Second Chechen War

Second Chechen War
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Date 1999 to present Location Chechnya Result Ongoing/Unknown
Belligerents
Russian Federation	Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Strength
150,000-200,000 in 1999	10,000-15,000 in 1999
Casualties and losses
Unknown (minimum of 4,705 KIA by 2002)	Unknown (minimum of 1,380 KIA by 2000)

Chechnya within Russia

Chechnya and Caucasus region

The Second Chechen War is the military campaign initiated by the Russian Federation in 1999 that recaptured the separatist region of Chechnya, which had briefly gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria following the First Chechen War.

The war has been one of the fiercest and bloodiest military conflicts in the world at the turn of the millennium as the Russian military and pro-Russian Chechen paramilitary forces struggled to dislodge determined Chechen separatists. The full-scale military offensive ended with the Russian seizure of the Chechen capital Grozny in 2000, after a bitter winter siege. Chechen guerrilla resistance throughout the North Caucasus region continued to inflict heavy Russian casualties and challenge Russian political control over Chechnya for several more years. Violations of human rights conducted by the Russian forces drew international condemnation, and attacks by Chechen fighters against civilians in Russia, notably hostage takings inside a Moscow theater in 2002 and a school in Beslan in 2004, appalled the world.

Although sporadic fighting continues to this day, the Russian military and political campaign has succeeded in installing a pro-Moscow Chechen regime, and eliminating the most prominent Chechen separatist leaders including former president Aslan Maskhadov and leading warlord Shamil Basayev. The war bolstered the domestic popularity of Vladimir Putin who launched the campaign one month after becoming the prime minister and went on to consolidate his political leadership over Russia. The sagging fortunes of the Chechen independence movement, plagued by internal disunity and association with Wahhabi radicalism, reflects the changing global political climate after September 11, 2001.

Historical basis of the conflict

The Russian Terek Cossack Host was established in lowland Chechnya in 1577 by free Cossacks who were resettled from the Volga to the Terek River. In 1783 Russia and the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti signed the Treaty of Georgievsk, under which Kartl-Kakheti became a Russian protectorate. To secure communications with Georgia and other regions of the Transcaucasia, the Russian Empire began spreading her influence into the mountains of the Caucasus, starting the Caucasus War in 1817. Russian forces first moved into highland Chechnya in 1830. Conflict in the area lasted until 1859. Many troops from the annexed states of the Caucasus fought unsuccessfully against Russia in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78.

Russian Revolution

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Chechens established a short-lived independent emirate, comprising parts of Dagestan and Ingushetia and opposed by both sides of the Russian Civil War. The Chechnya state was crushed by Bolshevik troops in 1922. Then, months before the creation of the Soviet Union, the Chechen Autonomous Oblast of RSFSR was established. It annexed a part of territory of the Terek Cossack Host that was also liquidated by the Bolsheviks. Eventually, Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia became the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936.

During World War II Chechens were accused by Stalin of aiding Nazi forces. In 1944 Stalin deported nearly all the Chechens and Ingushs to Kazakh SSR and Kirghiz SSR, and Siberia. Up to a quarter died during the "resettlement", or were murdered. After the death of Stalin, Khrushchev allowed them to return in 1957, and their republic was reinstated.

The First Chechen War

First Chechen war. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Main article: First Chechen War

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya declared its independence from the Russian Federation. In 1992, Chechen and Ingush leaders signed an agreement splitting the joint Chechen-Ingush republic in two, with Ingushetia joining the Russian Federation and Chechnya remaining independent. From 1991 to 1994, as many as 300,000 people of non-Chechen ethnicity (mostly Russians) fled the Chechen republic, and Chechen industrial production began failing after Russian engineers and workers were expelled from the Chechen Republic Ichkeria.

This simmering debate over independence ultimately led to a civil war in 1993. The Russians supported the anti-Dudayev opposition forces. The First Chechen War began in 1994, when Russian forces entered Chechnya to restore constitutional order and central rule. Following the 1996 Khasavyurt ceasefire agreement, the defeated Russian troops were withdrawn from Chechnya.

The beginning of the Second Chechen War

The 1997 election of separatist President Aslan Maskhadov led to turbulence within the country and, despite Russia's early recognition of their independent status as well as the 1997 Moscow peace treaty, a chilly relationship continued. In May 1998, Valentin Vlasov, a personal envoy of Boris Yeltsin, was kidnapped and released on November 13. Further tensions arose in January and February of 1999 as President Maskhadov announced that Islamic Sharia law would be introduced in Chechnya over the course of the next three years. In March of that year, General Gennadiy Shpigun, the Kremlin's envoy to Chechnya, was kidnapped at the airport and ultimately killed in 2000.

The Grozny government's grip on the chaotic republic was weak. On October 25 1998, Shadid Bargishev, the top anti-kidnapping official, was killed in a remote controlled car bombing as he was about to begin a major offensive on hostage takers. On December 10 Mansur Tagirov, Chechnya's top prosecutor, disappeared while returning to Grozny. On June 21 the Chechen security chief, Lecha Khulygov, and a guerrilla commander, Vakha Dzhafarov, fatally shot each other in an argument. In 1998 and 1999 President Maskhadov survived several assassination attempts. The internal violence in Chechnya peaked on July 16 1998, when fighting broke out between Maskhadov's National Guard led by Sulim Yamadayev and radical Wahhabi militants in the town of Gudermes; over 50 people were reported killed. On several occasions, Russian special forces raided Chechen territory.

Terrorist incidents 1996-1999

Despite the signing of the 1996-1997 peace agreements the pro-Chechen terrorist activity in Russia continued.

• November 16 1996 - Terrorists blew up an apartment building in Kaspiysk (Dagestan); 69 persons, mostly relatives of border guards, died.

• April 23 1997 - A bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Armavir; 3 people died.

• May 28 1997 - A bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Pyatigorsk; 2 people died.

• December 22 1997 - Fighters of Dagestani Central Liberation Front and the Arab warlord Ibn al-Khattab raided the base of the 136th Armoured Brigade of the Russian Army in Buinaksk (Dagestan), destroying its 300 vehicle motor pool, including 50 T-72 tanks, and killing scores of soldiers.

• April 16 1998 - A Russian army convoy was ambushed in Ingushetia near the Chechnya border; a general, 2 colonels and 3 soldiers were killed and Ingush militants were blamed.

• March 19 1999 - An explosion occurred in the central market of Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia); 64 people died.

• April 7 1999 - Chechen gunmen killed 4 Russian policemen patrolling the border near Stavropol (Stavropol Krai).

• June 18 1999 - Chechen fighters attacked Russian border posts in Dagestan; 7 men were killed and 15 wounded in separate confrontations.

Conflict in Dagestan

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Basayev in Dagestan

In August and September of 1999, Shamil Basayev (who served as Commander of the Chechen Armed Forces in 1996 and was a Prime Minister of Chechen government in 1998) led two incursions by 1,200 to 2,000 Chechen, Dagestani, Arab and Kazakh militants from Chechnya into the neighbouring in Republic of Dagestan. The purpose was to help local Islamic fundamentalists who were under attack by federal forces in the villages of Kadar, Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi. At least several hundred people were killed in the fighting. The federal side admitted 279 were killed and approximately 987 wounded. This conflict saw the first use of aerial-delivered fuel air explosives (FAE) against populated areas, notably on the village of Tando. By mid-September 1999 the militants were routed from the villages they had seized and were pushed back into Chechnya.

The Russian government followed up with a bombing campaign of southeastern Chechnya, a part of the country they saw as a staging area for the militants. On September 23, Russian fighter jets bombed targets in and around Grozny.

Dagestan after 1999

Since 2000, Dagestan has been a place of a low-level conflict. The conflict claimed lives of hundreds of federal servicemen and officials as well as Dagestani insurgents and civilians. According to a July 2005 report by the Russian Academy of Sciences, there were 70 "terror attacks" in Dagestan in the first six months of 2005, compared with 30 for all of 2004. The attacks, which are becoming more sophisticated and deadly, primarily target Russian soldiers and Dagestan's police and government officials. Sources indicate that as many as 2,000 Islamic insurgents, many belonging to the Jamaat Sharia group, are involved in the Dagestani Jihad. After a string of attacks and assassinations, Jamaat Sharia has claimed legitimate power in Dagestan. On July 12, 2005, the Sharia Jamaat confirmed the death of its commander, Rasul Makasharipov.

Bombings in Russia

At the same time as the fighting in Dagestan, a series of bombings took place in Russia (in Moscow and in Volgodonsk) and in the Dagestan town of Buynaksk (On September 4, in an apartment building housing members of families of Russian soldiers, 62 people were killed.) The bombs targeted four apartment buildings and a mall; nearly 300 people were killed. The Russian government (including then-President Boris Yeltsin) blamed Chechen separatists for the bombings. Shamil Basayev has denied involvement in the attacks. Some high-profile individuals, including the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky (who is accused of fraud and political corruption by the Russian police and lives in exile) and U.S. Senator John McCain have suggested that the FSB (a Russian domestic intelligence service) staged the bombings to provide a pretext for an invasion of Chechnya. On September 29, Russia demanded that Chechnya extradite the criminals responsible for the bombings in Russia. A day later, Russian troops began the ground offensive.

On January 12 2004, in a hearing in Moscow City Court which was closed to the public and the press, Adam Dekushev and Jusuf Krymshankhalov were sentenced to life sentences for delivering explosives to the residential buildings. Both were the members of Karachev-based pro-Chechen Wahhabi group, trained by emir Khattab in Chechnya. The alleged mastermind of the bombings, Achemez Gochiyaev, has never been apprehended. The bombing trial, however, has raised questions by observers. One week prior to the trial, the former FSB officer and lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin had been arrested. Trepashkin represented a victim's family and claimed to have obtained evidence of FSB involvement.

Second Chechen War

In late September 1999, the Russian military began bombing targets within Chechnya and ground troops followed soon after. In response, martial law was declared in Ichkeria and reservists were called. President Maskhadov declared a gazavat (holy war) to confront the approaching Russian army. At this time, Russia's new Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian troops would advance only as far as the Terek River, which cuts the northern third of Chechnya off from the rest of the republic. Putin's stated intention was to take control of Chechnya's northern plain and establish a cordon sanitaire against further Chechen aggression.

The Russian army moved with ease in the wide open spaces of northern Chechnya and soon reached the Terek River. Having quickly gained control of the north Chechen plain, the army crossed the river on October 12 1999, and began a two-pronged advance on the capital Grozny to the south. Hoping to avoid the significant casualties which plagued the First Chechen War, the Russians advanced slowly and in force. The Russian military made extensive use of artillery and air power in an attempt to soften Chechen defences. On November 7, Russian soldiers dislodged rebels in Bamut, the rebel stronghold in the first war; at least 28 Chechen fighters and many civilians were reported killed.

Many thousands of civilians fled the Russian advance, leaving Chechnya for neighbouring Russian republics. Their numbers were later estimated to reach 200,000 to 350,000, out of the approximately 800,000 residents of the Chechen Republic. The Russians appeared to be taking no chances with the Chechen population in its rear areas, setting up notorious filtration camps in October in northern Chechnya for detaining suspected members of bandformirovaniya (bandit formations).

Battle of Grozny

It was not until November that the Chechen capital of Grozny was surrounded, and more than two additional weeks of shelling and bombing were required before Russian troops were able to claim a foothold within any part of the heavily fortified city. With approximately 100,000 troops supported by a powerful air force, the Russian army vastly outnumbered and outgunned the Chechen defence militia, comprising several thousand fighters, and was considerably larger than the Russian force that had been defeated in Chechnya during the previous war. In addition, Russia's tactics in this second campaign were drastically different. The strategy in 1999 was to hold back tanks, vulnerable armoured personnel carriers (APC) and infantry and subject the entrenched Chechens to an intensive barrage of heavy artillery and aerial bombardment before engaging them.

