Human rights groups have documented mass graves, extralegal executions, widespread use and tolerance of torture, illegal detention, rape, robbery and kidnapping.
Some cases have seemed a matter of policy, as when suspected rebel supporters have been abducted during police and military sweeps.
What has made several recent cases different is that many of the kadyrovsty, unsophisticated gunmen who have had little contact with the world beyond Chechnya, have acquired cell phones with small video cameras and have casually, even gleefully, recorded their own crimes.
The video sequences are then shared, multiplying as they swiftly pass from phone to phone. Soltayeva, for instance, said residents told her they had seen video of her torture session almost immediately after it occurred. A notable feature of the videos is that almost all of them show several others in the kadyrovsty using their phones to record the same crimes.
The tapes provide corroboration of episodes that in the past would probably have been disputed events, or even denied.
In a long interview earlier this year, Kadyrov said that his units were being professionalized, and the armed men under his command integrated into formal government structures. He insisted they would be able to provide security and competent policing to Chechnya's citizens.
On Tuesday, the Times provided Kadyrov's office with four videos of Soltayeva's torture. Kadyrov said through a spokeswoman that upon viewing them he had ordered the Chechen Interior Ministry to investigate. “Criminal charges will be brought against all responsible for this,” said the spokeswoman, Tatyana Georgiyeva.
Estemirova said that the unit in Argun that seized Soltayeva had been formally disbanded in the spring, but its members were simply transferred into new “professional” battalions, known as North and South.
“They were assimilated into North and South and never checked by prosecutors,” she said. “Now they are more difficult to arrest.”
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