“Novaya Gazeta” journalist Elena Milashina tells in an interview with DV about how she and the lawyer Alexander Nemov were kidnapped and severely beaten in Chechnya last summer. In front of DV, she also spoke about the state of health of Ramzan Kadyrov, about the specifics of the work of independent journalists who remained in Russia, and about military censorship.
Elena, it can be said that your last business trip to Chechnya did not end very well. You were badly beaten. However, you continue to deal with the topic of Chechnya. What motivates you?
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Elena Milashina: The situation in Chechnya itself. Because of Ramzan Kadyrov’s health, I believe that an important moment is coming in Chechnya. There may be a transfer of power and a change in the governance model that the Kremlin implemented many years ago. That is why it is very important to monitor the situation. But also in general. Chechnya is my topic. I began to deal with it largely from a principled point of view. We continued our work in Chechnya in 2007 after Anna Politkovskaya was killed in 2006.
What does your work look like in practice? How free are you to cover what is happening in Chechnya and for example to travel there?
Elena Milashina: As for my work in Chechnya, in all the years I have never received even a hint of censorship from Moscow, the Kremlin, the presidential administration. The only person stopping me was my editor (Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of “Novaya Gazeta” – editor’s note). But he was doing it to protect me. And there have always been threats against me, there have been attempted attacks and successful attacks. But we kept working. Kadyrov is, of course, a very dangerous man, and probably many people are afraid to deal with him. But we are immune to such fear. We have security protocols in place, although they sometimes don’t work. But we intend to continue working in this serious and dangerous region.
In a conversation with Reporters Without Borders in Berlin, you said that with the help of digital technologies it is now possible to successfully cover events in Russia from another location. Perhaps you would have been freer in your work and coverage of what was happening in Chechnya if you, like many of your colleagues, had left Russia?
Elena Milashina: When journalists leave, it means that they are forced to do so for very serious reasons. A journalist who works in the language of his own country, for his own country’s audience, with sources from his own country, will never voluntarily give it up and leave. Yes, Russian journalists who were forced to leave continue to work in Russian for a Russian audience, but from a professional point of view, of course, they lose a lot: field work with sources becomes very difficult for them, sometimes even impossible.
This is not a voluntary choice. The journalists who left did so so they could circumvent military censorship in Russia. I often give the example of the First Chechen War. After all, it can still be called a war – unlike the situation in Ukraine. Journalists could cover this war: they could go there, see everything with their own eyes and write about it. And this had a strong impact on society. And the authorities were very afraid. And the first attempts to regulate the media regarding coverage of Russia’s military actions were made as early as 1995, when Boris Yeltsin was president. Putin only continued this tradition.
Let’s go back to the beginning of our conversation. What exactly changes do you expect in Chechnya?
Elena Milashina: I think there will be a change of power in Chechnya. I believe that Kadyrov’s rule is coming to an end. First of all, because of his health. And perhaps in the near future we will witness a situation in which someone else will replace Kadyrov.
Who?
Elena Milashina: If there was no “special military operation” in Ukraine, it could have been some Chechen technocrat. Believe me, there are people there who could bring Chechnya to the situation, to the model that exists in the other republics of the North Caucasus – Ingushetia, Dagestan. Of course, with its peculiarities, because Kadyrov’s legacy has not yet been settled. But there will be more control over the republic, less money, and the patterns of business operation will change. And this would not be detrimental to Chechnya.
Is this scenario optimistic?
Elena Milashina: If someone thinks that an independence movement will arise in Chechnya, there are no such forces there. There are no such leaders. And in Chechnya there is no such potential anymore. People have lived through two terrible wars. Chechens are the only people in Russia who know what it’s like to have bombs fall on their homes. And they remember it.
We are in a different situation now. I am afraid that a Russian military man may be appointed to replace Kadyrov. To facilitate the mobilization of Chechen men for the Ukrainian war.
Author: Nikita Zholkver
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Rating 3.3 out of 9 votes.
2023-11-13 12:24:00
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