“Stories of horrors elsewhere in Chechnya kept filtering back to us. A friend of mine told me how his battalion entered some village or another. It didn’t get shelled much, and was almost intact, but around the main square were large crosses upon which Russian soldiers had been crucified by the rebels. They had been nailed up by their hands and each had a few bullet holes in his chest. They had all been castrated.

The commander ordered them to do a sweep through the village. All the men who could be found were herded up into the square. They were thrown down in piles and our soldiers started to hack them up. One guy pinned a Chechen to the ground with his foot while another pulled off his pants and with two or three hefty slashes, severed his scrotum. The serrated blade of the knife snagged the skin and pulled the blood vessels from his body.

In a half a day, the whole village was castrated. Then the battalion moved out.”
-Arkady Babchenko, Russian Army. First Chechen War.
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As we always say here at Battles and Beers (TM) Every soldier has a story, and every story deserves to be told.