Russian rights defenders find commonalities of wars in Syria and Chechnya

In Syria, Russian armed forces are using the methods earlier tested in Chechnya, including indiscriminate bombing and cleansings, Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, Director of the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, has stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Russian human rights defenders issued an analytical report "Ten Terrible Years. Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law during War in Syria". The presentation of the report was held on April 2 in the format of an online conference.

Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, a co-author of the report, treats it reasonable to compare the Syrian conflict with the military campaigns in Chechnya, seeing a number of parallels in these events, first of all, in violations of warfare methods and treatment of civilians.

"These are indiscriminate bombings; I haven't been to Aleppo, but it's easy for me to imagine what had happened to the city, since I saw the ruined Grozny, where not a single undamaged building remained. These are missing persons – in Chechnya, over 5000 people disappeared, this is a large number for a republic with a million of population today; torture applies for no apparent rational reason, for the sake of mockery. Cleansings, when militaries entered dwelling settlements and killed residents without trial and inquiry – this is what Russian human rights defenders faced in Northern Caucasus, in Chechnya," Ms Sokiryanskaya has explained.

In her opinion, the Russian society is disproportionately poorly aware of the conflict in Syria and the real state of affairs in the war zone. With the aim to disseminate information about this the report of Russian human rights defenders was created, she has noted.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 2, 2021 at 07:50 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.