The invasion of Ukraine isn’t Vladimir Putin’s first full-scale war. 25 years ago, he was the most vocal proponent of sending the Russian military to Chechnya, a republic in the North Caucusus, purportedly in order to fight terrorism. Soon after that, Putin was elected president. Thus the events in Chechnya proved to be a key factor for contemporary Russian history—not for the first time, and not for the last. Before, there was a violent colonization of Chechnya, mass deportations ordered by Stalin, and the war for independence; after, there would be killings of activists and journalists and mass violations of human rights under the pretext of maintaining “stability” needed by the Kremlin.

Milana Mazaeva was born in Grozny, Chechen Republic, in the early 1980s. Her family history resonates with crimes against humanity inflicted by the colonial administration on North Caucasus. Her grandparents were deported during Stalin's time, her parents were affected by both wars in the region, and she herself witnessed  Chechnya's dramatic transformation from a Soviet republic of diverse nationalities to a region destroyed by the Russian army, where Sharia law was established. A highly personal account of the tumultuous events of the last 80 years in Chechnya, this book presents a unique perspective towards the history of a small republic which, over and over again, seems to define the fate of the very country that tries to subdue it: Russia.