In early May of this year, a BBC correspondent in Moscow reported that nearly three-quarters of Russians are concerned by their leadership's failure to bring peace to Chechnya. Chechnya is not merely unsafe for Russians, but also for Russia's quislings and collaborators. Reports say that in every village and town in Chechnya there are between 50 and 200 people ready and waiting for the order to fight. But it is the Chechens that have truly suffered at the hands of Russia. Nearly every factory in Grozny has been flattened, and 37,500 private homes apartments have been destroyed in the two cycles of war.
Every village is divided from the next by a Russian checkpoint.
These are terrifying because it is there that Chechen males between the ages of 10 and 65 are often detained only to later disappear into filtration camps. Chechens also say the checkpoints act as unofficial tollbooths, where Russian soldiers demand bribes. The only Muslim support for Chechnya has come from anonymous Islamic movements, and from the ruling Afghan Taliban movement. However, the Taliban say that they only give diplomatic support, having no resources to support the mujahideen . Last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, even alleged that Taliban-Chechen contacts could create circumstances that might force Russia to attack Afghanistan.