Armed Conflict in Chechnya: Principal Stages and Important Events

Below we set forth an abridged version of our “Chronology of the Armed Conflict,” which was published in its entirety in our book Russia-Chechnya: Chain of Mistakes and Crimes. As is the case with any abridgement, it causes the loss of the sense of uninterrupted events.  However, we present here only the most important  events, which allows for the preservation of the general sense of the stages of the crisis and the armed conflict.

1990

The political foundations for the self-determination of Chechnya were lain in 1990.

On 23-25 November in Grozny: a Chechen national convention was held in the capital of the Checheno-Ingushetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ChIASSR), a part of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR).  The convention elected an executive committee, which was subsequently became the Executive Committee of the All-National Congress of the Chechen Nation (OKChN).  The president of the OKChN was Major-General Dzhokar Dudaev.  The convention passed a declaration on the formation of a Chechen Republic.  On 27 November a session of the Supreme Soviet of the of the ChIASSR passed the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of the Checheno-Ingushetian Republic (ChIR).

1991

Practical steps towards the sovereignty of Chechnya were taken from August to November 1991.

On 19-21 August in Moscow, an unsuccessful attempt was made to overthrow the government, and a State Committee for the Extraordinary Situation in the USSR (GKChP) was formed.  The Checheno-Ingushetian Republican committee of the Communist Party, the Supreme Soviet, and the government of the ChIR supported the GKChP.  The OKChN opposed the GKChP and demand the dismissal of the government of the republic and withdrawal from the USSR and the RSFSR.  Dudaev declared the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet of the ChIR.  Armed formations of the OKChN seized the building of the Supreme Soviet, and its president Doku Zavgaev yielded to dismissal.  The Executive Committee of the OKChN assumed the functions of organizing presidential and parliamentary elections for the republic.  The federal center supported the more moderate Temporary Supreme Soviet, in opposition to which in Chechnya stood the political forces of Dudaev.  These forces began to form their own militia.

On 27 October elections were held for the presidency and parliament of the Chechen Republic.  Dzhokar Dudaev was elected president.  On 1 November Dudaev issued his first decree “On the Declaration of the Sovereignty of the Chechen Republic.”  On 8 November the President of the RSFSR, Boris Yeltsin, signed a decree on the introduction of a state of emergency in Checheno-Ingushetia, however no practical steps were taken towards its realization, and the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR refused to uphold the decree.

On 12 December, as a result of the denunciation of the agreement to create the USSR, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.  The Russian Federation became an independent subject of international law and the legal successor of the USSR.

Beginning in November 1991, the stockpiling of arms on military bases on the territory of the Chechen Republic (ChR) began on the part of the federal internal armed forces.  Dudaev issued a decree on the nationalization of armaments and their production facilities.  By 8 June 1992, all federal soldiers had left the territory of Chechnya.

1992

From March 1992 to January 1993, several (unsuccessful) rounds of consultations and negotiations took place between Russian and Chechen delegations, in an attempt to regulate relations.

On 30 October 1992 in the suburban region of Northern Ossetia, an armed conflict began between the Ingushetians and the Ossetians.  Dudaev proclaimed the neutrality of Chechnya, yet at the time of the outbreak of the conflict, the federal armed forces deployed to the administrative border of Chechnya.  In response,  Dudaev proclaimed a state of emergency and commenced the formation of self-defense forces of the ChR.  On 18 November 1992, an agreement was reached on the formation of Russian and Chechen armed formations.

1993

In 1993, the difference of opinions between the Chechen Parliament and Dudaev was aggravated.  In April, Dudaev disbanded the Parliament and introduced direct presidential rule.  In June, after an attempt on the life of Dudaev, his armed forces in Grozny assaulted a series of raids on administrative buildings.  The armed forces of the opposition then withdrew to the Nadterechnyi and Urus-Martanovskii regions of Chechnya.

On 6 November 1993, Yeltsin approved a plan, in accordance with which Chechnya would be asked to abandon the question of self-determination outside of Russia in the course of talks on “the basis of forceful pressure.”

1994

On 14 January 1994, the government of Chechnya added to the name of the Chechen Republic the word Ichkeriia (acronym: ChRI), to differentiate it from the Chechen Republic (ChR), which was a constituent part of the Russian Federation (RF).

