Military Intervention

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. The occupiers captured the towns and villages of Ichkeria.

On 26 November 1994 the defenders of Grozny, the capital of Ichkeria, routed the Russian tank crews who were storming the city under the banner of the puppet opposition (see: "Staging a Coup")^[1]. By 29 November the Russian army had gathered about 140 combat aircraft for the attack on Ichkeria. On 29 November Russian pilots in six Su-27 aircraft and four helicopters attacked the presidential palace in Grozny^[2]. On 1 December the crews of Russian Su-25 attack aircraft destroyed all of Ichkeria's aircraft on its airfields^[3]. On 9 December Russian President Yeltsin, by Decree No. 2166, ordered the government to use all means of the Russian state, including the army, against the Armed Forces of Ichkeria^[4].

A day before the talks between Russia and Ichkeria scheduled for 12 December, the Russian army and the Internal Troops of the MVD (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) began an offensive in three columns from the neighboring Russian-controlled republics (see: "Negotiations as Cover for an Attack")^[5]. Sources differ: some put the strength of these columns at 14,972 men, others at almost 24,000^[6][7]. The Russian Ministry of Defense estimated the Armed Forces of Ichkeria at 11,000-12,000 fighters, the Russian MVD at up to 15,000, and both ministries counted another 30,000-40,000 Chechen volunteers^[8]. The northern column advanced from Mozdok, and the western column from Vladikavkaz through Ingushetia. The eastern column set out from Kizlyar, a town in Dagestan^[5][9]. On 11 December unarmed Chechens of the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan surrounded the armored personnel carriers of the eastern column and did not let the occupation troops through^[10][5]. On 12 December near the village of Novy Sharoy in the west of Ichkeria, thousands of Chechens stood on the road in front of the western column and held it up for a week at the border with Ingushetia^[5][11]. On that day the army of Ichkeria stopped the northern column near the settlement of Dolinsky, about ten kilometers northwest of Grozny^[5].

Before a storming, Russian troops surrounded towns and villages and shelled them with artillery, while Russian aircraft bombed them (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")^[5]. The occupiers demanded that the Chechens in the surrounded villages expel the defenders and hand over their weapons (see: "Collective Punishment")^[5]. In the captured towns Russian troops set up commandant's offices and garrisons. In Grozny Russia installed the Russian-controlled "Government of National Revival" (see: "Puppet Government")^[5][12].

From 18 December 1994 Russian aircraft bombed the residential districts of Grozny. On 19 December units of the Russian airborne division from Pskov under the command of General Babichev reached the western outskirts of the city^[5]. On 31 December the Russian army stormed Grozny from four sides. The defenders of the city routed the occupiers' columns and took more than a hundred Russian servicemen prisoner. The human rights defenders of Memorial write about the troops of General Pulikovsky, who were advancing from the northwest: "The 131st (Maikop) Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 81st (Samara) Motorized Rifle Regiment were almost completely routed"^[5].

On 7-9 January 1995 the occupiers stormed Grozny again, from the north and west. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the vice president of Ichkeria, who together with Aslan Maskhadov led the defense of the presidential palace, wrote in his memoirs about the evening of 18 January: "We were deciding one question: to stay and die, which was tantamount to the destruction of the Main Staff, or to leave the Presidential Palace and set up a new headquarters on the other side of the Sunzha [the river in the center of Grozny]"^[13]. On the night of 19 January Russian pilots dropped concrete-piercing bombs on the palace, and the defenders were forced to leave. On 19 January Russian soldiers captured the ruins of the palace. The occupiers stormed the remaining districts of Grozny for another month and a half. By early February 1995 Russia had brought the number of its troops in Ichkeria up to 70,000 men^[8]. The defenders fought longest in Chernorechye in the south of the city, and on 6 March 1995 the Internal Troops of the Russian MVD captured this district^[5].