In November, the Kremlin appointed Beslan Gantamirov, former mayor of Grozny, as head of the pro-Moscow Chechen State Council. Gantamirov was just pardoned by President Yeltsin and released from a 6-year sentence for embezzling federal funds to rebuild Chechnya in 1995-1996; he was chosen to lead a pro-Russian Chechen militia forces in the upcoming battle. Gantamirov soon locked horns with the then interior minister, Vladimir Rushailo, who refused to supply Chechen troops with APCs, mortars or sniper rifles, limiting their combat arsenal to "obsolete AK-47s which jammed after a few shots". In the wake of the Grozny siege, Rushailo publicly accused Gantamirov of accepting "any volunteers into the ranks of the Chechen militia including rebel fighters". However, the Chechen militia went on to play a pivotal role in the siege of Grozny, suffering more than 700 casualties during the fighting. On 30 May 2000, Russia's main official in Chechnya, Nikolai Koshman, said his deputy, Gantemirov was dismissed for "non-fulfilment of his duties." Koshman also said that the pro-Moscow Chechen militia has lost 295 out of its remaining 353 members for absenteeism. [1]

As many as 40,000 civilians, many of them ethnic Russians, remained trapped in Grozny during the Russian siege of the city, suffering from the bombing, cold and hunger. Civilian motorcades attempting to leave besieged areas via Russian-guarded safe corridors were fired on at Russian police checkpoints, wounded survivors reported.

Grozny itself was transformed into a fortress under the leadership of Chechen field commander Aslambek Ismailov. The Chechen fighters in the capital put up a fierce resistance to the Russians throughout the months of November and December. Grozny's Chechen defenders built a system of bunkers behind apartment buildings, laid mines throughout the city, placed snipers on rooftops, and withstood the heavy Russian bombardment for the chance to finally come to grips with the enemy in an environment of their choosing.

Ultimatum

In December the Russian general staff began dropping leaflets in Grozny announcing that everyone who did not leave would be considered bandits and terrorists and would subsequently be destroyed by aviation and artillery. In the face of international outrage by the United States, the European Union and human rights groups, Russia withdrew the ultimatum, but the campaign against Grozny continued with renewed vigour. By January 2000, Russia's heavy bombardments had finally begun to take their toll. Using multiple rocket launchers and massed tank and artillery fire, the Russians flattened most of Grozny in preparation for a mass assault.

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Russian troops in Grozny

On January 3, Russian General Valentin Astaviyev said on state television that Russian forces had suffered only three dead in the past 24 hours; but the commander of an Interior Ministry unit in Grozny told AFP news agency that 50 men had been killed in the previous 48 hours. An undercover investigation by NTV has reported that up to 50 Russian soldiers are being killed in Chechnya daily; the figure was compiled from reports from witnesses, morgue officials, railway workers and coroner's assistants. On January 4, Chechen fighters in Grozny had launched counter attacks and broken through Russian lines in at least two places, temporarily seizing the village of Alkhan-Kala. Both sides accused each other of launching chemical attacks.

On Monday, 10 January 2000, Chechen forces outside Grozny launched a major counter-offensive, briefly recapturing major towns of Shali, Argun and Gudermes, and opening a new supply corridor to besieged capital; they also ambushed and destroyed a supply convoy near Dzhalka, on the Argun-Gudermes road. The commander for the North Caucasus, General Viktor Kazantsev, said mistakes by "soft-hearted" Russian interior ministry officials had allowed rebels to counter-attack; he said from now on only boys under 10, old men over 60 and girls and women would be considered as refugees. An interior ministry spokesman said 26 Russian soldiers had died in the past 24 hours, the heaviest one-day official death toll since fighting began last September. On January 19, Russian Major-General Mikhail Malofeyev was killed in Grozny; his body was found only 4 days later. The Russian command said small bands of rebel fighters were cutting off Russian units from the main forces; on January 21, 20 members of a Russian regiment were killed in north-west Grozny when rebels sneaked through sewage tunnels to attack them from the rear.

On January 26, the Russian government announced that 1,173 servicemen had been killed since October [2] - a more than double rise from 544 killed reported 19 days earlier, on January 6 [3], with just 300 killed reported on January 4 [4].

By mid-January, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers began an advance on central Grozny from three directions. With their supply routes interdicted by an increasingly effective Russian blockade, ammunition running low and their losses mounting, the Chechen leadership began to contemplate an escape. It was decided that taking on the Russians in frontal combat was becoming too costly. As the Russian army closed in on their positions, the Chechen commanders decided on a desperate gamble; success was not assured, for the city was encircled by mine fields and three layers of Russian forces.

Rebel breakout

The Chechens began to escape on the last day of January and first day of February under intense Russian bombardment. As the Chechen fighters broke out, moving in a southwesterly direction, they were met with artillery fire. One of the main retreating units, led by Shamil Basayev, hit a minefield between the city and the village of Alkhan-Kala. As Russian artillery fire homed in on their position, several of the Chechens' field commanders personally led their retreating soldiers in a charge across the minefields. Volunteers were asked to run ahead of the main force to clear a path for their retreating comrades. Scores of Chechen shaheed were killed as well as several prominent Chechen commanders, including generals Khunkarpasha Israpilov and Aslambek Ismailov, the mastermind behind the defense of Grozny, and the city mayor Lecha Dudayev. In addition to these commanders, many rank-and-file Chechen fighters were apparently killed in the bloody escape. The Russians later claimed to have killed 200 Chechen fighters. Another 200 were maimed, including Basayev.

A rebel post-operative war council was held in Alkhan-Yurt, where it was decided that the Chechen forces would retreat into the inaccessible Vedeno and Argun gorges in the southern mountains to carry on a guerrilla war against the Russians. The Russian army's last chance to destroy the rebels in a concentrated position was thus lost, and the Chechens scattered into the southern mountains to continue the war.

In Grozny itself, the Russian generals initially refused to admit that the Chechens had escaped from the blockaded city, saying that fierce fighting continued within the city. Russian spokesman and Putin's aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said, "If they left Grozny, we would have informed you." [5] It was not until February 6 that the Russians were able to raise the Russian flag above the city centre. In March, the Russian army began to allow residents to return to the city.

Komsomolskoe

In a March attack, a large group of more than 1,000 Chechen fighters, led by field commander Ruslan Gelayev, seized the village of Komsomolskoe in the Chechen foothills. They held off a full-scale Russian attack on the town for over two weeks, although they said they suffered from 500-1,000 casualties in the greatest Chechen defeat of the war. [6]

The village was totally destroyed. Vladimir Putin put the number of Chechen dead at 600, while the Russian side admitted 350 dead and wounded.

Guerilla war in Chechnya

Despite the destruction of Grozny and the Russian victory at Komsomolskoe, fighting continues, particularly in the mountainous southern portions of Chechnya. Rebels are typically targeting Russian and pro-Russian officials, security forces, and military and police convoys and vehicles - often with IED attacks, with the Russians retaliating with an artillery and air strikes and conducting counter-insurgency operations.

Among the notable incidents:

2000

• February 29 - A Russian VDV paratroop company from Pskov was attacked and wiped out by the approximately 300 Chechen and Arab insurgents near the village of Ulus-Kert, in Chechnya's southern lowlands. 86 Russian soldiers and officers were killed in a 3-day battle; Russian paratroop commander General Georgy Shpak initially insisted only 31 men died in that battle. [7] The army spokesman also said federal forces have been ordered to eliminate all rebels remaining in the mountains before the appearance of the spring foliage, which could give the rebels camouflage, later this month. [8]

• March 1 - A unit of OMON from Podolsk opened fire on an OMON unit from Sergiyev Posad, who had arrived in Chechnya to replace them [9]. Omonovtsy traveling in nine trucks to a guard post in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny; out of the 98 OMON troops in the convoy, 22 were killed, including the unit's commander, Colonel Dimity Markelov, and 31 were wounded. Immediately after the appalling gaff, the Interior Ministry officers reported that the convoy was ambushed by "unidentified Chechen rebels, who managed to flee by planting booby-traps along their escape route." Independent journalists, however, managed to uncover the truth about the incident.

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OMON in Chechnya

• March 29 - A total of 42 Russian soldiers were killed as a result of the rebel ambush on the OMON convoy from Perm, composed of 41 paramilitary police and 7 mechanized infantry. A column led by Major Valentin Simonov was on its way to conduct a mopping-up operation in Tsentoroi, near Vedeno; only 6 troops succeeded in escaping and hide in a forest. A second convoy was then sent to the rescue but was also ambushed; at least 20 soldiers had been wounded before the rescue mission was forced to retreat. CNN showed later a video footage of the attack shot by one of the soldiers killed, which the Russian authorities tried to ban upon discovery. On the same day, Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo that the situation in Chechnya "is being fully controlled" by the Russian military. [10]

• May 4 - The Russian military command said special forces troops have ambushed a column of Chechen rebels near the southern village of Avtury, killing at least 18 of them; casualty figures were impossible to confirm independently. The command said the Russians opened fire with machine guns and then called-up artillery strikes in the ambush; Associated Press reports the ambush could signal a change in Russian tactics, in that Russian forces in Chechnya have recently suffered losses themselves in several similar rebel ambushes. Meanwhile, the rebels also claimed to have killed 12 government soldiers in attacks in the areas of Urus-Martan, Shelkovskaya and Shatoy.

• May 11 - 18 Russian army soldiers were killed in a convoy attack near the village of Galashki in Ingushetia, while returning from a tour of duty in Chechnya; only 3 soldiers were recovered alive. The deaths were the first in the republic linked to the fighting.

• April 23 - A 22-vehicle convoy carrying ammunition and other supplies to the airborne unit was ambushed near Serzhen-Yurt, in the Vedeno Gorge; in ensuing 4-hour battle the federal side lost up to 25 dead, according to official Russian reports. The rebels claimed killing more than 50 soldiers and suffering no casualties, while General Troshev told the press that the bodies of 4 fighters were found.

• June 6 - Russian police and special forces units have begun an operation aimed at flushing an estimated 500 rebels in the capital Grozny, as reports said Chechen rebels slip out of ruins of the city to plant mines on streets and fire rocket-propelled grenades at checkpoints. Meanwhile, Ilyas Akhmadov, Chechnya's unrecognised foreign minister, told reporters in Washington that the separatists want to end what he called "this useless war" with Russia.

• August 7 - The Russian government announced the capture of Ibragim Khultygov, a former security chief for the separatist government in Chechnya; the Kremlin's Chechnya spokesman said Khultygov is an important Chechen leader whose surrender has great symbolic importance. Moscow officials also said a fundamentalist field commander in Chechnya named Musali Khaskhanov surrendered a day before. [11]

• October 12 - A powerful car bomb went off outside Oktyabrski district police station in the capital Grozny, killing at least 15 and wounding 22 people. It appeared to have been timed to go off when a car carrying prosecutors drove up; the prosecutors were among the dead.

2001

• April 25 - At least 6 Russian policemen were killed and 5 others wounded when a bomb ripped through a police building in the Chechen town of Gudermes. Reports said the blast was caused by one kilogram of explosives detonated by a timer. The police station housed an Interior Ministry unit fighting organized crime; Gudermes was until a few days before the seat of the pro-Russian civilian administration of Chechnya.

• May 7 - Chechen fighters attacked a Russian military column which was going to carry out a mopping up operation in Argun, leaving at least 15 Russian soldiers dead. The heavy fighting in and around the town, during which Russian artillery and military helicopters were used, ended on the next day.

