First Chechen War

The First Chechen War (Russian: первая чеченская война) occurred when Russian forces attempted to stop the southern republic of Chechnya from seceding in a two year period lasting from 1994 to 1996. Despite overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support, the Russian forces were unable to establish effective control over the mountainous area due to many successful Chechen guerrilla raids. Widespread demoralization of the Russian forces in the area prompted Russian President Boris Yeltsin to declare a ceasefire in 1996 and sign a peace treaty a year later.

The first Russo-Chechen war was a humiliating defeat for the Russians and, despite their victory, a disaster for the Chechens. Conservative estimates give 7,500 Russian military casualties, 4,000 Chechen combatants and no less than 35,000 civilians — a minimum total of 46,500 dead. Others have cited figures in the range 80,000 to 100,000. ^*

Origins of the War in Chechnya

The collapse of the Soviet regime and Russia's March 1992 Federation Treaty

In December 1991, quite suddenly and unexpectedly for most Russians, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Russia became an independent nation. Although Russia was widely accepted as the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic affairs, Russia lost much of its economic and military power. Having just witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a result of demands for greater sovereignty and power in the fourteen other successor states of the USSR, Russian elites were fearful that similar developments could take place in non-Russian areas of their own republic. (Ethnic Russians make up more than 80% of the present population of the Russian Federation.)

In the Soviet period, some of Russia's approximately 100 nationalities were granted their own ethnic enclaves, to which varying formal federal rights were attached. Other smaller or more dispersed nationalities did not receive such recognition. In most of these enclaves, ethnic Russians constituted a majority of the population, although the titular nationalities usually enjoyed disproportionate representation in local government bodies due to Russians and other non-titular nationalities participating much less in local politics. Relations with the federal government and calls for far-reaching autonomy (and sometimes even full independence) in subordinate jurisdictions became a political issue in the 1990s.

In almost all cases, however, these demands were satisfied by concessions over regional autonomy and tax privileges. The Federation Treaty was signed in March 1992 by President Yeltsin and most leaders of the autonomous republics and other ethnic and geographical subunits. (For additional details, see The Russian Treaty of 1992 and regional power in Russia.) The treaty consisted of three documents, each pertaining to one type of regional jurisdiction. It outlined powers reserved for the central government, shared powers, and residual powers to be exercised primarily by the subunits.

The failure of Russian negotiations with Chechnya

The only autonomous jurisdictions that refused to sign the 1992 Federation Treaty were Chechnya and Tatarstan, both of which are rich in oil. (In the spring of 1994, President Yeltsin signed a special political accord with the president of Tatarstan granting many of the demands for greater autonomy among the Volga Tatars, a Muslim people conquered by Russia in the mid-16th century.)

Yeltsin declined to carry out serious negotiations with Chechnya, however, allowing the situation to deteriorate into full-scale war at the end of 1994. In the first half of 1996, Chechnya continued to pose the biggest obstacle to the quelling of separatism among the components of the Russian Federation.

The Chechen struggle for independence and Chechen nationalism

Chechen nationalism in historical context

Russian Cossacks lived in Chechnya (Terek) since the 16th century. The first Russian invasion of Highland of Chechnya occurred during the time of Peter the Great, in the early XVIII century. After a long series of fierce battles and bloody massacres, Chechnya was incorporated into Russia in the 1870s. In 1936 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin created the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1943, contrary to the postwar rumours, Chechens didn't stage a rebellion against Russian rule but reportedly about 40,000 Chechens fought most bravely against the Nazis within the Red Army. Nevertheless, the next year Stalin as a part of his infamous policies deported more than 1 million Chechens, Ingushes, and other North Caucasian peoples to Siberia and Central Asia on the pretext that they had collaborated with the Nazis. The remaining Muslim people of the Chechnya region were resettled among neighboring Christian communities. Stalin's brutal policy virtually erased Chechnya from the map, but Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev permitted the Chechen and Ingush peoples to return to their homeland and restored their republic in 1957.

Chechen President Dzhokar Dudayev

In September 1991, the government of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic resigned under pressure from the pro-independence Congress of the Chechen People, whose leader was former Soviet Air Force general Dzhokar Dudayev. In September 1991, militants of National Congress of Chechen People (NCChP) had taken control over Chechnya (they had seized republic's Soviet and killed chief of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) of Grozny, Vitali Kutsenko). The following month, Dudayev won overwhelming popular support to oust the interim, central government-supported administration and make himself president. Dudayev then issued a unilateral declaration of independence. This was still before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In November 1991 President Yeltsin of RSFSR dispatched troops to Grozny but they were withdrawn when Dudayev's forces prevented them from leaving the airport.

The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic split in two in June 1992. After Chechnya had announced its initial declaration of sovereignty in 1991, Ingushetia joined the Russian Federation; Chechnya declared full independence in 1993. From 1991 to 1994, as many as 300,000 people of non-Chechen ethnicity, mostly Russians, fled the republic. The Chechen industry began failing after Russian engineers and workers were expelled from the Chechen Republic.

In August 1994, when an opposition faction launched an armed campaign to topple Dudayev's government, Moscow supplied the rebel forces with military equipment and mercenaries, and Russian aircraft began to bomb Grozny. In December, five days after Dudayev and Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev of Russia had agreed to avoid the further use of force, Russian troops invaded Chechnya.

