When Russian troops entered the rebellious Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in December 1994, the Yeltsin regime was confident that the Russo-Chechen conflict would end with Russia’s quick victory and territorial restoration of the Russian Federation. However, the war, which later became known as the First Chechen War, lasted for nearly two years, ended with the victory of Chechen militants, and led to the deaths of roughly 50,000 Chechens and about 6,000 Russian soldiers.[1]
Many Russian government officials initially treated the conflict in Chechnya as an inconvenience rather than a serious war, so it was not surprising that the Yeltsin regime grossly underestimated the motivation and military potential of Chechen insurgents.[2] Moreover, much to the shock of federal authorities in Moscow, the First Chechen War also revealed that the Russian army was plagued by inadequate training, inefficient use of resources, and lack of coordination. In the end, Russian troops were forced to withdraw from Chechnya in 1996, and the settlement of the political status of the Chechen Republic was postponed until 1999 when Russian troops reentered the republic once again.[3]
The causes of both Chechen wars have been extensively studied by political scientists and military scholars across the world. The goal of this work, however, is to provide a detailed look at the First Chechen War and explore the reasons for Chechnya’s successful performance in 1994-1996. In order to provide a better understanding of the Chechen strategy, I will briefly examine Chechnya’s history and describe its short period of independence in the early 1990s. After that, I will explore the tactics that Chechen insurgents used during the conflict and explain why they were able to defeat Russian forces. I will finish this paper by analyzing how the First Chechen War affected Russia’s approach to its next conflict in the North Caucasus and make predictions about the possibility of another clash between federal troops and Chechen insurgents in the future…
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