Presentation – “Putin’s Chechnya and Ukraine Wars: Different Blood, Same Tactics”

Award-Winning Russian Photojournalist Dmitri Beliakov launches the 2023-24 AAUW/Ilsley Library Speaker Series. Born in Russia in 1970 and currently a refugee living in Vermont, Beliakov has traveled to the Caucasus more than 50 times and is one of only two Russian photographers to document the Second Chechen war (1999-2010) from all sides, including the Chechen armed resistance, Russian regular troops, pro-Kremlin Chechen loyalists, and civilians. From 2014 to 2019 he covered the conflict in Ukraine, photographing the annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas, and the economic and humanitarian impacts of the war from all sides – civilians, pro-Kremlin armed separatists, and the Ukrainian army. “Why does the conflict in Ukraine look so much like that in Chechnya?” asks Beliakov. There is a “remarkable and tragic link” between the two. His goal is to provide an honest account of what actually went on during the Chechen War and explain how, in a sense, that war foreshadowed today’s horrific events in Ukraine. This slide presentation of Dmitri Beliakov’s work is made possible in part by a grant from Middlebury’s Neat Repeats.