Transport Blockade

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 surrounded the villages of Ichkeria with a ring of checkpoints and did not let people or vehicles through.

On 9 December 1994, two days before the open invasion, Chernomyrdin, the chairman of the Russian government, by resolution No. 1360 ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to close the borders of the Chechen Republic and the Ministry of Defense to ban flights over it for the time being^[1]. On 1 February 1995, the occupiers blocked the border of Ichkeria with Russian-controlled Ingushetia with checkpoints^[2].

From the end of February 1995, units of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs set up checkpoints on the roads between villages in the west of Ichkeria^[3]. By the end of March 1996, there were checkpoints on these roads almost every kilometer^[4].

Russian servicemen at the checkpoints let into villages and towns only those who were registered as residents there^[2][5]. At the posts, Russian soldiers unlawfully detained Chechen men who were leaving the surrounded villages and took them to the filtration camps in Grozny and in Mozdok, Pyatigorsk and Stavropol, Russian-controlled cities northwest of Ichkeria (see: "Filtration Camp System")^[2].

In February 1995, Russian servicemen at the checkpoints near Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria, fired at dusk on any vehicles, including ambulances^[4]. In the second half of February, the soldiers at checkpoint No. 13 near the village stopped letting trucks in^[3]. From 13 March 1995, Russian servicemen blocked all the roads into Samashki and for 25 days, until the assault on 7 April, kept the village under blockade^[3]. On 7 April, the day of the assault on Samashki, the occupiers stopped 12 vehicles with Chechens who were leaving the village at a checkpoint of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and before the shelling began they let about a hundred people through. Some of the men among them Russian servicemen took by helicopter to the filtration camp in Mozdok, while those who had not managed to leave stayed in the village under shelling^[3]. On 8 April, 800-1,000 people gathered at the Russian checkpoint at the crossroads of the roads from Samashki and Sernovodsk, a village in the west of Ichkeria near the border with Ingushetia. On the orders of Kulikov, the commander of the occupation troops, the commanders of the post did not let observers or Chechens from the village into Samashki. On 11 April, the Russian guards of checkpoint No. 13 did not let into Samashki Chechen women who were marching there against the war^[6].

On 30 September 1995, the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia) and Russian police special forces surrounded Sernovodsk. The occupiers demanded that the Chechens of the village disarm the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria and open the road to Russian military vehicles (see: "Collective Punishment")^[2]. According to "Memorial", there were more than 10,000 people in the village, according to the UN 20,000, and another more than 3,000 refugees lived in the buildings of the resort on the outskirts^[2][7]. On 26 October, Russian troops blocked the last road into Sernovodsk and stopped letting any vehicles into the village, including those with food (see: "Medical and Humanitarian Blockade")^[2]. Patricia Krokol, a representative of a British Christian community of opponents of the war, got into the village that day across a field, and on 20 April 1996 in Moscow she told the public tribunal of the Russian Glasnost Foundation: "At 11 in the morning we got into Sernovodsk, and 40 minutes later they blocked that road too, putting up 14 tanks"^[4]. In November, Russian servicemen began letting a bus with people and an ambulance into the village four times a day^[2][8][9].

Russian troops surrounded Sernovodsk for more than five months, until the assault on 3 March 1996. On 4 March, the occupiers opened the way out of the village, but Russian soldiers and officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the posts did not let people leave in their own cars. On that day, about 10,000 people left Sernovodsk. On 5 March, the occupiers again closed the entry and exit, and about 7,000 Chechen civilians remained in the village (see: "Sham Corridor"). With shelling, Russian troops killed and wounded hundreds of them (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks"). On 9 March, after the capture of Sernovodsk, Russian servicemen opened the entry into the village and the exit from it, and only then did the Chechens take out the wounded^[2][8][9].

On 10-11 December 1995, the Russian army surrounded Gudermes, the second-largest city of Ichkeria, east of Grozny, and let no one out of it. On 14 December, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated the city, and on 19-20 December Russian troops captured it (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")^[10]. From 11 to 20 December 1995, before the "elections" that Russia had scheduled in Ichkeria, Shkirko, the commander of the occupation troops, banned vehicles without passes from entering Grozny (see: "Sham Expression of Popular Will")^[2].

On 14 March 1996, units of the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and of the Russian 58th Army surrounded Samashki and let no one through the checkpoint on the southern road to the village of Novy Sharoy^[4]. On 19 March, the occupiers let the Chechens out of the encirclement^[2]. In early April 1996, Russian pilots bombed every 15-20 minutes during the day the only road from Shali, a town southeast of Grozny, to Vedeno, a district center in the mountains in the southeast of Ichkeria (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks"). Chechens from Vedeno and the neighboring village of Dyshne-Vedeno left along this road for the plain at night^[2][4]. In the spring of 1996, Russian servicemen at the checkpoint near Shalazhi, a village southwest of Grozny, did not let Madina Magomadova from Grozny through to her parents, because she was registered as a resident of the city^[4].

The human rights defenders of "Memorial" write that throughout the war Russian troops surrounded the villages and towns of Ichkeria again and again, restricted or completely closed entry and exit, and soldiers at checkpoints often blocked traffic on the roads^[2].

On 10 June 1996, Russia and Ichkeria signed a protocol to the ceasefire agreement of 27 May. The Russian delegation undertook to remove the checkpoints at the exits from villages and towns by 7 July^[11]. On 7 July, the command of the occupation troops refused to remove all the posts, citing the fact that the situation had not normalized (see: "Sham Ceasefire")^[2]. On 8 September 1996, Russian units began leaving their checkpoints and Ichkeria^[12][13].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table^[12]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")^[14]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic^[2].