermes, the second-largest town of Ichkeria, east of Grozny, the crew of a Russian helicopter fired rockets in an open field at Chechen refugees, mostly women, who were walking from the town along the "humanitarian corridor" eastward to Khasavyurt, a town in Russian-controlled Dagestan. The crew killed the son of one of the refugee women (see: "Mass Killings of Civilians")^[4][5].

On 19 February 1996, on the third day of the assault on the settlement of Novogroznensky in the east of Ichkeria, Kvashnin, commander of the Russian troops in the North Caucasus, declared that all Chechen civilians had left the settlement through two "corridors", and refugees from Novogroznensky denied this. According to the French agency Agence France-Presse, the occupiers killed at least 50 Chechen civilians in the settlement^[1]. On 4 March 1996, on the second day of the assault on Sernovodsk, a village in the west of Ichkeria, the occupiers opened a "corridor" and for two hours let vehicles of the International Organization for Migration into the village, and on 5 March they closed the way out. Russian artillerymen and pilots resumed shelling the village, where about 7,000 people remained, and by 9 March, when the occupiers captured Sernovodsk, they had killed at least 45 Chechen civilians there (see: "Mass Killings of Civilians")^[1][6].

On the night of 14 March 1996, the occupiers surrounded Samashki, where about 12,000 people lived. On 14 March, the command of the occupation forces demanded 10 thousand dollars for a "corridor" for the Chechens to leave the village. Chechens from Samashki told human rights defenders of Memorial that the head of the village took this sum to the checkpoint in rubles - 50 million, collected from the villagers (see: "Administrative Corruption and Extortion")^[5]. On 15 March at six in the morning, the Russian military at the checkpoint announced to the head of the village that from eight to ten in the morning they would let the Chechens out toward Russian-controlled Ingushetia, and then would begin the assault. Some families went south along another road, but there the occupiers let no one out, and the families returned to the village^[1][5]. Zaynap Baysaeva, a Chechen woman from Samashki, told the public tribunal of the Russian Glasnost Foundation in Moscow on 22 April: "Everyone who learned about the corridor — some on a tractor… some in a car, drove up to the checkpoint. But the road was already blocked — the mercenaries [Russian servicemen] were standing there and detaining males from children in the 6th-9th grades to men of 65"^[5]. At the checkpoint, Russian soldiers took 91 Chechens off the buses and unlawfully detained them from among those who were leaving through the "corridor". Five weeks later, on 19 April, Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs released them without charges (see: "Filtration Camp System")^[7][1]. Sixteen minutes after the end of the "corridor", Russian troops began shelling the village from tanks and howitzers, helicopters and aircraft. About half of the village had not managed to leave (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")^[1].

On 16 March, Russian soldiers at the checkpoint fired on a column of up to 500 Chechens who were trying to get out of Samashki, and the column returned to the village. On 18 March, several thousand Chechens approached the Russian positions on the southern edge of the village and demanded to be let out. The Russian military allowed women with children to leave and threatened to send the men to a filtration camp, and the women refused to leave without their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. On the morning of 19 March, the crew of a Russian helicopter fired on the Chechens near the Russian positions, killed one Chechen and wounded six or seven (see: "Mass Killings of Civilians"). Only after this, at noon, did the occupiers open a "corridor", and the Chechens began to leave the encirclement, while a doctor from Samashki took the wounded to the hospital in Achkhoy-Martan, a village in the west of Ichkeria^[1]. That day, at another Russian checkpoint, soldiers fired an automatic grenade launcher at women who had been promised a "corridor" to collect their children from the village and return by five in the evening. The occupiers wounded eight to ten women, and the wounded ended up in the hospital in Sleptsovskaya, a stanitsa in Russian-controlled Ingushetia^[1][5]. During the assault that began on 15 March, the occupiers killed at least 35 Chechen civilians in Samashki^[1].

On 6 May 1996, Russian troops surrounded Komsomolskoye, a village in the Urus-Martan district south-west of Grozny, and demanded that the defenders lay down their arms by nightfall, otherwise shelling would begin at two in the morning. Russian artillerymen opened fire at about three in the afternoon, 11 hours before the deadline, when the Chechens in the village were still preparing to take the children out, and killed Chechen civilians^[5]. On 9 July 1996, Russian troops surrounded Gekhi, a village south-west of Grozny, and on 11 July opened a "corridor" only for women, children and the elderly and closed it the same day. The Russian military declared that only men remained in the village, although about 8,000 Chechens had not managed to get out, and from 9 to 12 July the occupiers' artillerymen and pilots killed 19 Chechen civilians in Gekhi^[1][8][9].

On 19 August 1996, when the Armed Forces of Ichkeria had surrounded the occupiers in Grozny, Pulikovsky, acting commander of the occupation forces, gave the townspeople 48 hours to leave through the only "corridor", via the suburb of Staraya Sunzha in the east, and threatened to bomb the city afterwards^[2]. On the night of 20 August, before the deadline, the occupiers began bombing Grozny and shelling it with artillery, and in the daytime they closed the "corridor"^[1][10]. Human rights defenders of Memorial write that no one counted the civilian townspeople whom the occupiers killed in Grozny from 6 to 22 August, and journalists gave the figure of 2,000^[1]. On 20 August, the crew of a Russian helicopter near the village of Goyty south of Grozny fired on Chechen refugees from the city who were traveling in buses and cars, and killed ten to twelve people^[1].

Human rights defenders of Memorial write that throughout the war the Russian military informed Chechens about the "corridors" poorly or not at all, gave little time to get out before the shelling, and killed Chechen civilians even as they were leaving through the "corridors"^[1].

On 21 August 1996, Lebed, secretary of Russia's Security Council, flew to Ichkeria and cancelled the threat to bomb Grozny made by Pulikovsky, acting commander of the occupation forces^[8].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table^[8]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")^[11]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic^[1].