In the summer and autumn of 1994, in a series of regions and towns in Chechnya, preparations for the overthrow of Dudaev took place with the support of the RF.  An “opposition” was organized, armed formations were established, and armed confrontations took place between formations loyal to and opposing to Dudaev.  On 3 June the opposition held an assembly of the Chechen nation, which confirmed the formation of the Temporary Soviet of the Republic and delegated “full governmental power in Chechnya” to it.  On 2 August the head of the Temporary Soviet, Umar Avturkhanov, turned to the president of Russia for support with the request that the Temporary Soviet be recognized as the only legal organ of the government in Chechnya.  On 11 August Dudaev proclaimed a state of war in Chechnya and decreed mobilization.  On 30 September “unidentified” helicopters, supposedly belonging to the opposition, for the first time shelled the airport of Grozny.  On 26 November the opposition once again assaulted Grozny.  Its tanks drove to the center of the town, where they were hit by grenade launchers.  Many of the tank personnel were killed, and dozens were taken prisoner.  It turned out that all of them were Russian soldiers.

On 29 November, the Security Council of the RF passed a decision on a military operation against Chechnya, and on 30 November, Yeltsin signed secret Decree No. 137c, “On Measures to Establish Constitutional Law and Legal Order in the Territory of the Chechen Republic.”  This was the first in a series of decrees envisaging the “use of all means available to the state” – including those not foreseen by the laws and the Constitution – for “disarmament of all illegal armed formations.”  The entire operation was scheduled to be completed by 19 December.

On 11 December parts of the forces of the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces of the Interior Ministry of the RF entered onto the territory of Chechnya.  The armed forces encountered resistance not only from the inhabitants of Chechnya, but also from those of several neighboring republics, and thus required all of December to reach Grozny.

Beginning on 18 December, Grozny was hit by several rocket and bomb attacks which caused a large number of casualties among the civilian population.  Notwithstanding the pronouncement of the President of Russia on 27 December regarding the cessation of bombardments of cities, the air force continued carrying out attacks on Grozny.  On 26 December the bombardment of inhabited areas in villages began; in the three following days alone, an estimated 40 villages were exposed to attacks.

On 26 December a pro-Moscow government of national salvation of the ChR was declared, to be headed by Salambek Khadzhiev.

1995

On 31 December 1994 the Russian Army began its assault on Grozny.  For many reasons (the most important of which was the lack of planning and inadequate preparation of the operation), the army soon suffered great losses, and some units were practically crushed.  Hundreds of soldiers were taken prisoner or disappeared in action.  The federal command deployed new units into the city, while the bombardments and shelling practically destroyed the center of Grozny.  The intensive battle in the city lasted several weeks, during which time more than 25,000 civilian inhabitants were killed. Only on 6 March 1995, over three months after the beginning of military actions, did the last area of Grozny held be the Chechens come under the control of the federal side.

The bombardments and shelling of other civilian settlements continued.  Thus, on 3 January, the federal air force carried out an attack on the market and hospital in Shali using cluster bombs.  In Shali alone, 55 people were killed and 186 were wounded.

On 13 February, at the station Slepovskaia, negotiations between the Russian commander Anatolii Kulikov and the Chechen staff leader Aslan Maskhadov led for the first time to an agreement on a cease-fire.

At the end of February, the federal internal army of the Interior Ministry began military actions in western Chechnya.  On 7-8 April, OMON and the internal army conducted a
“cleansing” operation in the village Samashki, which was accompanied by the killings of civilian inhabitants, and by robberies and arson in the inhabited homes.  In the east of Chechnya, federal forces seized the cities of Argun, Gudermes, and Shali by the end of March.

On 17 April in Grozny, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Assistance Group began its work.  The mission was led by the Hungarian diplomat István Diarmati [?].

The continuation of military actions in Chechnya had serious consequences on the prestige of Russia in the international arena, and raised the question whether a series of countries should participate on 9 May in the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War.  On 27 April Boris Yeltsin issued the decree “On Supplementary Measures for the Normalization of Conditions in the ChR.”  This proclaimed a moratorium on military actions from 28 April to 12 May.  Talks were held on a cease-fire between Generals Troshev and Maskhadov, yet hostilities and the shelling of civilian settlements by federal forces continued even during the period of the moratorium.  After its end on 12 May, violations of the federal forces continued in suburban and urban areas.  By June, half a year after the beginning of the war, the war had reached its cruel peak.  The federal forces, having earlier occupied Grozny and the plains of Chechnya, spent a month capturing the essential mountain regions, cutting through the Chechen lines and driving to the Georgian border.  The federal forces were, it seemed, close to total victory and were not considering a halt.