On 23 March 1995 the occupiers captured Argun, a town to the east of Grozny^[5]. On 24 March Russian troops broke into Achkhoy-Martan, a district center in the west of Ichkeria, but fighters of the army of Ichkeria liberated the village with a counterattack^[12]. On 28 and 29 March the Russian army surrounded Gudermes, the second-largest town of Ichkeria, and Shali, a town to the southeast of Grozny. Russian commanders demanded that the townspeople persuade the defenders to leave, and on 30-31 March, when the fighters of the army of Ichkeria were forced to leave both towns, the occupiers captured them without a fight^[5]. On 12 May the Russian army began an offensive into the mountains in the south of Ichkeria. On 3 June the occupiers captured Vedeno, a district center to the southeast of Grozny, and on 12 June Shatoy to the south of the capital and Nozhai-Yurt in the southeast^[12][5]. On 18 June 1995 Chernomyrdin, the chairman of the Russian government, agreed on a cessation of fighting with Shamil Basayev, the commander of the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria who had taken hostages in Budyonnovsk, a Russian-controlled town to the northwest of the republic. That evening the occupation troops halted their offensive (see: "Sham Treaties")^[5]. At the end of July, Grozny, Argun, Gudermes, Shali and the mountain district centers were under occupation by the Russian army, while in most villages there were no Russian troops^[5][12]. On 14 December 1995 the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Gudermes to disrupt the "vote" for the head of the puppet government. On 19-20 December, after six days of shelling and bombing of residential districts, the occupiers captured the town again^[5][14].

On 17-20 February 1996 the Russian army shelled and captured by storm Novogroznensky, a settlement to the east of Gudermes^[5]. On 3 March Russian troops broke into Sernovodsk, a village in the west of Ichkeria, on the day their commanders had set for signing a peace with the leaders of the village, and the defenders drove the attackers out. By 9 March, after six days of shelling, the defenders of Sernovodsk were forced to leave, and the occupiers captured the village^[5]. On 6 March the Armed Forces of Ichkeria under the command of Ruslan Gelayev attacked the occupiers in Grozny and liberated most of the city. The army of Ichkeria did not try to hold the city and left it on 8 March^[5][12]. On the night of 14 March Russian troops surrounded Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria, and on 15 March began a storming with tanks, artillery, helicopters and aircraft. On 19 March the fighters of the army of Ichkeria under the command of Khizir Khachukayev ran out of ammunition and were forced to leave^[5]. On 4 April, after six days of bombing, Russian soldiers broke into Goyskoye, a village to the southwest of Grozny, but the defenders under the command of Akhmed Zakayev repelled the storming. On 7 May the occupiers under the command of General Shamanov captured Goyskoye^[5]. On 24 May, after three months of stormings, shelling and bombing, the Russian army captured Bamut, a village in the west of Ichkeria at the border with Russian-controlled Ingushetia, while the defenders under the command of Ruslan Khaikhoroyev broke out of the encirclement^[5].

On 9 July 1996, six days after the Russian presidential election, the occupiers violated the ceasefire agreement signed with Ichkeria on 27 May and launched a new offensive (see: "Sham Ceasefire")^[5]. On that day Russian units under the command of General Tikhomirov, the commander of the occupation troops, surrounded and shelled Gekhi, a village to the southwest of Grozny, where a unit of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria was stationed. By 12 July the occupiers had killed the unit's commander Doku Makhayev and destroyed more than a third of the village^[15]. On 15 July the occupiers captured Makhkety, a mountain village of the Vedeno district in the southeast of Ichkeria, which they had surrounded five days earlier^[5][12].

The Russian human rights defenders of Memorial write that the Russian army with aircraft, heavy artillery and tanks fought against Ichkeria, although the president and government of Russia passed the war off as a police disarmament^[5]. On 19 January 1995 the European Parliament in a resolution condemned Russia's use of the army against Ichkeria^[16]. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in a declaration of 8 July 1995 condemned Russia's war in Ichkeria as a gross violation of international law^[17].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers. In three days of fighting the army of Ichkeria retook the center and about 80 percent of the city^[12]. The defenders forced Russia to the negotiating table. On 22 August 1996 in the village of Novye Atagi in the south of the republic, Russia and Ichkeria signed an agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Grozny and joint control over certain districts of the city^[5][18]. On 31 August 1996 General Lebed, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, and Aslan Maskhadov, the chief of the Main Staff of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, signed a joint statement in Khasavyurt, a town in Russian-controlled Dagestan. In it Russia acknowledged that resolving disputed issues by force or the threat of force was inadmissible (see: "Sham Treaties")^[19].

By 31 August 1996 the occupation troops had left Grozny for their main bases in Khankala on the eastern outskirts of the city and at the Severny airport to the north of it. Russian police officers and soldiers of the Internal Troops of the MVD remained in the city. Russia withdrew its troops from Vedeno, Shatoy, Nozhai-Yurt and Kurchaloy, villages in the south and east of Ichkeria. Russian units still stood in Shali, near Bamut and in the Naur and Shelkovskaya districts in the north of Ichkeria^[12]. In these two districts beyond the Terek river there was no fighting during the whole war. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic^[5].