• June 25 - Russian Special Forces killed Arbi Barayev, a Chechen rebel commander and organized crime leader, in a week-long cleansing operation in Alkhan-Kala near Grozny, where Barayev was holed up with about 50 of his men. When they went on the attack the battle lasted for days and resulted in massive destruction; house-to-house fighting left two dozen houses levelled and about 17 Chechens were killed. Known as "The Terminator" for his personal count of 170 murders, including the executions of three Britons and a New Zealander in 1998, Barayev has been the most senior rebel leader to have been killed or captured by the Russians since the second Chechen war began. [12]

• August 13 - Rebels seized the village of Benoi-Yurt in southeast Chechnya, attacked the local military commandant's office, and placed checkpoints on a strategic road that leads further south to the town of Vedeno. Pro-Moscow administrators were reported killed.

• August 29 - Rebels in eastern Chechnya killed 12 people in and around a Russian military convoy, the Interfax news agency reported today. The attack, which happened in the village of Oktyabrskoye in the Kurchaloi district, began when a car bomb was detonated as an armoured personnel carrier and two military vehicles passed by an outdoor market; the convoy then came under fire from gunmen hiding nearby. Interfax quoted the Chechen military commandant's office as saying that 6 civilians were killed, along with 4 soldiers and 2 employees of the commandant's office.

• September 17 - Chechen rebels carried out large coordinated attacks in towns of Gudermes and Argun, in the Nozhay-Yurt district, involving between 100 and 400 fighters. At the time of the attacks Gudermes had been functioning as a de facto capital of Chechnya.

• December 30 - Russian troops mounted a large-scale cleansing operation in the village of Tsotsin-Yurt, south of Grozny, after 6 Russian soldiers were killed by a reported force of 100 rebels. Alexander Potapov, the deputy head of the FSB in Chechnya, said the offensive left more than 30 rebels dead and 20 taken prisoner. According to official sources, the losses among federal forces included two officers of the Special Forces of the Ministry of Defense killed and 11 wounded. A Russian Memorial group recorded 11 instances of the murders of detained residents or of detainees disappearing without a trace. [13]

2002

• April 18 - Rebels killed 21 and wounded 7 Chechen OMON officers in Grozny. The first bus in the convoy hit a remote-controlled mine, and rebels then opened fire on the line of vehicles from a nearby high-rise building; the blast occurred just 300 feet from Chechnya's main police headquarters, and was the most deadly attack yet on the republic's police force. It appeared the explosion was deliberately timed to coincide with President Putin's mid-term state-of-the-nation address, which it preceded by two hours. The attack came a day after 11 Russian servicemen were killed and 13 wounded in two rebel attacks in the Shatoi region.

• August 6 - 11 policemen are killed and 7 badly wounded when a landmine explodes under their truck in Shatoi, southern Chechnya. The pro-Russian Chechen policemen died in a military truck that was transporting 33 servicemen back to their barracks; the explosion was so strong that it threw the truck 15 meters (50 feet) away and flipped it over. Russian troops and the Chechen military police force were on high alert throughout Chechnya for the sixth anniversary of the rebels' capture of the capital, Grozny, during the first Chechen war.

• August 19 - The Russian military command said that federal forces have killed 39 Chechen fighters in the past 48 hours. The report could not be independently confirmed.

• October 10 - A bomb attack on a Grozny police station killing 22 Chechen policemen, including many senior officers, and wounding 9. It is suspected that a pro-rebel policeman was responsible for planting the bomb, which went off during the conference of Grozny police commanders; 40 officers were reportedly attending the meeting.

2003

• January 9 - 15 Russian soldiers and police officers and 2 rebels were killed in the fighting, including 9 Russian soldiers who died when their convoy came under rebel fire in Grozny.

• March 1 - Rebels attacked the motorcade of Chechnya's pro-Moscow leader, Akhmad Kadyrov, killing 4 bodyguards and 3 policemen.

• August 22 - 9 Russian soldiers were killed and 2 wounded by a remote-controlled car bomb, which went off as a column of military vehicles drove by.

• July 12 - Rebels in southern Chechnya blew up a Russian military vehicle and staged hit-and-run attacks against federal positions, killing 16 soldiers and wounding 13, as Moscow reported it had uncovered a large rebel training camp and killed "a prominent rebel leader" and his bodyguards.

• July 21 - 6 Russian soldiers were killed and 8 wounded in an overnight clash with separatist fighters near the village of Dyshne-Vedeno; the Russian military said 6 Chechen militants were also killed in the gunfight. The official also said that security forces in the Chechen capital Grozny yesterday foiled a major bomb attack outside a Russian government compound in the city's northwest. [14]

• November 23 - 17 militants were killed by a Russian special forces in a raid on a rebel base near the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt. The Kremlin later displayed passports belonging to an Algerian, 3 Turks and Thomas Fischer, a German, who were among the dead.

2004

• March 26 - A military truck drove out of a Russian military base in Shali after curfew and hit a minefield planted outside to deter a rebel attack, killing 10 soldiers; military officer drove the truck out of the base without permission and hit a mine as soldiers approached. The incident came amid continuing fighting in Chechnya, which claimed the lives of 11 federal soldiers and police in the previous 24 hours.

• April 16 - Saudi-born Abu al-Walid killed in the mountains by a Russian aerial bombing; he was the successor to Ibn al-Khattab. The day before, on April 15, 10 Russian soldiers died and 5 were wounded in rebel attacks throughout Chechnya, while over 200 people were detained in sweeps for suspected rebels and accomplices.

• May 18 - Chechen separatist rebels killed 11 Russian soldiers and wounded 5 others in a double ambush. Military command said the rebels attacked the troops after their UAZ vehicle hit a mine and ran off the road near the town of Urus-Martan; a BTR armoured troop carrier that went to their aid then ran into another mine and came under fire as well.

• June 8 -- Officials in Chechnya said today that at least 10 Russian servicemen and 8 militants have died in several clashes; almost 200 people were detained on suspicion of rebel links in Russian raids over the past day.

• July 13 - Guerillas entered Avtury, Shalinsky district of Chechnya. The fighters first blocked all entrances to the village and then attacked and seized the buildings of the security forces, inflicting heavy casualties and capturing 12 pro-Moscow Chechen paramilitaries; at least 18 pro-Moscow militiamen and one attacker died in the fighting.

• August 22 - Overnight attacks in central Grozny killed at least 58 members of security forces and 5 federal soldiers. According to estimates of the investigation group, 250-400 fighters entered the city on August 21, placed their checkpoints at roads, and simultaneously attacked a number of police targets. [15]

• November 8 - Chechnya's pro-Russian administration said Russian troops killed at least 18 separatist fighters in the Vedeno district. [16]

2005

• January 29 - A Russian report says 9 servicemen have been killed by land-mine explosions near the village of Alkhan-Yurt. ITAR-TASS quoted a police source as saying the Chechen Interior Ministry soldiers were traveling on the Caucasus federal highway when their two vehicles were hit by land mines detonated by remote control.

• February 19 - A spokesman for the Russian Army said Yunadi Turchaev, the alleged "emir of Grozny" responsible for operations in and around the Chechen capital, and an unspecified number of his men were killed in a shootout in Grozny. On March 14 security forces announced Kantash Mansarov, imam of the militant Jamaat group in Grozny, who they said was the coordinator of undercover rebel operations in the capital since the death of Turchaev, was killed while resisting arrest.

• February 21 - 9 Russian recon soldiers were killed in a blast in the village of Prigorodnoye on the outskirts of Grozny. While official sources attributed the incident to a battle with Chechen guerrillas, who at the time announced an unilateral ceasefire, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta wrote that some of the soldiers were drunk and one of them fired a grenade launcher inside the abandoned factory building.

• March 23 - Chechen field commander Rizvan Chitigov was killed by Moscow-backed Chechen forces in the Shalinsky district. On the same day, police Lieutenant-Colonel Movsredin Kantayev, the head of an operational-investigative bureau of the Russian Interior Ministry, was found dead with gunshot wounds near the village of Petropavlovskaya in the Grozny Rural District. The FSB suspected that Chitigov had been maintaining ties with foreign intelligence services and was himself a CIA agent, former FSB spokesman Aleksandr Zdanovich said in April 2001. [17]

• May 15 - During a raid in a suburb of Grozny, Russian forces killed 4 militants, including Vakha Arsanov, former vice president of the rebel Chechen government; however, according to the Russian media reports confirmed by a rebel announcement in February, Arsanov was already detained by January 16 by republican OMON in Grozny. [18] Arsanov, a former Soviet traffic police officer, commanded a unit during the first 1994-96 Chechen war; in January 2001 Maskhadov fired Arsanov as vice president for not fighting federal troops. Also on May 15, the Chechen guerrilla commander Danilbek Eskiyev was killed in the village of Gerzel in the Gudermessky district, Russian sources reported.

• May 17 - Senior rebel leader Alash Daudov and 3 associates were killed by the OSNAZ FSB in Grozny. Daudov, a former police official, was accused of complicity in the mass hostage takings, as well as attacks on police in the Chechen capital Grozny and neighbouring Ingushetia in 2004, and was planning "a series of terrorist acts using strong poisons", said Major-General Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for Russian forces in Chechnya; both sides routinely accuse each other of chemical attacks. On the same day the Special Forces also announced the killing of Rasul Tambulatov, militant commander for Chechnya's Shelkovsky District, and the capture of 5 of his associates who they said were specialists in bomb making and bomb planting.

• April 15 - A fierce skirmish took place between Chechen guerrillas and Russian elite forces in Grozny's Leninsky district. According to official sources, 6 Chechen fighters from Doku Umarov's group and 4 OSNAZ soldiers were killed. There were some civilian casualties. According to some sources, personal guards of Shakhab Mukuev, the head of Vedensky ROVD (Regional Department of Internal Affairs), were also killed.

• July 19 - 11 policemen, a local FSB agent and 3 civilians were killed when a booby-trapped police vehicle was blown up in the northwestern Chechen village of Znamenskoye. Nearly 30 others were injured. The initial firefight was designed to draw more policemen to the scene and maximize casualties with an explosion.

• August 14 - When Russian troops came to the aid of a local official whose home was under attack by rebels, a land mine exploded, killing Colonel Aleksandr Kayak, the commander of the Urus-Martan area, and 4 other soldiers. The administrator's house burned to the ground, but he was not hurt, Interfax reported.

• September 15 - A gun battle between police and Chechen separatists barricaded in a building in Argun led to the deaths of 5 Russian and Chechen police officers and 5 Chechen rebels, while 3 other servicemen were killed and 5 wounded in the rebels attacks. [19]

• September 19 - Akhmed Avtorkhanov, former head of security for rebel President Aslan Maskhadov, was killed in Chechnya. The Russian government claims he was killed by Shamil Basaev in a dispute over money, while the Chechen rebels claim he was killed by the Russians. President Putin called Avtorkhanov's death "a turning point", since according to him Avtorkhanov was the last nationalist rebel leader, and the remaining leaders of the Chechen resistance are radical Islamists who will not receive as much support among the local people. On the same day, 7 Russian soldiers died and at least 10 were injured fighting militants near the village of Bugovroi; 2 other soldiers died and 4 were injured during attacks on federal troop positions. [20]

2006

• February 8 - At least 13 Russian Army SPETSNAZ troops were killed and 22 injured in explosion at Russian military barracks near Grozny; 43 servicemen were believed to have been inside the building at the time of the explosion. Officials say a gas leak was the most likely cause but do not rule out other theories; a news item on a Chechen rebel website reported on the gas explosion theory with scepticism but did not suggest outright that militants had targeted it.

