In February–March 2000, Gelayev's forces took heavy losses as they withdrew from Grozny to the mountains of southern Chechnya, where they discovered that their mountain bases had been destroyed by Russian aircraft, leaving them starving, freezing, and low on ammunition. At that point, the notorious Chechen warlord Arbi Barayev contacted Gelayev, promising him aid and transportation to a safe area. When Gelayev's forces arrived at the specified meeting place, where buses were supposed to be waiting to evacuate their wounded, they were ambushed by a large number of Russian troops. They retreated to Gelayev's native village of Komsomolskoye (Saadi-Kotar). There, around a thousand or more rebels were trapped and the village was pounded for weeks by the federal forces in the Battle of Komsomolskoye, one of the bloodiest battles of the war, ending with hundreds of Chechen fighters and civilians dead, along with more than 50 government troops (according to Russian figures). Gelayev escaped, but with only a fraction of his men, and many of demoralized survivors decided to give up the fight. Anna Politkovskaya wrote, "How could he ever think of taking the war home, to Komsomolskoe, knowing in advance that his own home village would be destroyed!"