maribastashevski at gmail.com
FILE 126
2007-2010
About

Abduction as a tactic took rise during the second Russian-Chechen war. Since then, it has become a signature of the Russian counterinsurgency regime.
Since 1999, between 3000 to 5000 people said to have been abducted under the framework of counter-terrorism operations.
The past ten years have seen a shift in strategy - from indiscriminate mass abductions, to the narrower operations targeted at specific individuals. Having met no real resistance or legal obstacles, the fear and intimidate tactics made its way to the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan.
In the current context, the abducted are incorporeal, as if they never were, no longer with the living, not yet among the dead.