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Rebels in Chechnya

• May 17 - An army special forces convoy came under small arms fire on the outskirts of the village of Nikikhita in the Kurchaloi district of Chechnya; 5 servicemen were killed, and 6 others sustained injuries. A rebel website confirmed these numbers; also reported an ambush near Vedeno the day before, claiming the elimination of another five Russians and many wounded. According to the rebel sources, insurgent attacks reached a long-time peak during the first week of May, with 98 Russian servicemen killed or wounded during that time throughout Chechen territory; according to media monitoring by website voinenet.ru, clashes killed at least 41 and injured 59 people in the fortnight to May 17.

• May 23 - 4 intelligence officers were killed and 3 others including Major General Yury Sabanin wounded when about 15 guerillas attacked an Interior Troops post in Vedeno district, Interfax reported.

• June 17 - Abdul-Halim Sadulayev, a Chechen rebel President since the death of Maskhadov, was killed by the FSB and pro-Moscow paramilitaries and in Argun; his bodyguards escaped. Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian FSB, said in Moscow that one federal agent and one local militia officer also died in the gunfight, while 5 others were wounded. The killing of Saidullayev was trumpeted by leaders of the Moscow-backed official government of the province, claiming that rebel forces there had "been dealt a decisive blow from which they will never recover."

• July 4 - Gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers attacked a Russian defense ministry's motorized column from forest near the village of Avtury, killing 7 servicemen and wounding as many as 25 others, the Interfax news agency reported. [21] Pro-rebel websites claimed more than 20 soldiers were killed; they said the attack was a "meticulously planned act of revenge" for Sadulayev's death. On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the term "combat operations" can no longer be used with regards to Chechnya. "The army in Chechnya is in its barracks, the troops are quartered on a permanent basis and are doing the same thing they do in other Russian territories," he said.

• July 10 - The head of the Russian FSB service, Nikolai Patrushev, announced the death of Shamil Basayev in a "special operation" in the Russian region of Ingushetia, near Chechnya. Chechen rebel website Kavkaz Center later confirmed his death, though they reported a CRI representative as saying "there was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds according to Allah's will." Basayev was killed when a KamAZ truck carrying 220 lbs of explosives exploded in his convoy; three other militants were killed along with him. [22] [23]

Air war

In October 1999, at the beginning of the invasion of Chechnya, Russia was able to deploy in the war zone only 68 transport and attack helicopters – a quarter of the number amassed for the war in Afghanistan, though the number of troops sent to Afghanistan and the second Chechen war is roughly the same.

• August 9 1999 - Two Mi-8 transport helicopters were hit at Botlikh airfield in Dagestan by anti-tank guided missiles.

• December 13 1999 - Russian Ministry of Defence has officially confirmed the loss of Mi-8 and Mi-24. Both helicopters were searching for the Su-25 plane that crashed near the village of Bachi-Yurt earlier.

• February 18 2000 - Russian army transport helicopter was shot down in the south of Chechnya, killing 15 people aboard.

• June 14 2001 - Two Su-25 ground attack aircraft simultaneously disappeared from radar screens while on a combat mission in the area of Shatoi. According to official report, the two aircraft crashed due to low visibility and difficult terrain.

• August 19 2002 - A Russian-made Igla missile hit an overloaded Mi-26 helicopter, causing it to crash in a minefield at the main military base near Grozny. A total of 127 Russian troops were killed in Khankala attack, the greatest loss of life in the history of helicopter aviation.

• November 3 2002 - Chechen rebels shot down a Russian military helicopter, killing 9 servicemen. The Mi-8 helicopter was struck by a ground-to-air missile fired from a building near Grozny.

• March 10 2005 - A state security helicopter carrying members of OSNAZ FSB special-purpose unit as well as the FSB officers from Khabarovsk was downed by gunfire in Urus-Martan district; at least 15 died and 12 others were injured.

• July 16 2005 - A Russian air force Mi-8 helicopter carrying border guards crashed in mountainous southern Chechnya, killing 8 people; one man survived.

According to the official data, Russian forces lost some 31 aircraft destroyed or heavily damaged between September 1999 and July 2001, including a number of fighter bombers. However, this figure does not include the losses suffered in Dagestan.

Assassinations

• May 31 2000 - Sergei Zveryev, Russia's second highest official in Chechnya, was killed by a remote controlled bomb in Grozny. The city Mayor Supyan Makhchayev was injured, and his assistant was also killed.

• April 4 2001 - Adam Deniyev, pro-Russian deputy chief of administration, a reputed gangster and militia leader, died from head injuries in the bomb blast at the Avtury TV studio during a live television preaching session. Adam Deniyev had competed in Chechnya's 1996 presidential elections, won by Aslan Maskhadov, and he was named as a suspect in a 1999 US State Department report in the murder of six Spanish Red Cross nurses. His brother Gazimagomed was killed in Moscow the previous month.

• October 17 2001 - A Chechen missile shot down a VIP Mi-8 helicopter over Grozny, killing all aboard. The helicopter was carrying Major-General Anatoli Pozdnyakov, member of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Major-General Pavel Varfolomeyev, deputy director of staff of the Russian Defence Ministry, 8 Colonels, and 3 crewmembers.

• November 29 2001 - In Urus-Martan, a young Chechen woman, Elza Gazuyeva, carried out an assassination attempt on the Russian military district commandant, General Geydar Gadzhiev, blowing herself up with a hand grenade near a group of Russian soldiers. Gazuyeva had lost a husband, two brothers, and a cousin in the war. Gadzhiev, who was accused of atrocities against civilians by locals, reportedly had personally summoned Elza to witness her husband's torture and execution. He and several other soldiers later died of their wounds.

• January 27 2002 - Another VIP Mi-8 was shot down in the Nadterechny district, killing 11. Among those killed in the crash were Russian deputy Interior Minister Lieutenant-General Mikhail Rudchenko, responsible for security in the Southern Federal District, and deputy commander of the Interior Troops Major-General Nikolai Goridov, as well as several other high-ranking officers.

• March 19 2002 - One of the leaders of the radical wing of the Chechen resistance, the influential Jordanian volunteer, Amir Khattab, was killed by a poisoned letter in an operation by the FSB. The messenger, a Dagestani double agent Ibragim, was reportedly tracked down and killed a month later in Azerbaijan on Basayev's orders. [24]

• November 16 2002 - Lieutenant-General Igor Shifrin, head of the army's Glavspetzstroi (Chief Special Construction Directorate), was killed in Grozny when his and another vehicle came under fire. During the unsuccessful manhunt for the killers of the general, two policemen were killed and two more were wounded.

• June 25 2004 - A former top official in Chechnya’s pro-Moscow administration, Lieutenant-General Yan Sergunin, was shot point-blank and killed by a gunman on a motorcycle in downtown Moscow. Sergunin served as Chechnya’s Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff for the late Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, between 2001 and 2003.

• February 13 2004 - The former Chechen President, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, was assassinated by a car bomb in Qatar. The Russian government denied involvement in the attack by blaming infighting among rebel factions and a dispute over money. Moscow had, at the time, been involved in a bid to extradite Yandarbiyev to Russia to face terrorism-related charges. A Qatari court convicted two Russian government Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) agents in the bombing.

Assassination of Kadyrov

• May 9 2004 - Pro-Russian President Akhmad Kadyrov was assassinated in a substantial bomb blast inside of a Grozny football stadium during the celebration of Russian Victory Day. A number of other top government and military officials were killed or injured in the attack including: The Chairman of the State Council of Chechnya, Hussein Isayev, the military commander in the North Caucasus, Colonel-General Valery Baranov, the Chechen interior minister, Alu Alkhanov and the military commandant of Chechnya, Major-General Grigory Fomenko. In all, thirteen persons in the VIP stand were killed, and fifty-three were wounded. Kadyrov had survived at least three preceding bomb attacks: one on his Grozny headquarters in 2002, one by a pair of female suicide bombers at a religious festival in Iliskhan-Yurt on May 14, 2003, and another by a young shakhidka , Mariam Tashukhadzhiyeva, in Grozny few weeks later. His successor, acting President Sergei Abramov, was targeted by yet another bombing in July of 2004 which he survived.

• May 17 2006 - An explosion in Ingushetia killed seven people including among them the republic’s police chief and acting first deputy Interior Minister Dzhabrail Kostoyev. The explosion was so powerful that his armoured SUV was thrown twenty meters by the blast. The attack in Nazran was presumably committed with a car loaded with remote detonated explosives. On April 7 2004, President Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB general, was lightly injured by a suicide car bomb, and he was saved by the armour plating of his Mercedes-Benz. On August 26 2005, Prime Minister Ibragim Malsagov was wounded in a double bomb attack on his motorcade in Nazran which killed his driver. Dzhabrail Kostoyev himself had earlier become the target of several assassination attempts involving bomb and mortar attacks.

• June 9 2006 - Two pro-Kremlin officials were assassinated minutes apart in Ingushetia by gunmen wearing black uniforms, berets, and masks. The assassinations appeared to be another round of carefully timed attacks against the government. First, Galina Gubina, an administrator responsible for helping ethnic Russian families resettle in the region was gunned down. Then, Musa Nalgiyev, the commander of Ingushetia's OMON riot police, was killed as he drove his three young children to school. Nalgiyev's children were also killed, as were the commander's two guards. In recent weeks, rebels in Ingushetia have also kidnapped Magomed Chakhiyev, a lawmaker and the father-in-law of President Murat Zyazikov, and they have attempted to kill Health Minister Magomed Aliskhanov. Galina Gubina earlier escaped an attempt on her life two years ago when a bomb went off under Gubina's car, severely wounding her.

Suicide attacks

Between June 2000 and September 2004 Chechen insurgents added suicide bombs to their weaponry. Among the attacks:

• June 2000 - On June 6, Chechnya experienced its first suicide bombing when a young woman Khava Barayeva drove a truck loaded with explosives through a checkpoint of an OMON base at Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya; she detonated her bomb outside barracks, killing 2 to 27 soldiers. Another "suicide operation" was carried on June 11 at a checkpoint in Khankala by a former Russian soldier who had converted to Islam and joined the rebels; this explosion killed two OMON officers.

• July 2-July 3 2000 - Chechen guerrillas launch five suicide bomb attacks on bases of Russian security forces within 24 hours. In the deadliest, at least 54 people are killed at OMON dormitory in Argun, near Grozny. The Russian interior ministry for Chechnya based in Gudermes is also targeted; 6 Russian troops are killed. In all, attacks left more than 100 Russian servicemen dead or wounded.

• December 2001 - A suicide truck bomb driven by a 15-year-old Chechen girl was stopped by gunfire, as it smashed through checkpoints and blockposts on its way to a MVD building in Grozny.

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Government headquarters bombing

• December 27 2002 - Chechen suicide bombers ran vehicles into the republic's government headquarters in Grozny, bringing down the roof and floors of the four-storey building. The drivers wore federal military uniforms and carried official passes which allowed them through three successive military checkpoints on their way to the headquarters building; a guard at the fourth and final checkpoint attempted to inspect the vehicles, and began firing on the trucks as they drove through the checkpoint towards the building. Chechen officials said about 80 people were killed, and Basayev claimed responsibility for a planning and execution of the attack.

• May 12 2003 - Two suicide bombers drove a truck full of explosives into a government administration and security complex including republican FSB headquarters in Znamenskoye, in northern Chechnya; 59 people were killed, including a number of civilians.

• June 5 2003 - A female suicide bomber ambushed a bus carrying Russian Air Force pilots in North Ossetia, blowing it up and killing herself and 18 other people.

• August 1 2003 - A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives blew up a military hospital in the town of Mozdok in North Ossetia, bordering Chechnya. The blast killed at least 50.

Georgia

Russian officials have accused the bordering republic of Georgia of allowing Chechen rebels to operate out of Georgian territory, and permitting the flow of guerillas and materiel across the Georgian border with Russia.

