The world is still in shock at the discovery of countless civilian corpses in Boutcha, after the withdrawal of the Russian army. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the United Nations on Tuesday, April 5, to act “immediately” against Russia with regard to “war crimes” committed in Ukraine. In the entourage of the Head of State, some also evoke a “zatchistka” – a word literally meaning “cleansing” – a term that has inspired fear since the wars in Chechnya. This new armed conflict, in any case, seems to awaken old demons in the Russian army. It remains to be seen whether these abuses are part of a military plan.
>> Boutcha massacre: can we speak of “genocide”, as Volodymyr Zelensky says?
This “cleaning” consists in methodically eliminating every man of age to carry a weapon, house after house, while delivering all the inhabitants to various abuses. One of the most famous cases dates back to February 2000, when around sixty civilians were found dead in Novye Aldi, in the suburbs of Grozny (Chechnya). A few days after the capture of the city, the Russian armed forces had relentlessly tracked down the rebel fighters. Women, children and old people had also been “shot down in cold blood, with automatic weapons, at point-blank range”concluded a field survey by the NGO Human Rights Watch (in English). Not to mention the fires, looting and rapes.
“Several reports had then alerted to this cleaning strategy”explains Carole Grimaud Potter, professor of geopolitics specializing in Russia. “TEvery inhabitant was suspected of terrorism and arrested, before being interrogated in detention centers. Some were tortured until confessions were obtained. Russia had already denounced “a provocation the purpose of which is to discredit the operation of the federal forces”. And Vladimir Putin, already, had underestimated the opposing forces.
The siege of kyiv failed, but the surrounding towns descended into chaos. Gostomel, Boutcha, Irpin, Motyzhin… The Russian withdrawal, once again, reveals the extent of the violence committed against the populations. These images of aligned corpses plunged Raphaël Pitti back into horror. The war emergency physician carried out around thirty missions in Syria. In 2013, in Aleppo, more than 200 people were killed by the Syrian army, their hands tied, before being thrown into the river. For the doctor, no doubt, “it was really a question of terrorizing the populations as an example”.
On the ground, the Russian army had set up a headquarters near Damascus in 2015, leaving the dirty work to the Wagner group and Chechen auxiliaries. In Syria, at least, it is not directly implicated in the abuses committed against civilians. It would still be necessary to know the rules of engagement that she had set for the units under her command. In other words: are these abuses committed in Syria a matter “of a modus operandi or are they the consequence of a laissez-faire approach?” asks Raphaël Pitti. “At the very least, this means that the Russian general staff did not set limits, and that they can be held responsible.”
Frankly, Admiral Michel Olhagaray delivers the same analysis in the Ukrainian case:
“The way the Russians behave is typically in the direction of what they know how to do. If these abuses were committed in Ukraine, it is because there was no order to the contrary.”
Admiral Michel Olhagarayat franceinfo
It remains to be seen whether such acts are isolated or deliberate. “We knew that Putin’s invasion plans included summary executions by his military and intelligence services”, just commented Richard Moore, the director of the British secret service, without giving further details.
It is difficult to decide on this point, because the rules of engagement of the Russian army are of course secret. Some experts therefore prefer to remain cautious at this stage. “The first hypothesis is that of a unit that behaved badly”thus analyzes General François Chauvancy, interviewed by franceinfo. “Was she beaten by the Ukrainian army and armed civilians? Did she make the population pay for what she suffered?” One of the roles of the investigators will therefore be to identify the different units involved in the same sector. Obviously, “if several units have committed massacres in the same city, it will be necessary to deduce the systemic nature”.
Some Boutcha survivors interviewed by the BBC (in Russian) evoked variable behaviors according to the Russian soldiers encountered – from a certain form of compassion to the most crass brutality – which supposes non-uniform behaviors according to the units or within the same unit. Ukraine notably accuses the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade of having committed the abuses, and all its soldiers have been placed on a list of “war criminals”. Ukrainian military intelligence says this brigade will be sent to another front, after a temporary withdrawal to Belarus on April 4. According to this source, it would be for Moscow to send them to certain death, and to remove any witnesses to the atrocities.
The British researcher Jack Watling opposes (in English) moreover a “Russian tradition of anti-partisan warfare” – to repress the population by holding it collectively responsible for acts of resistance – and a “western counterinsurgency doctrine” – which consists in separating (and punishing, sometimes by committing exactions) the insurgents from the rest of the population. In other words :
“The population is being punished for supporting the Ukrainian army.”
Carole Grimaud Potter, professor of geopolitics, specialist in Russiaat franceinfo
“I think it’s deeply rooted in the culture of the Russian army”agrees Carole Grimaud Potter, who willingly takes up this historical plot. “The Red Army was originally created to suppress anti-Bolshevik guerrillas. In this long tradition, a civilian can be an enemy or pose a threat.” And if the “zatchistka” does not have the value of military doctrine, the researcher nevertheless recalls that recent exercises by the Russian army have been oriented towards urban conflicts and guerrilla warfare. She also recalls that the NGO Memorial, which had extensively documented the crimes committed in Chechnya, was dissolved shortly before this invasion. “A scenario is therefore being written.”
General François Chauvancy wonders about the training of soldiers, because the law of war takes precedence in all circumstances – including orders from the hierarchy. “In Western armies, disciplinary regulations mandate disobeying orders when they’re illegal – shooting civilians, for example. I’m not sure that this training is fully provided to Russian soldiers.” It would also be instructive, according to him, to know the nature of the representations of the Ukrainian population which has been “put in the heads of Russian soldiers” and which can condition their behavior in the field. Especially since the narrative of Moscow, precisely, has evolved since the beginning of the war.
At the start of the war, according to the Kremlin’s account, Russian troops were to liberate the population by driving out the “nationalists” and “Nazis” power. Ukrainians were seen “like some kind of Russians with bizarre ideas about their identity and a ridiculous language”, abstract Russian sociologist Grigory Yudin. Corn “this conception failed when the Ukrainians began to bravely resist”, continues this researcher opposed to the war. Rooted in its ideological representations, the Kremlin drew its own conclusions and decreed that “Ukrainians [étaient] deeply infected by Nazism”. Since it is a question of confronting absolute evil, concludes Grigoryi Ioudin, a logic of “purification” replaced the original logic of “release”.
The Russian media, moreover, have made their shift towards the new doxa. “‘Ukronazism’ poses a far greater threat to the world and to Russia than Hitler’s version of German Nazism.”, dares the Russian polemicist Timofey Sergeyitsev – very little known – in an article published by the Ria Novosti agency. Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, too, beats the drum in his daily show on the Rossiya 1 channel. According to him, “nothing prevents us from reducing the whole world to ashes” and “to negotiate with the Nazis, you have to put your foot on their throats”.
This semantics of the Kremlin “galvanizes army command and minds, paving the way for an attempt at ‘de-Ukrainization'” of the country, adds Carole Grimaud Potter. “What happened in Boutcha is not an isolated act and I am very afraid of what we will discover in Mariupol or Kharkhiv.” But at the same time, observes Admiral Michel Olhagaray, “you don’t find as many corpses on the streets of Bodoryanka as you do in Boutcha. The Russian army reacted and I think they took care to ‘clean up’, which has less of an impact on international opinions .”