On 14 June 1995, a Chechen detachment, under the command of Shamilii Basaev, seized 1,500 prisoners in the city of Budennovksi in Stavropol region.  The terrorists demanded a cease-fire and the beginning of negotiations as a basis for the release of the hostages, and secured themselves in the city hospital.  At the time of the seizure of the prisoners, many inhabitants of the city had been wounded as a result of the war.  On 17 June an elite detachment of the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Security Service conducted an unsuccessful assault on the hospital.  In the course of the assault, large casualties were incurred among the terrorists and the assaulting forces, but the hostages suffered most.  On 18 June, as a result of negotiations between the RF Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Basaev, the mediator Sergei Kovalev was able to free the majority of the group of hostages.  An agreement was reached on the cessation of military actions in Chechnya and a beginning of full-scale peace talks.  The federal army was presented with an order on the cessation of all military operations.  The unit of Basaev went to Chechnya, using a number of the hostages in the capacity of “living shields.”

On 19 June 1995, talks began in Grozny between the RF and the ChRI under the aegis of the OSCE.  On 30 June, principle agreement was reached on the disarmament of units of the ChRI, the withdrawal of the federal army from Chechnya and the holding of free elections.  In the night from 29 to 30 June an agreement on a set of military questions was signed, envisaging the following: the establishment of special observation commission, the co-chairs of which would be the head of the federal army, Lieutenant-General Anatolii Romanov, and the leader of the Chechen staff Maskhadov, exchange of prisoners of war and other hostages on the principle of “to each his own”, disarmament of “illegal armed formations,” and a staged withdrawal of the federal army, and finally a cessation to terrorist acts and diversions.  The fighters of the Chechen formations received the possibility to return to their villages, where they would be allowed to form their own self-defense units after handing over most of their weapons.

Though, in the long run, the talks did not lead to a political regulation of the situation in Chechnya or to the realization of the military commitments in the signed agreement, the peace process did allow for the abandonment of large-scale military actions for one-half year.  Moreover, for two months during the activities of the Special Observation Commission, it even allowed for the regulation of a series of conflict situations, which prevented the renewal of clashes, and also allowed for the commencement of work of liberating forcibly seized persons and on the search for missing persons.

The execution of the agreements, in particular the liberation of prisoners and closed filtration camps, was delayed by both sides because of the complexity of the task and because of unwillingness to resolve the problem.  An insignificant number of weapons were seized from the detachments of the ChRI, and some Russian units were withdrawn a few kilometers.  In separate regions, the military actions did not cease.  The bombardment of federal bases continued.  The Russian side often did not recognize the legality of the self-defense detachments established in the villages.

During October the conditions in Chechnya became more complex:  numerous artillery and aerial attacks on Chechen villages were witnessed, as well as attacks on Russian bases.  The peace process was practically over.  The number of OSCE assistance groups declined, the work of the Special Observation Commission was curtailed, and as a result of an assassination attempt, the Commission’s co-chairman, General Romanov, was severely wounded.

Withdrawing from the dialogue with the administration of D. Dudaev, the federal side changed its marionette leadership structures and began preparing their legitimization at the elections.  On 24 October the leadership of the pro-Moscow leadership of the ChR was changed.  Instead of Khadzhiev, Doku Zavgaev became the president of the government of national revival.  On 5 November, the Supreme Soviet of the ChR pronounced its decision on the election of the head of the ChR and set the date of the elections for 16 December, the day of the elections to the State Duma of the RF.  From 14 to 17 December, “free elections” were held in Chechnya of the head of the ChR and deputies to the State Duma of the RF, accompanied by many violations and falsifications.  Zavgaev was elected as the head of the ChR.  In a series of towns and regions under the control of the administration of the ChRI, the elections did not take place.

In December 1995 military actions resumed.

The bloodiest and most destructive battle took place from 14 to 20 December in the city Gudermes, where the armed forces of Dudaev had gone to try to disrupt the elections.  

1996

At the beginning of January 1996 the head of the OSCE mission, Tim Guldimann [?] stated that full-scale talks between all parties to the conflict would be needed if peace were to be obtained.  On 4 January Maskhadov ordered the cessation of all attacks, provocations, terrorist acts to the rear of the federal forces.  As an answer, on the same day, General Viacheslav Tikhomirov, in an interview with Interfaks, stated: “I do not react to the pronouncement of bandits,” while Dudaev, speaking about the situation in the mountains, stated that he did not allow for a cessation of the war in Chechnya, even if that was what Russia wanted.