• On October 8 2001, a UNOMIG helicopter carrying observers was shot down in Georgia in Kodori Gorge, near Abkhazia, and all nine people on board were killed. [25] Georgia denied having troops in the area, and the suspicion fell on the armed group headed by Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev, who was speculated to have been hired by the Georgian government to wage war against separatist Abkhazia. [26]

• In February 2002, the United States began offering assistance to Georgia in combating alleged Arab mujahadeen activity as part of the "War on Terrorism".

• In August 2002, Georgia accused Russia of a series of secret air strikes on purported rebel havens in the Pankisi Gorge. A Georgian civilian was killed.

• On March 2 2004, following a number of raids from Georgia into Chechnya, Ingushetia, Abkhazia, and Dagestan, Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev was killed in a clash with Russian border guards while trying to cross from Russia into Georgia.

Unilateral ceasefire and death of Maskhadov

On February 2 2005, Chechen rebel president Aslan Maskhadov issued a call for a ceasefire lasting until at least February 22: the day preceding the anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechen population. The call was issued through a separatist website and addressed to President Putin, described as a gesture of goodwill.

But on March 8 2005, Maskhadov was "liquidated" in an operation by Russian security forces in the Chechen community of Tolstoy-Yurt, northeast of Grozny, and branded an "international terrorist."

Shortly following Maskhadov's death, the Chechen rebel council announced that Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev had assumed the leadership, a move that was quickly endorsed by Shamil Basayev. On February 2 2006 Sadulayev made large-scale changes in his government, ordering all its members to move into Chechen territory. Among other things, he removed First Vice-Premier Akhmed Zakayev from his post (although later Zakayev was appointed a Foreign Minister [27]).

Sadulayev himself was killed in June 2006, after which he was succeeded as the rebel leader by the veteran guerilla commander Doku Umarov.

Radicalisation of the Chechen insurgents

The Chechen insurgents are becoming more and more radicalised. Former Soviet army officers General Djokhar Dudaev and Colonel Aslan Maskhadov, have been succeeded by people who rely more and more on the religious feelings rather than the nationalistic feelings of the population. While Dudaev and Maskhadov were seeking from Moscow recognition of the independence of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria, Sadulaev and Basaev speak out more and more about the need to expel Russia from the territory of the whole North Caucasus, an impoverished mountain region inhabited mostly by Muslim, non-Russian ethnic groups.

In April 2006, asked whether negotiations with Russians are possible, the top rebel commander and then-new Vice-President Doku Umarov answered:

"We offered them many times. But it turned out that we constantly press for negotiations and it's as if we are always standing with an extended hand and this is taken as a sign of our weakness. Therefore we don't plan to do this any more. And the reshuffle of the [rebel] Cabinet of Ministers is connected to this."

In the same month, the new rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov said that attacks should be expected anywhere in Russia in 2006: "The minimum goal -- not to surrender -- has been met. Today, we have a different task on our hands -- total war, war everywhere our enemy can be reached. (...) And this means mounting attacks at any place, not just in the Caucasus but in all Russia." It was not clear whether Udugov meant a return to the type of terrorist acts, not seen since 2004, or military style operations. Reflecting growing radicalization of the Chechen-led guerrillas, Udugov said their goal was no longer Western-style democracy and independence, but an Islamist "North Caucasian Emirate."

But regardless of goals and tasks announced by the current leaders of the separatists, the insurgents continue to enjoy the support of a significant part of the population of the Chechen Republic.

Caucasus Front

In May 2005, two months after Maskahdov's death, the Chechen separatists announced that they had formed a Caucasus Front within the framework of "reforming the system of military-political power." Along with the Chechen, Dagestani and Ingush "sectors," the Stavropol, Kabardin-Balkar, Krasnodar, Karachai-Circassian, Ossetian and Adighy "jamaats" were included in it. This, in essence, means that practically all the regions of the Russia's south will be involved in the hostilities.

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Destroyed military vehicle in Nazran after the Ingushetia raid

• In 2004 a force of Chechen and ethnic Ingush rebels carried out a large-scale raid on Ingushetia, led by Shamil Basayev. The overnight attacks targeted 15 official buildings in the former Ingush capital, Nazran, and at least three towns and villages located on the Baku-Rostov highway that crosses the republic from east to west. The raid lasted nearly five hours, and the assailants - said to number 200 to 300 - withdrew almost unscathed; the raiders apparently lost only two men during the attacks. The rebels killed some 80 members of security forces, including the republic's Interior Minister Abukar Kostoyev, his deputy Zyaudin Kotiev, top prosecutors, and other officials; they also captured and looted the MVD's armoury and police depots. A few civilians, including a local United Nations worker, were killed in the crossfire. Federal Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev met with General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the commander of Russia's Interior Ministry forces, and blamed them for the high number of deaths; Tikhomirov decided to resign after the meeting.

• More recently, the local insurgents organized a daylight October 2005 Nalchik attack in Kabardino-Balkaria. The failed insurrection attempt claimed lives of at least 90 people.

The Chechen separatist movement has taken on a new role as the official ideological, logistical and, probably, financial hub of the new insurgency in the North Caucasus. Increasingly frequent clashes between federal forces and local militants continue in Dagestan, while sporadic fighting erupts in the other southern Russia regions, most notably in Ingushetia.

Restoration of federal government

Government of Akhmad Kadyrov

Russian President Vladimir Putin established direct rule of Chechnya in May 2000. The following month, Putin appointed Akhmad Kadyrov interim head of the government.

Constitution

On March 23 2003, a new Chechen constitution was passed in a referendum. The 2003 Constitution granted the Chechen Republic a significant degree of autonomy, but still tied it firmly to the Russian Federation and Moscow's rule; the new constitution went into force on April 2 2003. The referendum was strongly supported by the Russian government but met a harsh critical response from Chechen separatists. Many citizens chose to boycott the ballot.

The international opinion was mixed, as enthusiasm for the prospect of peace and stability in the region was tempered by concerns about the conduct of the referendum and fears of a violent backlash. Chief among the concerns are the 40,000 Russian soldiers that were included in the eligible voters' list (out of approximately 540,000). No independent international organization (neither the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) nor the United Nations) officially observed the voting, but observers from Organization of the Islamic Conference, League of Arab States, CIS, Muslim countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Yemen, Oman et al.) have recognized a referendum "free and democratic." The OSCE, the United States State Department, and the United Kingdom's Foreign Office all questioned the wisdom of holding the referendum while the region was still unsettled.

Elections

• 2003 presidential elections

On October 5 2003, presidential elections were held in Chechnya under the auspices of the March constitution. As with the constitutional referendum, the OSCE and other international organizations did not send observers to monitor proceedings. The Kremlin-supported candidate Akhmat Kadyrov earned a commanding majority, taking about eighty percent of the vote. Critics of the 2003 election argue that separatist Chechens were barred from running, and that Kadyrov used his private militia to actively discourage political opponents.

• 2004 presidential elections

At night on August 21 2004, a week before the appointed elections of the President of the Chechen Republic, large-scale military operation was carried out by Chechen fighters in the capital city of Grozny, targeting polling stations and other government targets. The Kremlin-backed Militsiya General Alu Alkhanov was reported to have won the elections with almost 74%, with over 85% of the people having voted according to Chechen elections commissions head Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov. [28]

• 2005 parliamentary elections

The latest Chechen elections were held in November 2005. The independent observers said that there were plenty of Russian troops and more journalists than voters at polling stations. Lord Judd, a former Council of Europe special reporter on Chechnya, regarded the elections as flawed; "I simply do not believe we will have stability, peace and a viable future for the Chechen people until we have a real political process," he said. [29] The candidates all belonged to Moscow-based parties and were loyal to Chechnya's Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov. [30]

Government of Ramzan Kadyrov

Since December 2005, the pro-Moscow militia leader Ramzan Kadyrov is functioning as the Chechnya's prime minister and the republic's de-facto ruler. Kadyrov, whose irregular forces are accused of carrying out many of the abductions and atrocities; has become Chechnya's most powerful leader since the 2004 assassination of his father Akhmat.

The 29-year-old was elevated to full-time premier in March 2006, in charge of an administration that is a collection of his allies and teip (clan) members. Same month, the Ramzan Kadyrov government officially took control of Chechnya's oil industry and rejected a federal proposition of the republican budget, demanding much more money to be sent from Moscow; for years, Chechnya was know as a Russia's "financial black hole" where the funds are widely embezzled and tend to vanish without trace. On March 30, 2006, Interfax reported Chechen People's Assembly Chairman Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov has spoken in favour of a complete withdrawal of all Russian federal forces except the border guards.

In April 2006 Kadyrov himself criticized remaining units of federal police, namely Operational/Search Bureau (ORB-2), and called for their immediate withdrawal from the republic. He also called for refugee camps scattered about Chechnya to be closed down, saying they were populated by "international spies" intent on destabilizing the region. Later this month, Abdurakhmanov said Chechnya should be merged with Ingushetia and Dagestan; Ingush and Dagestani leaders disagreed. Paradoxically, a merger would reflect the will of Chechen separatists of establishing an Islamic state across the North Caucasus.

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Ramzan Kadyrov (centre) with the Kadyrovtsy, after a rebel attack on Tsentoroi.

On April 29 2006, after a deadly clash between Kadyrov's and Alkhanov's men in Grozny, Ramzan Kadyrov officially disbanded his security service. Kadyrovtsy, an irregular army of thousands of former rebels, have been pivotal in supporting Kadyrov. Rights activists working in Chechnya say the Kadyrovtsy abused their powers to crush any rivals to Kadyrov; they have repeatedly accused Kadyrov's personal guard of using kidnapping, murder and torture to cement his rule. On May 2 2006, representatives of European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), the Council of Europe's anti-torture watchdog, said they were prevented from entering the fortress of Ramzan Kadyrov, the alleged site of prisoner abuse; rights activists claim that prisoners and kidnap victims are tortured in secret jails in Chechen villages, including Tsentoroi, the ancestral home of the Kadyrov clan.

Islamization

In 2006 Kadyrov has also started to create laws he says are more suitable to Chechnya's Islamic heritage -- banning alcohol and gambling on January 20, and enforcing women's use of headscarves -- in defiance of Russia's secular constitution. He also publicly spoke in favor of polygamy on January 13, and declared that lessons in the Koran and Sharia should be obligatory at Chechen schools. On February 11, Ramzan criticized the republican media for broadcasting immoral programs and officially introduced censorship in Chechnya. Because of the cartoon scandal that shook the whole Muslim world, Kadyrov issued a brief ban on the Danish Refugee Council, the most active humanitarian organization in Caucasus.

On June 1 Moscow-backed Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said he would prefer his republic be governed by Sharia law and suggested adapting the Islamic code, speaking in Paris after inconclusive talks with the Council of Europe. "If Chechnya were run by Sharia law, it would not look as it does today." Alkhanov also dismissed reports of conflicts with Kadyrov, who is widely believed to want to take over the presidency when he turns 30 in October and can legally assume the job.

