Thursday, October 24, near the village of Petropavlovskaya in the Grozny district Chechnyaa member of the Russian National Guard, the Rosgvardawas killed and another wounded in an attack on a military vehicle by two armed men.

In its post-incident report, the regional authority said “steps are being taken to find and apprehend the attackers”.

The Chechen word “zachistka” which translates to “cleansing or cleaning” has a far more ominous meaning for its citizens of a certain age than that would suggest. It was the term used during the second ten-year Chechen war in the early 2000s for the rounding up, imprisonment or, frequently, disappearance of suspected dissidents.

Two days after the Rosgvardia ambush, that long-forgotten term reared its ugly head again as: conformable the Russian human rights protection organization “Memorial”, the Chechen security forces began a “cleansing” operation in the areas around the Chechen capital.

According to Memorial, the operation began on October 26, with Rosgvardia and Interior Ministry officers conducting door-to-door visits, searching homes for unregistered occupants, checking personal and vehicle documents, and confiscating and checking the contents of mobile phones.

Any residents of military age who committed a crime, no matter how minor, were immediately apprehended and taken to police stations. Many of the houses were visited several times over the next ten days.

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The Memorial article provides an account of the outcome of one of several visits to the town of Argun, which is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) southeast of Grozny. They visited a house belonging to Rizvan Batyrov, a 47-year-old man who lived there and cared for his 82-year-old mother and two small children. Batyrov was himself disabled as a result of a traffic accident.

Unarmed Rosgvardia officers visited the home three times starting on October 31 and tried to take the man into custody despite his disabilities, but were prevented from doing so by his mother and neighbors.

On 2 November they returned, this time supported by armed officers who formed a cordon around the house. They severely beat Batyrov and took him away. His fate is currently unknown.

The total number of those taken into custody is unclear, but Memorial says it could be in the hundreds, with families of those detained reluctant to comment for fear of reprisals. They say that only in one police station, in the suburb of Staropromyslovsky, they confirmed that a group of 20 detainees is being held.

In each case, those arrested are given a choice: go to a so-called “special military operation,” Russia’s term for the war in Ukraine, or face criminal charges.

Many of these charges involve finding anti-government content on phones or possession of prohibited substances such as marijuana (even for those who claim they do not smoke and have never smoked).

It was reported earlier that Ramzan Kadyrovhead of the Chechen Republic, has set troop mobilization targets for the war in Ukraine in response to requests from all of Russia’s autonomous territories – this may be another “backdoor” attempt to meet Chechnya’s quota of “volunteers”.