Police in the Shatoysky district of Chechnya have detained four young men who were allegedly preparing to join a guerrilla unit. All four detainees are residents of the city of Argun, and the eldest is 22. One of them is a student at a Grozny institute of higher education. The other three were working as labourers on construction sites.A source in the law enforcement agencies says that the detainees are being held in the Chechen Interior Ministry's remand prison (IVS). They are being questioned in an attempt to ascertain the identies of people who are trying to recruit young men into the ranks of the guerrillas.
The detainees say that their main motivation for joining the guerrillas in the forest was the viewing of propaganda material and videos showing real-life operations conducted by the resistance forces. They claim that they were especially egged on to take this step by a man who was in contact with the separatists. None of the detainees was armed. They had been promised weapons as soon as they arrived at the guerrilla base in the forest.
On several occasions, the leaders of the guerrillas have announced that they don't have a shortage of manpower. It is by now no secret that the main core of the active forces in the guerrilla units is made up of young men aged 25-30. And the fact that the resistance is still attracting new members demonstrates that it is not only far from being broken but also able to conduct propaganda activity among the population.