On 9 January Chechen detachments under the command of Salman Raduev carried out a raid on the city Kizliar in Dagestan.  They attacked the military airport, seized more than 1,500 hostages, and then detained them in city hospital.  As a result of negotiations, the terrorists freed the majority of the hostages on the morning of 10 January, and the terrorists left for Chechnya, using more than 100 of the remaining hostages in the capacity of “living shields.”  The attempt of the federal forces to block the terrorists proved unsuccessful, and their detachments stayed in Pervomaiskoe.  On 15 January an assault commenced on the village by federal forces, and in the following four days the village was completely destroyed.  On the morning of 18 January a Chechen detachment fled the area, taking with them to Chechnya hostages.  The process of freeing these hostages took until 19 February.

On 31 January General Tikhomirov called the situation in Chechnya stable, yet federal forces were fighting the Chechens, who were in groups of 40-50 men, without unified command.  This proved a fateful mistake.  The general declared that the federal side planned the conduct of “special operations.”  The mindset of the federal forces returned to a state of denial:  conduct war, but do not call it war, and call the opponent an opponent.

In the course of February and March the federal forces conducted repeated “cleansings” of many villages, which had already been “cleansed” in 1995.  In some villages, they met strong resistance from the armed forces of the ChRI.

On 6 March Chechen detachments under the command of Ruslan Gelaev entered Grozny and secured a significant part of the city under their control.  The federal forces suffered serious losses.  Heavy weapons and helicopters were used against the armed formations of the ChRI, which resulted in indiscriminate damage to inhabited buildings.  On 8 March, armed formations of the ChRI left the city, taking with them more than 100 civilian hostages.

On 31 March Yeltsin signed the Decree “on a program of regulating the crisis in Chechnya.”  “The Program,” at first glance, was complex and well-planned:  the recognition of what had taken place in Chechnya during the armed conflict, to which the ChRI was a party; the commencement of negotiations with it, the cessation of military operations, the withdrawal of the army from pacified areas, and an amnesty of the participants in military actions, with the exception of those who had committed crimes.  However, all these pronouncements appeared as links in the legitimization of the marionette regime.  The holding of elections to the ChR parliament was suggested, as was the preparation of an agreement on a division of powers between the federal center, the ChR, etc.  Dudaev, commenting on Yeltsin’s statement, said: “We are realists and believe that official Moscow is not ready for such talks.   Yeltsin’s team is only waiting for our capitulation.”  On 1 April Tikhomirov declared that the “conduct of special operations against bandit formations which have no place here” would not cease.  In April military actions resumed with new intensity.  

On 17 April RF Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev declared that direct talks with Dudaev were impossible.  Kovalev suggested that Dudaev should “voluntarily stand before a Russian court, where he would receive a unique tribunal, where he would be able to explain his case and have all guarantees of protection.”  In the night to 22 April, in the village Gekhi-Chu, the ChRI President Dzhokar Dudaev was killed as a result of a rocket attack carried out by Russian planes.  In accordance with the constitution of the ChRI, the successor to Dudaev was Vice-President Zelimkhan Iandarbiev.

For all of May heavy fighting continued in Chechnya.  Finally, on 24 May, the federal forces seized the village Bamut, which they had attempted to control since the fall of 1995.  The Russian command declared that this was the last village in Chechnya, which had been under the control of illegal armed formations.

On 27-28 May in Moscow, talks took place between President Boris Yeltsin and a delegation of the ChRI headed by Iandarbiev.  An agreement was signed “On the cessation of fighting, military acts, and on measures to regulate the armed conflict on the territory of the Chechen Republic.”  They also agreed on a prisoner exchange within two weeks.

On the morning of 28 May, while the ChRI delegation was still in Moscow, Yeltsin flew to the Northern Caucasus and, at around 11:00, landed in Mozdok in Northern Ossetia.  From there he flew in a helicopter to Chechnya, to the village Pravoberznyi.  At the airport there, he met with Russian soldiers and congratulated them on their “victory” in the Chechen war.  At 17:30, the airplane of Yeltsin once again departed for Moscow.

Peace, or the appearance of peace, lasted all June in Chechnya, until the end of presidential elections in Russia.

On 4-6 and 9-11 June, in the Ingushetian Republic’s capital, talks took place between the federal and Chechen delegations in accordance with the Moscow agreement.  The agreement reached foresaw the end of the blockade of inhabited points and roads, the withdrawal of federal forces, exchange of prisoners and forcibly seized persons, the closing of filtration points, the disarmament of Chechen detachments, and, only after that, the holding of elections.

