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. The occupiers bombed Chechen television, jammed journalists' satellite links and kept them away from the sites of their strikes.
Commanders of the occupation forces ordered that journalists not be let into the sites of assaults and bombings. The Russian military and police at checkpoints did not let journalists, including those with accreditation from the Russian government, into the villages and towns that Russian troops were striking (see: "Censorship")[1][2]. Human rights defenders of the American Committee to Protect Journalists write that Russian troops in Ichkeria jammed journalists' satellite transmissions, exposed their film and destroyed their equipment[3].
On 29 November 1994, Russia announced that at 2 p.m. it would cut off all communications with Ichkeria[4]. From 21 to 24 December, Russian pilots struck the television center in Grozny. Deinekin, commander of Russian military aviation, named the aim of these strikes: "to stop the rabid anti-Russian propaganda"[1].
On 3 January 1995, Russian pilots bombed Shali, a town southeast of Grozny. Human rights defenders of Human Rights Watch write that the pilots were apparently trying to hit a radio communication tower, but killed several townspeople at the market and in the hospital (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")[5]. On 7 and 8 April, the Internal Troops of Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) stormed Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria, and killed 103 Chechen civilians there (see: "Mass Killings of Civilians")[6]. On 11 April, the occupiers at the post near the village did not let journalists in and admitted them only on 13 April[7][6]. On 8 October, Russian pilots bombed Roshni-Chu, a village southwest of Grozny (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks"). The occupiers blocked all the roads to the village, and men of the police special forces from the Russian city of Irkutsk at the post did not let journalists in, citing an order[1][8]. From 11 December, before the "elections" of the head of the puppet government on 14-17 December, Russian soldiers at checkpoints did not let journalists without special passes into Grozny (see: "Sham Expression of Popular Will")[1]. From 14 to 20 December, after the Armed Forces of Ichkeria had liberated Gudermes, the second-largest city of the republic, the occupiers shelled and bombed the city, and until 25 December did not let the press in (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")[9].
In January 1996, the command of the occupation forces closed Grozny and the east of Ichkeria to the press[9]. From February until the first days of March, the occupiers shelled with artillery the encircled settlement of Novogroznensky in the east of Ichkeria and the villages of Alleroy, Tsentoroy, Bachi-Yurt and Suvorov-Yurt (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks"). The Russian military did not let journalists in there[1]. From 3 to 9 March, Russian troops shelled Sernovodsk, a village in the west of Ichkeria, with artillery and fired on it from helicopters (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")[1]. From 6 to 9 March, while the Armed Forces of Ichkeria were attacking the occupiers in Grozny, Russian officials did not let journalists into the city[3]. On 10 March, the Russian military commandant of Sernovodsk forbade letting journalists, human rights defenders and any foreigners into the village (see: "Expulsion of Foreign Missions")[1].
On 15 March 1996, the Internal Troops of Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian 58th Army began the assault on Samashki (see: "Military Intervention")[1]. Sources differ on the number of Chechen civilians the occupiers killed in the village during the assault: 35 according to the villagers' list[1] or about 600 according to a doctor who treated people there (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")[10][2]. On 17 and 18 March, the occupiers did not let independent journalists from Moscow through to the village. Maria Eismont, a correspondent of the Moscow newspaper Segodnya, told the public tribunal of the Russian Glasnost Foundation in Moscow on 22 April that on 26 and 27 March the Russian military stopped her on the roads to Samashki, and that she got into the village five days later. In Sernovodsk, Russian soldiers who had taken part in the assault turned the journalists back with the words: "There's no need to go there, there's nothing for you to do there, all the more so since there is nothing at all left to look at." Alexander Trushin, a correspondent of the Moscow newspaper Obshchaya Gazeta, told the Glasnost tribunal on 21 April that in early April the chief of the Russian checkpoint near the village phoned a general and did not let the journalists through: "I asked the captain: 'Did you report why we are going, for what purpose?' He answered: 'Yes, the general knows, and nevertheless the order is not to let you through'"[2]. Human rights defenders of Memorial write that reports of this assault did not reach television and radio[1].
On 21 April 1996, the occupiers killed Dzhokhar Dudayev, the president of Ichkeria, during his conversation on a satellite phone with a mediator in the peace talks; according to the version that human rights defenders of Memorial consider likely, the Russian military located the signal of this phone (see: "Neutralization of the Opposition")[11][1]. On 8 August 1996, while the Armed Forces of Ichkeria were liberating Grozny, Russian soldiers did not let four journalists of foreign media into the city through either of its two entrances[3].
Human rights defenders of Memorial write that in the second year of the war Russian troops cut off from the press the areas they deemed undesirable far more tightly and successfully than in the first year[1].
In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table[10]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")[12]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic[1].