War crimes

Russian officials and Chechen rebels have regularly and repeatedly accused the opposing side of committing various war crimes including kidnapping, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, and assorted other breaches of the laws of war. International and humanitarian organizations, including the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, have criticized both sides of the conflict for blatant and sustained violations of international humanitarian law. Russian rights groups estimate there have been 3,000-5,000 disappearances in Chechnya since 1999. They say Russian troops have used abduction, rape and torture as weapons there and that the government has done too little to punish those responsible. [31]

US Secretary Madeleine Albright noted in her March 24 2000, speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights:

We cannot ignore the fact that thousands of Chechen civilians have died and more than 200,000 have been driven from their homes. Together with other delegations, we have expressed our alarm at the persistent, credible reports of human rights violations by Russian forces in Chechnya, including extrajudicial killings. There are also reports that Chechen separatists have committed abuses, including the killing of civilians and prisoners. ... The war in Chechnya has greatly damaged Russia's international standing and is isolating Russia from the international community. Russia's work to repair that damage, both at home and abroad, or its choice to risk further isolating itself, is the most immediate and momentous challenge that Russia faces. [32]

According to the 2001 annual report by Amnesty International:

There were frequent reports that Russian forces indiscriminately bombed and shelled civilian areas. Chechen civilians, including medical personnel, continued to be the target of military attacks by Russian forces. Hundreds of Chechen civilians and prisoners of war were extra judicially executed. Journalists and independent monitors continued to be refused access to Chechnya. According to reports, Chechen fighters frequently threatened, and in some cases killed, members of the Russian-appointed civilian administration and executed Russian captured soldiers. [33]

In 2001 the Holocaust Memorial Museum has placed Chechnya on its Genocide Watch List. [34]

Forced disappearances

Human rights campaigners estimate that since 1999 - the start of the second Chechen conflict - as many as 5,000 people have disappeared and are feared dead. [35]

• In March 2001 Human Rights Watch issued the report titled The "Dirty War" in Chechnya [36], which called the "disappearances" of detainees in the custody of Russian federal forces in Chechnya a major human rights crisis that the international community must address.

• On March 31 2003, Akhmad Kadyrov, the head of the pro-Moscow administration of the Chechen Republic, has suggested that Russian federal forces are behind breaking into homes at night and abducting people. "People continue to go missing in Chechnya. They are taken away in the middle of the night. Their bodies are not found and they are never seen again," Kadyrov said to reporters in Grozny. "Through their crimes, they maintain tension in the republic, and their hands are stained with the blood of innocent people. The force is made up of kidnappers in armoured vehicles. They are a death squad." But according to many journalists and experts on Chechnya, many such abductions are the work of Chechen security police headed by his son, Ramzan Kadyrov.

• According to Amnesty International in 2005, Russian officials give about 2,000 as the official figure for "disappearances" since late 1999. [37]

• On February 25-February 26 2006, Alvaro Gil-Robles, resigning Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Chechnya, together with his successor, Thomas Hammarberg; they criticized abductions, impunity and lack of security in Chechnya. On March 2, 2006, Chechen ombudsman Nurdi Nukhadzhiyev stated the problem of forced disappearances of people in Chechnya cannot be solved by local authorities, adding that a special commission has to be created on the federal level.

• On May 12 2006, Dmitry Grushkin of the Memorial human rights group told Interfax that at least 1,893 residents of Chechnya have been kidnapped since 2002; of those, he said, 653 were found alive, 186 were found dead, and 1,023 "disappeared". Memorial monitors kidnappings for only 25-30 percent of Chechen territory.

Massacre incidents

• On October 5 1999, a bus filled with refugees reportedly was shelled by a Russian tank in Chechnya, killing as many as 40 civilians and wounding several others. [38]

• On October 7 1999 federal forces carried out a rocket and bomb attack on the village of Elistanzhy in the Vedeno district. Within several minutes 27 people were killed; among them only eight were men of the "fighting age", meaning aged 14 to 60. In the next two weeks 21 more wounded died of their wounds.

• On October 21 1999, US satellites (reportedly the Defense Support Program) tracked several Russian short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Russian city of Mozdok some 60 miles northeast of Grozny. The missiles, believed by western intelligence analysts to have been SS-21 Scarabs [39] and carrying cluster munitions warheads, hit the crowded Grozny central marketplace and other targets; in all, at least 143 persons were killed in the attack. One of the missiles blew up over the courtyard of the only functioning maternity hospital in Grozny, killing 28 women and newborn babies and 7 other people. Another rocket hit the mosque in the village of Kalinin, killing 41 of 60 people who gathered for prayer.

• In early December 1999, Russian troops under command of general Vladimir Shamanov killed some 41 civilians during two-week drunken rampage in the village of Alkhan-Yurt, near Grozny. [40] Nearly all of the killings committed by Russian soldiers in Alkhan-Yurt were reportedly carried out by soldiers who were looting; many other civilians who attempted to stop the looting were threatened with death by Russian soldiers, and narrowly escaped execution. At least three women are believed to have been raped.[41]

• Between late December 1999 and mid-January 2000 Russian soldiers summarily executed at least 38 civilians in the Staropromyslovski district of Grozny, according to survivors and eyewitnesses. Most of the victims were women and elderly men, and all appear to have been deliberately shot by Russian soldiers at close range; 6 men from the district who were last seen in Russian custody "disappeared" during this same period and remain unaccounted for. [42]

• In February 2000, the frustrated Russian troops who entered the pulverized Grozny appeared to have taken out their wrath on the surviving inhabitants who emerged from basements and cellars. A particularly brutal massacre was carried out on February 5 in the suburb of Novye Aldi, where suspected members of OMON from St Petersburg and contract soldiers summarily executed at least 60 civilians, both Chechens and Russians, including children and elderly people. The killings were accompanied by acts of robbery and arson. [43]

• On February 4 2000, in an attempt to stop the Chechen retreat, Russian forces bombed the village of Katyr-Yurt, and then a civilian white-flag convoy, when up to 20,000 refugees desperately fled an intense bombardment there that commenced following the arrival of large numbers of fighters in the village. The bombing lasted for two days and at least 170 civilians died while many more were injured; according to the later reports 343 people were killed. [44]

Terrorist bombings

• May 8 2002 - An explosion of a Russian-made antipersonnel mine in the Dagestani town of Kaspiysk killed and wounded some 200 soldiers and civilian bystanders during a military parade. By 12 May, this toll had totalled 42 dead (17 of them children) and 130 wounded; only 19 of the dead were Russian Marines. A Dagestani pro-Chechen group blamed for an attack had previously killed seven Russian soldiers on 18 January 2001, in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala. Several Russian officers from the garrison of the nearby Dagestani town of Buynaksk were accused of selling the radio-controlled MON-90 mine that was used in the attack, and were put on trial in January 2003.

• July 5 2003 - Two young Chechen girls were stopped by security guards at separate entrances outside a rock festival at the Tushino airfield near Moscow, and detonated their explosives, killing 15 people. For many observers, the Tushino suicide attacks appeared out of place. The bombings marked the first time that Chechen separatists had attacked Russian civilians with no apparent motive; there were no demands or political aims, not even a claim of responsibility.

• December 5-December 10 2003 - A shrapnel-filled bomb believed strapped to a lone male suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter train near Chechnya, killing 44 people and wounding nearly 200. The explosion occurred during a busy morning rush hour when the train was loaded with many students and workers; it ripped the side of the train open as it approached a station near Yessentuki, 750 miles south of Moscow. Only five days later another blast shook Russia -- this time the attack occurred in the very centre of Moscow a female suicide bomber set off explosives near the Kremlin and State Duma; the bomber used suicide belts packed with ball bearings to kill 6 people and injure another 44. Shamil Basayev later claimed responsibility for organising the December 2003 attacks.

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Moscow metro bombing

• February 6 2004 - A bomb ripped through a Moscow metro car during rush hour morning, killing 39 people and wounding 134. A previously unknown Chechen rebel group claimed responsibility for the bombing; the claim came from a group calling itself Gazoton Murdash, led by Lom-Ali ("Ali the Lion"). According to the statement, the group launched the attack to mark the fourth anniversary of the killing of scores of Chechen civilians by Russian soldiers who took control of the Chechen capital Grozny.

• August 27 2004 - Officials said two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously on August 24 were brought down by bombs after finding traces of explosives in the planes' wreckages. An Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in which 90 people died in a Web statement. Chechen women Amanta Nagayeva (30) and Satsita Dzhebirkhanova (37), who lived in an apartment in Grozny, had purchased their tickets at the last minute; Nagayeva's brother disappeared three years ago and the family believed he was abducted by Russian forces.

• June 12 2005 - A bomb planted by a Russian nationalist extremists, said to be veterans of the Chechen wars belonging to the Russian National Unity group, derailed the Grozny-Moscow passenger train some 150 kilometers south of the Russian capital. Dozens of people were injured, but only eight hospitalized; on May 30, 2006 suspects Vladimir Vlasov and Mikhail Klevachyov have been charged with terrorism and attempting to commit murder motivated by ethnic or religious hatred.

Outside mediation councils

Council of Europe

• In October 2004, the European Court of Human Rights agreed to try cases brought by Chechen civilians against the Russian government.

The first trial concluded in February 2005. The Court ruled that the Russian government violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including a clause on the protection of property, a guarantee of the right to life, and a ban on torture and inhumane or degrading treatment, and ordered the Russian government to pay compensation to the six plaintiffs of the case. [45]

The cases concerned the Russian federal forces' indiscriminate aerial bombing of a civilian convoy of refugees fleeing Grozny in October 1999; the "disappearance" and subsequent extrajudicial execution of five individuals in Grozny in January 2000; and the indiscriminate aerial and artillery bombardment of the village of Katyr-Yurt in February 2000. The compensations were not paid, NGOs claim that applicants to the court are met with repressions, including murders and disappearance.[46]

• In June 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) examined Russia's progress in honouring the obligations and commitments it undertook on joining the Council of Europe in 1996. PACE passed a resolution which stated that there had been very little progress in relation to the obligation to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations. The resolution called on the Russian authorities to "take effective action to put an immediate end to the ongoing 'disappearances', torture, arbitrary detentions, detention in illegal and secret facilities, and unlawful killings" reported in Chechnya.

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General Baranov (left) ordering a summary execution of Yandiyev (right). (CNN)

• In summer 2006 the European Court on Human Rights decides the first cases concerning forced disappearances from Chechnya. Decisions by the European Court might play an important role in changing Chechnya's terrible human rights situation. More than 100 disappearance cases related to Chechnya are pending in the court. [47]

The cases included one where the court ordered Russia to pay 35,000 euros to the mother of Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev for violating her son's "right to life" as well as failing "to conduct an effective investigation" into his February 2000 disappearance. Key evidence in the case, according to court documents, was video footage filmed by a reporter for NTV and CNN television [48] showing an army officer, later identified by CNN reporters as Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, ordering soldiers to "finish off" and "shoot" Yandiyev. Baranov has since been promoted and awarded a Hero of Russia medal and is now responsible for all Defense Ministry forces in the North Caucasus. [49]

• The June 9 2006 PACE report by Dick Marty "It is hardly possible to speak of secret detention centres in Council of Europe member states without mentioning Chechnya. Mr Bindig's very recent report also notes not only numerous cases of forced disappearance and torture, but also the existence of secret places of detention." [50] It quoted "Damning recent accounts by witnesses."

United Nations

• A resolution adopted in April 2000 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) called for Russia, among other things, to establish a "national broad-based and independent commission of inquiry" into abuse, with a view to bringing perpetrators to justice and preventing impunity. [51] However, Russia has not fulfilled the resolution's requirements.

