in the campaign “First Russian-Chechen War (1994–1996)”
In the autumn of 1994, Russia attacked the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the name of a puppet opposition, and on 11 December 1994 the Russian army openly invaded the republic. Throughout the war, Russia called the army and the authorities of Ichkeria "bandits", "bandit formations" and "terrorists", and Chechens "militants".
On 2 November 1993, Russian president Yeltsin, by decree No. 1833, approved a military doctrine under which the army could be used against "illegal armed formations"[1][2]. With these words Russian officials designated the Armed Forces of Ichkeria[3].
On 27 December 1994, Russian president Yeltsin, in a televised address to the citizens of Russia, called some of the defenders of Ichkeria professional "terrorists" and mercenaries from other states. The president set Russian soldiers and police officers the task of disarming the "bandit formations". Yeltsin warned Russians that their relatives could fall victim to the "rampant banditry" in Ichkeria[4]. Commanders of the occupation forces called the people in Grozny and in the villages that the Russian army was pounding "bandit formations" and "militants"[3].
A soldier of the Russian border troops who fought in Ichkeria told the newspaper Rossiyskiye Vesti about retraining in Stavropol, a city in the south of Russia. There the soldiers were told to set booby traps without thinking about who would be blown up by them: a child would grow up to be a "mujahid", and a woman would give birth to a new "militant"[3].
On 7 April 1995, the Internal Troops of Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) began the assault on Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria[5]. On 8 April, a Russian soldier was driving women and children out of a cellar on Vygonnaya Street. Mariet T., a Chechen woman from that street, told observers of Memorial that the occupier shouted at them: "These aren't women, they're bitches, whores, they kill ours too, and we're supposed to spare theirs?!" Then the Russian military herded some of the women into a room and others into a cellar and shot at them (see: "Mass Killings of Civilians"). Ruslan N. from Samashki recalled how MVD soldiers detained him that day: "They took my passport and right there, in front of me, tore it up… 'You'll go down as a militant. You've got a militant's mug'". At a military unit north of the village, the servicemen beat him unconscious. Ruslan N. survived[6].
Russian officials and military men, from the prime minister to the soldier conducting a search, called the authorities of Ichkeria "bandits"[7][8], its army "bandit formations"[3] and "terrorists"[9][10], and Chechen civilians "bandits"[11] and "militants"[12]. On 4 January 1996, Tikhomirov, commander of the occupation forces, in an interview with the Russian agency Interfax, spoke of Aslan Maskhadov, chief of the Main Staff of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, as a "bandit"[3].
On 11 and 12 July 1996, unknown persons blew up two trolleybuses in Moscow[3]. According to Amnesty International, at the site of the second explosion Moscow mayor Luzhkov told a Russian police general that all Chechens should be expelled from the city. The general replied that if he were allowed to, he would introduce terror on the streets. The Russian television channel NTV showed this conversation on the day of the explosion[13][3]. At a press conference at the mayor's office, Luzhkov told journalists that a "Chechen trace" could be seen in the explosions[14][15][3]. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer, and the historian Yuri Felshtinsky write that those who blew up the trolleybuses "were not caught and… it was not determined whether they were Chechens or not"[16]. Human rights defenders of Human Rights Watch wrote in their report for 1996 that Luzhkov's televised statements "set the tone" for raids on markets and dormitories. In the two days after the explosions, the Moscow police, which verified documents "overwhelmingly against dark-skinned people", detained 5,770 people for violating residence registration rules[17]. In a 1999 report, Amnesty International wrote that for several years Luzhkov's statements served the police as an implied instruction to persecute and intimidate Chechens solely because they were Chechens[18].
At a hearing in the US Congress, the Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats said that those whom Russia called "bandits" were ordinary citizens who had stood up for their land, their houses and their families[19]. Human rights defenders of Memorial write that until June 1995, and again from late January 1996, Russia waged the war without calling it a war or the enemy an enemy[3].