However, on 14-16 June, a “vote” for the “elections” of deputies to the National Assembly of the ChR and the president of the RF took place in Chechnya, accompanied by massive violations and falsifications.  On 16 June in Russia, the first round of the presidential elections were held.  None of the candidates received an absolute majority of the votes.  35.2% of those participating in the elections voted for Yeltsin, while 31.95% voted for Ziuganov.  They advanced to the second round.  The third place was taken by Aleksandar Lebed, who ran on a platform advocating the use of energetic means to regulate the Chechen crisis; he received 14.7% of the votes.  On 18 June, Lebed was named the assistant to the president of the RF for national security and the secretary of the Security Council.  On 2-3 July in Chechnya, the second round of “voting” was held.  On 3 July in Russia, the second round of presidential elections were held.  Boris Yeltsin won the elections.

On 7 July the federal side declared that roadblocks and blockades of the inhabited points would not be removed “until a general normalization of conditions,” and on 8 July the Chechen side was presented with an ultimatum: if “tomorrow at 18:00 all prisoners held in the hands of the combatants were not returned” “adequate measures” would be taken.

On 9 July the village Gekhi, where Chechen detachments were staying, was blockaded and shelled.  On 10 July the village Makhkety was blockaded, shelled and subjected to bombardment.  The federal command declared that the federal air force and artillery was carrying out precision attacks on the staff of Iandarbiev.  The villages suffered numerous casualties and destruction.  The same day Lebed placed responsibility for the recent acts on Ianderbiev and rejected the pronouncements of the media that Tikhomirov had gone out of control of the president of the RF and become independent.  Lebed stated that “Tikhomirov is a fully legal general.”  On 12 July in Moscow, an explosion occurred on a trolley.  28 people were wounded.  Officials quickly spoke about “Chechen connections.”  The mayor of Moscow, Yurii Luzhkov gave the police an order to have all members of the Chechen diaspora in the capital “account for these deeds.”

In this manner, the “peace plan” of Yeltsin existed only during the holding of the presidential elections.

In the second half of July the federal army returned to active fighting in the mountain regions of Chechnya.

On 17 July, at a meeting of the commission to regulate the situation in Chechnya, Chernomyrdin declared that “in the last six months, an unconstitutional regime which threatened the territorial integrity of Russia,” that “already military operations have ceased, and that ”in the aggravated situation of the two conflicting sides, which existed despite the peace agreements signed in Moscow and Nazrani, one side was the first to provoke."

On 6 August armed formations of the ChRI entered into Grozny.  The preparation of the assault was not a secret.  Both civilians and combatants knew about it.  However, in the very first hours the federal forces suffered great losses and found themselves surrounded in their bases, their command centers, and in the administrative building in the center of the city.  The city was practically under the control of the Chechen units.  The situation required decisive action, but the extent of the catastrophe was, obviously, neither recognized by the federal commanders or by the Moscow bureaucrats.  Rather, they sought to prevent anything from darkening the inauguration of Yeltsin.  In the following days, battles continued between the opposing sides.  An attempt to insert a column of troops into the city was unsuccessful and provoked great losses.  The federal side shelled the city with heavy artillery.  Once again, the civilian population suffered most from the shelling.  Large numbers of inhabitants abandoned the city.

On 11 August, Lebed flew to Chechnya and met with Maskhadov.  They agreed to resolve the problems with seven days, and to declare a cease-fire and begin the withdrawal of the federal army.

On 19 August an order from Yeltsin to Lebed was published calling for the “establishment of a system maintaining law and order in Grozny on the basis of 5 August.”  The federal command demanded that the armed formations of the ChRI abandon Grozny within 48 hours.  After that time, the federal army reserved “the right to use all available means and measures.”  Without waiting 48 hours, the federal forces again began shelling and bombarding Grozny.  Once again, refugees flooded out of the city, even though some of them were subjected to bombardments and aerial attacks on the roads.  By that time, there were already more than 500 dead among the soldiers and about 2,000 dead among the civilian inhabitants.  Although about 220,000 refugees had left the city, there were still at least 50,000 inhabitants in the city.  Lebed, arriving in Chechnya, declared that the problem of the ultimatum would be resolved by the morning of 22 August, “directed by human considerations and sound reason.”   On that day, Lebed and Maskhadov signed a document which envisaged the separation of the two opposing sides, the withdrawal of the army and joint control of some regions of Grozny.

On 30 August in Khasviurt, Lebed and Maskhadov signed a “Joint Declaration” of principles, in which they pledged to continue the negotiating process.  An agreement was reached that a political accord would be signed between Russia and Chechnya by 31 December 2001.  On 31 December 1996 the withdrawal of the federal army from the territory of Chechnya was completed.  On 27 January 1997 in Chechnya, presidential and parliamentary elections were held.  Aslan Maskhadov was elected president.  On 12 May 1997 in Moscow, Yeltsin and Maskhadov signed an agreement on peace and principles between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic Ichkeriia.