• On April 20 2001, the UNHCR adopted another resolution condemning human rights violations in Chechnya perpetrated by federal forces, citing "forced disappearances, extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, torture, and other inhuman and degrading treatment." The resolution called on Russia to "ensure that both civilian and military prosecutor's offices undertake systematic, credible and exhaustive criminal investigations and prosecutions" of all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. It reiterated its requirement, also made in 2000 resolution, for Russia to establish a national commission of inquiry to investigate crimes in Chechnya; despite Russia's failure to create such a commission or ensure effective prosecutions after the 2000 resolution, the commission declined to call for the creation of an international commission of inquiry. [52]

• In April 2004 the Commission rejected another resolution on Chechnya. 23 of 53 countries voted against the resolution, while 12 countries voted for the resolution - mainly European Union countries. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said "all attempts to depict the situation in Chechnya as a human rights problem have been unrealistic." [53]

• On February 22 2006, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said she was deeply shocked by accounts of torture and kidnappings in Chechnya. She recommended the creation of an independent body to investigate crimes committed during the war. [54]

• On March 30, Manfred Nowak, the United Nations investigator on torture said that Moscow had agreed to let him visit Russia, including the troubled region -- the first such trip by a UN torture envoy in more than a decade. [55]

Events in Russia

Trials of Chechen fighters

Since the Russian authorities do not treat the war as an armed conflict and enemies as combatants, the secessionist Chechen fighters are invariably described by the Russian government as terrorists or bandits. Captured rebels are routinely tried for such articles of the Russian criminal code as illegal weapons possession, "forming and participating in illegal armed groups," and banditry. This strips detainees of key rights and protections under the Geneva Conventions rules of war, including the right to be released at the end of the conflict and not to be held criminally liable for lawful combat. Participation in combat is treated as a murder or attempted murder and terrorism, making little if any distinction with incidents of actual murders and terrorism.

• One of the earliest war crimes trials to be held was that of Salman Raduyev, a notorious former field commander for the rebel Chechen forces. Raduyev was convicted in December 2001 of terrorism and murder charges and sentenced for life. He died in a Russian prison colony a year later. [56]

• On February 21 2001, a Chechen field commander Salautdin Temirbulatov has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering 4 Russian contract soldiers whose execution in 1996 was filmed on a video tape. When Russia invaded Chechnya for a second time in September 1999, the video became a powerful weapon in the Kremlin's propaganda war, as it was shown to soldiers preparing for active service in the war-torn republic. [57] Temirbulatov was also accused of terrorism and "abducting" Russian special unit servicemen taken prisoner during their raid into Chechnya in 1997. [58]

Trials of Russian servicemen

The cases of a Russian servicemen being tried for a war crimes are few and in between, and no one has been charged with mistreatment or murder of captured enemy fighters. Several servicemen have been accused and even convicted of a crimes against civilians:

• In 2003 Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov was sentenced for the abduction and murder of Elza Kungaeva, a Chechen woman whom Budanov claimed was aiding a group of Chechen rebels who were attacking his unit. Legal proceedings against Budanov, who underwent several retrials, lasted a total of 2 years and 3 months. [59] Budanov was commanding a tank regiment, and is a recipient of the Hero of Russia medal. The subordinates of Colonel Budanov have testified that a fellow soldier mutilated the victim's body before burying it [60]. The soldier, mechanic Alexander Yegorov, was amnestied, honourably discharged, and even awarded with Order for Service to the Motherland. [61]

• On April 29 2004, a Russian court in Rostov-on-Don acquitted 4 GRU special purpose unit officers of the shooting dead 6 Chechen civilians. In an incident in January 2000, Captain Eduard Ulman's unit killed a civilian and subsequently extra-judicially executed 5 more, including a disabled woman, with silenced weapons; the troops then burned the bodies. They were again found not guilty in a re-trial on May 19 2005, although the four admitted to the killings, the court ruled that their actions were not punishable as they had been following orders. The acquittals of Captain Ulman and his three subordinates sparked public outrage in Chechnya, where rights advocates and many Chechens say Russian forces act with impunity.

• On March 29 2005, a court in Grozny found Sergei Lapin "Kadet", a member of the Khanty-Mansyski OMON, guilty of torturing Zelimkhan Murdalov, and sentenced him to 11 years' imprisonment. Murdalov, a civilian, had been detained by police officers in Grozny in January 2002 and subsequently "disappeared"; his whereabouts and fate remained unknown.

• On October 27 2005, Mukhadi Aziyev, company commander of the Vostok (East) SPETSNAZ GRU battalion, was convicted of "exceeding official authority", and given a three-year suspended sentence. In June 2005, 11 men "disappeared" and at least two, including 77-year-old Magomaz Magomazov, were murdered during a raid by the Vostok battalion on the village of Borozdinovskaia. The raid prompted a mass exodus over the border to neighbouring Dagestan of the whole population of around 1,000 villagers.

• On April 5 2006, Alexey Krivoshonok, a Russian serviceman, accused of killing 3 Chechen civilians at a roadblock, has admitted his guilt in his final plea. Next day, Krivoshonok, a contract soldier since 1995 whose rank was not disclosed, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the violent murder in a state of alcoholic and narcotic intoxication on November 16, 2005.

• On May 15 2006, the Grozny Garrison Military Circuit Court completed the trial of contract soldier, Private Pavel Zinchuk. Zinchuk was sentenced to 7 years in a general penal colony for shooting and wounding, from "hooligan motives", 3 civilian persons in the village of Staraya Sunzha near Grozny. Zinchuk's case was separated from the triple murder case of Krivoshonok, soldier from the same roadblock.

Hostage takings

The Moscow theater hostage crisis

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Moscow theater hostage takers

On October 23 2002, over 40 militants took more than 700 hostages prisoner at a Moscow theater. The hostage-takers demanded an end to the Russian presence in Chechnya, and threatened to execute the hostages if their conditions were not met. The siege ended violently on October 26, when Russian troops stormed the building. More than one hundred of the hostages perished from the incapacitating effects of knockout gas used by the Russian forces. Many casualties resulted from the fact that unconscious victims' airways were blocked and sub-optimal care was given during the rescue.

Russian officials blamed Maskhadov and Baseyev for the attack; both initially denied responsibility and insist that the attack was the work of independent rebels and terrorists. On November 2 Baseyev recanted his statements, assuming responsibility in a statement on his web site and apologizing to Maskhadov for not informing him of the plan.

The Beslan school siege

On September 1 2004, approximately 30 individuals seized control of Beslan's Middle School Number One and more than 1,000 hostages. Most of the hostages were students under the age of eighteen. Following a tense two-day standoff punctuated by occasional gunfire and explosions, Alpha Group of the OSNAZ raided the building. Fighting lasted more than two hours; ultimately 331 civilians, 11 commandos, and 31 hostage-takers died.

Once again, Russian officials publicly linked Baseyev and Maskhadov to the attack, and Baseyev again claimed responsibility in a September 17 website publication; Maskhadov denounced the attacks and denied involvement. The carnage at Beslan and the outcry it caused has had an unexpected effect on the tactics employed by Chechen rebels and their allies. Since September 2004, neither Chechen nor North Caucasian militants have perpetrated a single hostage-taking or any attacks on civilian targets.

Other hostage incidents

• March 15 2001 - Three Chechens hijacked a Russian Tu-154 plane with 174 people after it left Turkey; they forced a landing in Medina, Saudi Arabia. On March 16, Saudi commandos freed over 100 hostages, killing three people including a hijacker, a female flight attendant and a Turkish passenger. A Russian diplomat in Saudi Arabia said the leader of the hijackers was a "highly-trained military officer who appears to know what he is doing."

• April 22 2001 - In Turkey pro-Chechen gunmen seized up to 100 hostages at a luxury hotel in Istanbul. The standoff involving had lasted nearly 12 hours before the hostage-takers armed with automatic rifles surrendered; police said they had encountered no resistance from the gunmen and there were no reports of anybody being injured. [62]

• October 29 2004 - The State Duma hosted Vladimir Ustinov, head of the Prosecutor General's Office, to discuss the Putin administration's anti-terrorism strategy. As he explained it to the deputies, in future hostage-taking episodes the security agencies would have a formal statutory right to seize and detain the relatives of the suspected hostage-takers. The government would then let the terrorists know that it will do to these "counter-hostages" whatever the terrorists do to their own hostages.

Meanwhile, the practice of taking civilians hostages exists among officers of Russian and local security agencies in Chechnya. On March 1 2004, officers of security agencies seized more than 30 relatives of Ichkerian defence minister Magomed Khambiyev, including women, in the Khambiyev family's native village of Benoy in Chechnya's Nozhay-Yurt district. Magomed Khambiyev got an ultimatum to lay down arms in exchange for lives of his relatives, and he did it giving himself up to the authorities in a few days.

Casualties

Official figures

These figures are not confirmed by serious academic sources or researches.

On 25 May 2000, Chechen militants reported on their website that they have lost 1,380 men since fighting started with Russia in the breakaway republic. Previous week, Russian military officials said they had lost 2,004 soldiers. Casualty figures from both sides are impossible to verify and are generally believed to be higher. [63]

By December 17 2002, the official death toll for federal troops was about 4,705. However, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported on February 17 2003, that some 4,739 were killed in Chechnya in the year 2002 alone, with another 13,108 wounded and 29 missing. [64]

According to the latest figures released by the Russian Defense Ministry on August 10, 2005, 3,450 Russian Army soldiers have been killed in action since 1999. This death toll does not include losses of the Internal Troops, Federal Security Service, Militsiya and all paramilitaries, and according to the figure cited by Interfax in March 2006 more than 1,000 Chechen policemen alone have been killed since 1999.

On June 26 2005, Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, a deputy prime minister in the Kremlin-controlled Chechen administration, said about 300,000 people have been killed during two wars in Chechnya over the past decade; he also said that more than 200,000 people have gone missing. [65] Earlier in 2004, the chairman of Chechnya's State Council, Taus Djabrailov, said over 200,000 people have been killed in the Chechen Republic since 1994. [66]

The Chechen separatist sources cite figures of some 250,000 civilians, and up to 50,000 Russian servicemen, killed during the 1994-2003 period. The rebel side acknowledged about 5,000 Chechen combatants killed as of 1999-2004, mostly in the initial phases of the war.

Independent estimates

Civilian casualty estimates vary widely, but many say about 80,000 civilians - 40 percent of them children - died in the first Chechen war. Many more have been killed since the conflict exploded again in 1999.

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Funeral of a Russian officer

• In 2000 the Russian weekly Nezavisimoye voennoye obozreniye (NVO, Independent Military Review) compiled an incomplete list of 1,176 military servicemen fallen in Chechnya during the first year of conflict. If available the list included name, year and place of birth, rank and military unit, place, date and cause of death. [67]

• In February 2003, the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia, estimated that some 11,000 servicemen have been killed, with another 25,000 wounded, since 1999. It estimated the civilian death toll at about 20,000 people. [68] Their estimate for the earlier Chechen war was 14,000 dead troops as compared with the official figure of 5,500.

• According to 2003 Military Balance, the annual report International Institute for Strategic Studies, the British-based think-tank, Russian forces suffered 4,749 dead in Chechnya between August 2002 and August 2003. [69]

• In September 2003 the International Campaign to Ban Landmines reported that almost 6,000 people, 938 of which were children, died or were injured by land mines in Chechnya in 2002, more than anywhere else in the world. It is an especially disturbing figure in a region whose population is less than one million people. [70]

• In 2004, the British strategic-research centre Jane's estimated that the federal forces in Chechnya suffered some 9,000 to 11,000 combat deaths during the second war's most intense phase, from its beginning in late summer 1999 to early 2002. In 2003, they lost roughly 3,000 dead. [71]

• On April 4 2006, UNICEF and European Commission said in a joint statement released in Moscow that over 3,030 people have been maimed or killed by landmines in the Second Chechen War (April 4 marked the first International Mine Awareness Day). UNICEF has recorded 2,340 civilian landmine and unexploded ordnance casualties occurring in Chechnya between 1999 and the end of 2003.

• Alexander Cherkasov of the human rights group Memorial points out that the Russian government did not make any attempt to count civilian casualties in the war of 1994-96, nor after 1999. Many figures have been quoted, some greatly exaggerated; a figure of 250,000 dead in the two wars is sometimes repeated, but without there being adequate substantiation of such a number. Cherkasov's conclusion is rationally arrived at: "the total number of peaceful residents of the Chechen Republic who perished during the two wars may have reached 70,000." He admits that the accuracy of these estimates is not high. With reference to the second war, he concludes: "The total number of civilians killed, including those who disappeared, adds up to between 14,800 to 24,100."

