Weisse Raben - Alptraum Tschetschenien

When young Russian soldiers went off to war in Chechnya, they were in the pink of health and hoping for adventure. They had no idea what awaited them. When they returned home they were crippled, disillusioned and marked for life by their experiences. Theirs was a war without heroes, only losers. And there’s no place for losers in today’s Russia.
Petja and Kiril were among those who volunteered for service at the front in Chechnya. They were just eighteen years of age. Katja worked as a nurse in a military hospital in the war zone. Not one of these three young people were the same when they returned to Russia. Instead they were crippled – both physically and mentally – and left to cope on their own with their experiences of mutilation, torture and death.
Johann Feindt and Tamara Trampe spent three years observing these returnees trying to carve out a niche for themselves in a society that didn’t want to know about the war they had served in. The only organisation that has offered them any form of support and consideration is the Russian Committee of Soldier’s Mothers.
War has raged in Chechnya for ten long years – a dirty, senseless war. A war fought in the name of the Russian empire’s wounded pride. The powers-that-be are pleased that their war has recently acquired a new label, one that appeals to the international community and makes it sound just, namely, the war on terrorism.