Not a Single Chechen Was Drafted into the Army As became clear after the conscription campaign that ended on July 15, young men from an entire federal subject of the Russian Federation did not go to perform their duty to the motherland. No conscripts from Chechnya were sent to the troops. The situation was also commented on for MK by the Ministry of Defense. The ministry’s official spokesman, Colonel Igor Konashenkov, said that for now the ranks of new recruits are being filled without the participation of young men from Chechnya. In the other republics of the North Caucasus, conscription is proceeding in full. But conscripts from Chechnya are not being sent to the troops because there is no corresponding directive from the General Staff. Konashenkov did not explain why there is no such directive. MK sought comment from its source in the General Staff. — Let’s call things by their proper names: why train your own enemies in military affairs, people you may well end up fighting? No matter how much you feed a wolf, it still looks toward the forest. It is no secret that many Chechens are related to militants. Suppose you draft him into the army, and he turns out to be a cousin of Shamil Basayev (Chechen militant leader), a militant at heart and an excellent fighter in practice—then what? And it is impossible to screen conscripts according to a “loyal / disloyal” system—it is far too painstaking a task. That is how people are selected for the special services, not for the army. What is more, I’ll say even more: this is not the whim of the General Staff itself; decisions like this cannot be made at our level..* www.mk.ru/politics/article/2011/07/21/607793-v-armiyu-ne-prizvali-ni-odnogo-chechentsa.html Amazing. If they are so openly declaring, “why train your own enemies in military affairs,” and this has entirely practical consequences—Chechens are not being taken into the army—then why are such enormous sums of money being pumped into Chechnya, with which R. Kadyrov maintains an entire personal army of “Hurons” in Porsche Cayennes? Or is it a peace-loving army?