Mass graves

• April 30 2000 - Eight decapitated bodies were found in a fresh burial place near the village of Dargo, Vedeno district in southern Chechnya. They were identified as three OMON and three regular police officers, and one military conscript; all had been missing in action for weeks.

• July 27 2000 - The bodies of about 150 people are reported to have been found in a mass grave near the village of Tangi-Chu, Urus-Martan district in southern Chechnya. 74 bodies, mostly men, were removed from the grave. As many as 80 more remained; people who happened to witness the exhumations said later that the hands of the killed had been tied with barbed wire. An official of the republic's Moscow-approved government said about half the bodies were wearing Chechen rebel uniforms. The rest were civilians who, he said, appeared to have no marks of violence on them.

• February 21 2001 - 51 bodies of men and women, showing signs of torture and military-style execution, were uncovered across from the main Russian Khankala military base at Zdorovye, near Grozny. Some bore signs of mutilation, including stab wounds, broken limbs, flayed body parts, severed fingertips and ears cut off, and many had their hands tied behind them and had been blindfolded. Of the nineteen victims whose corpses were identified by relatives, sixteen were last seen as Russian federal forces took them into custody. Human rights groups suggested that Russian servicemen at the Khankala base used the Dachny (also called Zdorovye) dacha settlement as a disposal site for executed prisoners. At the beginning of the second Chechen war, numerous unofficial places of detention existed throughout Chechnya, many of them in the form of earth pits, and the biggest such facility was located on the territory of the headquarters of the federal army in Khankala.

On March 29 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called for a thorough investigation of the mass grave site in a statement to the 57th session of the UNHCR; Robinson stated that "cases such as the mass grave in Zdorovie discovered earlier this year, less than a kilometer from the main military base in Chechnya, must be followed up and thoroughly investigated." Three weeks earlier, the authorities buried the rest of the bodies without prior notice and without performing adequate autopsies or collecting crucial evidence that would have helped to identify the perpetrators. [72]

• In March 2001 Human Rights Watch has documented eight unmarked graves, all found in 2000 and 2001. It has also documented eight cases when dead bodies were simply dumped by roadsides, on hospital grounds or elsewhere, and the Memorial Human Rights Center has documented numerous additional cases. The majority of the bodies showed close range bullet wounds, typical of summary executions, and signs of severe mutilation. Examinations by medical doctors of some of these bodies have revealed that some of the deliberate mutilations were inflicted while the detainees were still alive. [73]

• April 10 2001 - Pro-Moscow Grozny Mayor Bislan Gantamirov announced 17 bodies with gunshot wounds had been found in the basement of a bombed-out dormitory next to the Oktyabrskoye district police station, manned by the OMON troops from Siberia's Khanty-Mansiisk. An initial examination of the corpses showed that a majority of those killed were middle-aged men and that the bodies were approximately six months old. "We long suspected federal troops [of such crimes]. The mayor's office has hundreds of inquiries from city residents asking to find out about relatives who have disappeared. An especially high number of complaints concerned the Oktyabrsky district police station where detainees often disappeared without a trace," Gantamirov noted. The place was then cordoned off by the military, and the basement was soon destroyed in an apparent cover up. Gantamirov himself did an about-face and joined the chorus of federal officials denying the findings; OMON officer in charge of the station claimed the unit had nothing to do with the disappearance of local residents, adding that mass graves in Chechnya are commonplace.

In June 2006, Russia's leading human rights groups has produced what it says is documentary evidence of a secret torture and murder cell in the basement of a former school for deaf children in the Oktyabrskaya district. According to Memorial, Russian police used the dungeon to torture and murder hundreds of people, and was decommissioned only last month, when the federal Russian police unit occupying the building withdrew. According to the republic's prosecutor, Valery Kuznetsov, several criminal cases involving the disappearance of people allegedly dispatched to the "temporary holding cells" are being investigated. But Nurdi Nukhajiev, Chechnya's government-appointed representative for human rights, said: "I am not saying that the people [policemen] were ideal individuals. But this is 2006 and they weren't so stupid as to leave evidence of torture and murder behind." Memorial says it collected the evidence just in time and that the building housing the cellar has since been demolished in a crude attempt at a cover-up. [74]

• April 23 2001 - A Russian reconnaissance unit has found the remains of at least 18 people in a mass grave near a rough mountain road in southern Chechnya. The victims appeared to have been killed in 1996, but it was not immediately clear who they were, said a spokesman for Kremlin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky.

• April 9 2002 - A mass grave containing remains of about 100 people was found in a mountain cave in the Achkhoy-Martan district. Local people who discovered the grave said the skulls and bones make it easy to define the age of the victims; some bones reportedly prove there are children aged 10-12 among the bodies, all reportedly beheaded. Lieutenant-General Vladimir Moltenskoi, who commanded combined federal forces in Chechnya, promptly announced the bodies might be of Russian soldiers captured by Chechen fighters in 1994-96 and held in an alleged "death camp". However, eyewitnesses say stewed-pork tins and bottles of vodka found on the spot prove roistering Russian soldiers stayed there, and local people say as early as in December 2000 several Russian military columns with Chechens detained during "mopping-up" operations, including children aged between 10-14, were stationed in the area of the caves.

• September 8 2002 - Police from the republic of Ingushetia have discovered a common grave near Goragorsk, on the border with neighboring Chechnya, containing the bodies of 15 ethnic Chechen men who had been last seen being taken into custody by the Russian troops at different times and in different places. The grave was reportedly found after relatives of the victims paid some Russian soldiers a large amount of cash for information.

• January 13 2003 - Ten blown up corpses were discovered near Grozny and later taken to a mosque in the Tolstoy-Yurt for identification. On the next day the attorney-general of the Chechen Republic, Vladimir Kravtshenko, said that the bodies belong to people who had earlier been abducted by Chechen fighters. However, the three identified bodies belonged to inhabitants who had been taken into custody by federal forces in the end of 2002; after the blast only fragments remained of the other bodies. A week later on January 19 the remains of three blown-up bodies were found on near a pond in Kulary in the Achkhoi-Martan district. According to local inhabitants, the remains of human bodies had been strewn over an area 150-200 metres in diameter; the remains of the unknown bodies were buried at the local cemetery.

In 2003, residents and human rights campaigners said fragments of blown-up bodies are being found all over the war-ruined region. Rather than put a stop to human rights violations, the military appears to be doing its best to hide them, critics said. [75]

• March 31 2003 - Russian government's human rights commissioner Oleg Mironov has called on the authorities to open mass burial sites in Chechnya to identify the bodies and establish the reasons for their deaths. "It is necessary to open a number of graves in Chechnya and see why the people died, carry out necessary expert examinations, and then bury them as humans deserve," Mironov told a news conference in Moscow. At the same time, Mironov rejected the proposal by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to establish an international tribunal to investigate alleged war crimes committed in Chechnya.

• April 6 2003 - Police in Chechnya said they had discovered four graves filled with disfigured bodies over the past 24 hours. Three sites were found in the northern Nadterechny district, usually a relatively peaceful area, Chechnya's Emergency Situations Ministry said. The heads and arms had been cut off of the corpses, which were stacked in a shallow grave and covered with soil, the ministry said. It did not say how many bodies were in the graves.

• October 9 2004 - A mass grave containing six unidentified bodies has been discovered in the capital Grozny during excavation work at a building site, Russia's NTV television said. The agency said on Saturday that the six had apparently been shot and buried about three months ago.

• November 20 2004 - A mass grave containing the bodies of eleven unidentified young people, aged 12 to 20, was discovered near the Gudermes district village of Jalka. On November 16, local residents in the Grozny rural district discovered three bodies in the vicinity of residences located near a dairy farm; the victims, males aged 20-40, showed multiple signs of torture.

• June 16 2005 - There are 52 mass graves in Chechnya, according to the local pro-Russian government. The chairman of the Chechen government committee for civil rights, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying the graves have not been opened, so the total number of dead is difficult to determine. Nukhazhiyev had earlier said that up to 60,000 people had lost a relative or friend in the disappearances that have blighted the republic for the past five years.

• April 02 2006 - 57 bodies were discovered in Sergey Kirov Park in Grozny. Valery Kuznetsov, the Chechnya's prosecutor, said an examination of the corpses buried in unmarked grave indicated that they belonged to "ordinary citizens" who had died from explosions of artillery shells and bombs during siege between 1999 and 2000; he said there will be no investigation on the finding. On the site of the former Kirov Park, where in April-May of 2000 nine graves were uncovered, the local authorities plan to build a large entertainment centre which will bear the name of Akhmad Kadyrov.

• June 27 2006 - A grave containing the bodies of nine federal soldiers and local supporters executed by Chechen rebels in 1996-1997 has been discovered in the republic, a spokesman for the FSB branch for Chechnya told Interfax. The grave was found on the premises of a destroyed militant base, he said.

Influence on Russian politics

Early conflict

Among ordinary Russian citizens, there existed a strong perception that Chechnya was firmly a part of Russia. The notion that it might secede was implausible and unacceptable, even after events of the First Chechen War; the violent acts of Chechen militants were portrayed within Russia as having been carried out by dangerous, unrepresentative fringe groups. Within the Russian government, there was a concern that allowing Chechnya substantial autonomy might lead to a domino effect—other regions within the already-fragmented former Soviet Union might choose to follow suit.

Motivated by these factors, President Yeltsin authorized the invasion of Chechnya. Many argue over whether Yeltsin genuinely believed that victory would be swift and decisive, or that his assertions to that effect were simply meant to assuage the concerns of Russian citizens. Despite assembling a much larger and better-supported force than was brought to bear in the First Chechen War, the Russian army sustained appreciable losses but won the bloody battle for Grozny.

Rise of Putin

The election of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency changed the tenor of the Chechen conflict; Putin was often less concerned about Western public opinion than Yeltsin, and continued to prosecute the war.

Putin officially reestablished Russian rule in Chechnya in 2000; this development met with early approval in the rest of Russia, but the continued deaths of Russian troops dampened public enthusiasm. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Putin was able to attract more foreign support for his actions in Chechnya by highlighting the links between Chechen rebels and Islamist terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda.

Although large-scale fighting within Chechnya has ceased, daily attacks continue. The local government is not stable and Russians are mindful of the potential for renewed conflict. Russia continues to maintain a substantial military presence within Chechnya.

President Putin and newly-minted Chechen leaders face a difficult task of restoring stability to the region and convincing the Russian people that they can manage the situation effectively. Currently the FSB has taken over the operations in Chechnya. Most soldiers in Chechnya are now kontraktniki (contract soldiers) as opposed to the earlier conscripts. Local militias are also being used to provide security. Ironically, many of the militiamen are former Chechen rebels from the First Chechen War.

Influence on society

Chechen syndrome

The "Chechen syndrome" among security forces returning from their service in Chechnya spreads an atmosphere of violence and disregarding human rights to other parts of Russia. The regular troops and police carry the Chechen syndrome home with them, haunted by the horrors they have witnessed and committed.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

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A Russian soldier in Chechnya

Since the Chechen conflict began in 1994, similar cases have been reported all across Russia: depressed young veterans return embittered and traumatized to their home towns and begin lashing out at those around them; soldiers are psychologically scarred. Russian psychiatrists, law-enforcement officials and journalists have started calling the condition Chechen syndrome (CS), drawing a parallel with the post-traumatic stress disorders suffered by American soldiers who served in Vietnam and Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. "At least 70% of the estimated 1.5 million Chechnya veterans suffer CS," says Yuri Alexandrovsky, deputy director of the Serbsky National Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow. "Some readjust. Many don't. All need help." [76]

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