does this sound familiar...yet?

Russia’s Quagmire
On ending the standoff in Chechnya
Rajan Menon

"The estimate of Chechen deaths ranges from 20,000 to 100,000 for the first war and 14,000 to 80,000 for the second; the lower figures are favored by Moscow, the higher ones by Western governments and Russian human-rights organizations. If the latter are right, roughly 15 percent of Chechnya’s civilian population has died since the first Russian invasion.

More than 300,000 Chechens have become refugees in Chechnya’s interior. About as many have escaped Chechnya; most are in Ingushetia, which, by the end of 1999, hosted more than 200,000 Chechen refugees. Most have been taken in by Ingush families, while roughly 77,000 live in tent colonies and rail carriages.

A generation of Chechens is growing into adulthood in these camps, where food and medicine are scarce and disease and despair rampant. Still, the refugees cling to these shabby havens despite efforts from Moscow to pressure them to return by threatening arrest and withholding basic necessities and humanitarian aid. They
stay because at home, in addition to war and ruins, they would face insults, abduction, torture, rape, and extortion by Russian soldiers or the even crueler
kontraktniki, mercenaries drawn to Chechnya by attractive wages. (more...)