The War

Quagmire

Boris Yeltsin's expectations of a quick surgical strike followed by Chechen capitulation were horribly misguided. Russia was quickly submerged in a quagmire. Trying to emulate American tactics he ordered Russian commanders to show "restraint". However they were not prepared nor trained for this. Other problems occurred as Yeltsin sent in freshly trained conscripts from the local region instead of sending in more professional soldiers. Highly mobile units of Chechen fighters inflicted humiliating losses on Russia's ill-prepared and demoralized troops. The Russian military command then resorted to devastating air raids and use of artillery causing enormous losses among the Chechen and Russian civilian population.

When the Russians attacked the Chechen capital of Grozny during the first weeks of January 1995 about 25,000 civilians died under a week-long air-raid and artillery fire into the sealed-off city. The Russian army is reported to have suffered several thousand casualties during this assault.

Massive use of artillery and air strikes remained the dominating strategy throughout the Russian campaign. In addition, Russian troops committed numerous, and in part systematic war crimes against civilians, such as severe torture and summary executions, which often were linked to raids affecting entire villages. In the village of Samashki alone about 100 civilians were killed by the Russians and several hundred were beaten or otherwise severely tortured. Chechen insurgents in turn resorted to guerrilla tactics, such as setting booby traps and mining roads. As the war went on, they increasingly organized large hostage takings, seeking to exert pressure on the Russian public and the Russian leadership.

The protracted war in Chechnya, as well as many reports of violence against civilians, ignited fear and contempt toward Russia's federal government among other ethnic groups in the federation. The inability of Russian forces to subdue the Chechen "bandits" also encouraged other ethnic groups to defy the central government by proclaiming and defending their independence.

As the war was widely reported to the Russian public through television and newspaper accounts it contributed among the Russian population to a loss of confidence in the government and a steep decline in president Yeltsin's popularity. Chechnya was one of the heaviest burdens Yeltsin carried during Russia's 1996 presidential election campaign.

The spread of the war and the rise of new separatist activities

In January 1996, the destruction of the border village of Pervomayskoye in the Russian Republic of Dagestan by Russian forces in reaction to Chechen hostage taking brought strong criticism from the hitherto loyal Republic of Dagestan and escalated domestic dissatisfaction. Chechnya's declaration that it was waging a jihad (holy war) against Russia also raised the specter that Muslim volunteers from other regions and even outside Russia would enter the fray. However, Russian government officials feared that a move to end the war short of victory would create a cascade of secession attempts by other ethnic minorities and present a new target to extreme nationalist Russian factions.

Some fighting occurred in Ingushetia in 1995, mostly when Russian commanders sent troops over the border in pursuit of Chechen rebels. Although all sides generally observed the distinction between the two peoples that formerly shared the autonomous republic as many as 200,000 refugees from Chechnya and neighboring North Ossetia strained Ingushetia's already weak economy. On several occasions, Ingush president Ruslan Aushev protested incursions by Russian soldiers, even threatening to sue the Russian Ministry of Defence for damages inflicted.

Meanwhile, the war in Chechnya spawned a new form of separatist activity in the Russian Federation. Resistance to the conscription of men from minority ethnic groups to fight in Chechnya was widespread among other republics many of which passed laws and decrees on the subject. For example, the government of Chuvashia passed a decree providing legal protection to soldiers from the republic who refused to participate in the Chechnya war and imposing limits on the use of the Russian army in ethnic or regional conflicts within Russia. Some regional and local legislative bodies called for a prohibition on the use of draftees in quelling internal uprisings; others demanded a total ban on the use of the armed forces in quelling domestic conflicts.

1996 ceasefire agreement

Due to largerly uncertain and heavely disputed nature of subject it is worth to point here both main versions of description taking also into account that they are mostly propagandistic ones.

Pro Chechens (and partly pro Westerns) version: The demoralized and poorly trained conscripts of the Russian army proved incapable of suppressing determined Chechen opposition, both in the Chechen capital and in the countryside. As humiliating defeats and growing casualties made the war more and more unpopular in Russia, and as the 1996 presidential elections neared, Yeltsin's government sought a way out of the conflict. Although a Russian missile attack killed Dudayev in April 1996, the Chechens persisted. Their military commander at the time was former Soviet Colonel and now General Aslan Maskhadov.

Pro Russians (and partly anti Westerns) version: Despite off full success of military invasion in Chechnya and almost total control of territory achived at the cost of fairly modest cassulties, russian troops were forced to withdraw. The main reason for that is internal political situtation in the light of coming presidential elections. Boris Yeltsin facing a strong opposition leaded by the head of Communist Party of Russin Federation and commiting to so called "democratisation" and "common values" betraied russion troops and ordered the withdraw. There were no any objective reasons for troops to leave Chechnya.

In August 1996 Yeltsin's national security adviser Alexander Lebed brokered a ceasefire agreement with Chechen leaders, it was signed in the Dagestan town of Khasavyurt on August 31 1996. This was followed by a formal peace treaty signed by Presidents Yeltsin and the newly elected Maskhadov in the Kremlin on May 12, 1997 ^*.

However the conflict resumed in 1999, thus rendering the 1997 peace treaty meaningless (see Second Chechen War). Chechen rebels continue to resist the Russian presence in their homeland to this day.

Casualties

By official Russian statistics 5,500 Russian soldiers died during the war. However the estimate of Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia puts the number of dead at 14,000 ^*. As of mid-January 1997 the Chechens held between 700 and 1,000 Russian soldiers and officers prisoner. ^*

Chechen losses (mostly civilian) are estimated at up to 100,000 or more. By different estimates the number of civilians dead range from more than 50,000 to 100,000. [http://www.hrvc.net/htmls/references.htm

External links

1990s | Chechnya | Guerrilla wars | Wars of Russia

Gourt Home::Gourt :: First Chechen War