Chechen-Russian theatre of war
Date: Saturday, October 26 @ 02:55:23 UTC
Topic: Chechnya
Map of Chechnya
Chechen-Russian Conflict:
History:
Chechnya History: Land and people
The Chechens are an indigenous people of the North Caucasus. They speak a distinct Caucasic language, non-Slavic, non-Turkic, non-Persian, closely related to the language of the neighboring Ingush. The Chechens and their ancestors have apparently lived in their North Caucasus homeland for several thousand years. Part or all of their territory has been overrun for long periods by the Iranian Alans (ancestors of the Ossetins) in the 9-12th centuries, by the Golden Horde in the 13th-15th centuries, and then by the Russian Empire, which in a competition for domination of the North Caucasus that began in the 16th century, finally bested its Ottoman and Persian rivals.
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The Origin of the Chechen Conflict
A Man from the Soviet Apparat to Guide Russia's Foreign Policy
Chechnya: What Next? (Event Summary). 17 November 1999
First Chechnya War - 1994-1996
BBC Timeline
1858 - After decades of violent resistance, Chechnya is conquered by Russia following the defeat of Imam Shamil and his fighters, who had aimed to establish an Islamic state.
1922 - Chechen autonomous region established; becomes the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1934.
1944 - Soviet dictator Stalin deports the entire Chechen and Ingush populations to Siberia and Central Asia, citing alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany. Many thousands die in the process.
1957 - Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev restores the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
Russia resists independence bid
1991 - Communist leader Doku Zavgayev overthrown; Dzhokhar Dudayev wins a presidential poll and proclaims Chechnya independent of Russia.
1992 - Chechnya adopts a constitution defining it as an independent, secular state governed by a president and parliament.
1994 December - Russian troops enter Chechnya to quash the independence movement. Up to 100,000 people - many of them civilians - are estimated to have been killed in the 20-month war that followed.
1995 June - Chechen rebels seize hundreds of hostages at a hospital in Budennovsk, southern Russia. More than 100 are killed in the raid and in an unsuccessful Russian commando operation.
1996 April - Dudayev killed in a Russian missile attack; Zemlikhan Yandarbiyev succeeds him.
1996 May - Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Yandarbiyev sign a peace agreement; the short-lived truce lasts until July.
1996 August - Chechen rebels launch a successful attack on Grozny; Yeltsin's security chief General Alexander Lebed and Chechen rebel chief of staff Aslan Maskhadov sign the Khasavyurt Accords which provide for a ceasefire. An agreement on Russian troop withdrawals is signed in November.
1997 January - Russia recognises Maskhadov's government following his victory in Chechen presidential elections.
1997 May - Yeltsin and Maskhadov sign a formal peace treaty, but the issue of Chechen independence is not resolved.
1998 May - Valentin Vlasov, Russia's presidential representative in Chechnya, is kidnapped and held for six months. Later in the year, four engineers from Britain and New Zealand are kidnapped and murdered.
1998 June - Amid growing lawlessness, Maskhadov imposes a state of emergency.
1999 March - Moscow's top envoy to Chechnya, General Gennadiy Shpigun, is kidnapped from the airport in Grozny. His corpse is found in Chechnya in March 2000.
1999 January/February - Maskhadov declares Islamic Shari'ah law will be phased in over three years.
A group of former rebel field commanders announces the formation of a rival body to govern Chechnya according to Shari'ah law and calls on Aslan Maskhadov to relinquish the presidency.
1999 July/August - Chechen fighters clash with Russian troops on the Chechnya-Dagestan border; Chechen rebels stage armed incursions into Dagestan in an attempt to create an Islamic state.
1999 September - A bomb attack on Russian military housing in Dagestan and a series of apartment block bombings elsewhere in Russia are blamed on Chechen rebels; some 300 people are killed in the blasts. Russian forces redeploy in Chechnya; the new prime minister, Vladimir Putin, says the campaign is needed to quash terrorism.
1999 October - Moscow-based State Council of the Republic of Chechnya established by former members of the Chechen republican legislature. Moscow recognises it as the sole legitimate Chechen authority and refuses to negotiate with Maskhadov.
1999 October - Many thousands of civilians flee the Russian advance, leaving Chechnya for neighbouring Russian republics. Their numbers are later estimated to reach 200,000.
2000 February - Russian troops capture Grozny; much of the city is razed.
2000 May - President Putin declares that henceforth Chechnya will be governed from Moscow.
2000 June - Russia appoints former Chechen cleric Akhmed Kadyrov as head of its administration in Chechnya. Kadyrov is answerable to Putin and the presidential representative in the Southern Federal District, Viktor Kazantsev.
2001 January - Putin transfers control of operations in Chechnya to the Federal Security Service (FSB) which is tasked with fighting insurgents. Stanislav Ilyasov appointed Chechen prime minister.
2001 - Human rights organisations express concern about human rights violations in Chechnya, including alleged torture and widespread detentions at the hands of Russian troops. Concerns are fuelled by the discovery of a mass grave filled with mutilated bodies.
2001 September - Major rebel offensive on the Chechen town of Gudermes; a Russian helicopter carrying senior officers is downed.
2001 September - In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the US, Putin urges rebels to "halt all contacts with international terrorists".
2001 November - First official negotiations since 1999 as Maskhadov's representative Akhmed Zakayev and Russia's Kazantsev hold talks on a peace settlement in Moscow.
2001 December - Captured rebel field commander Salman Raduyev sentenced to life imprisonment on murder, terrorism charges.
2002 July - UN suspends aid operations in Chechnya for six months after the kidnapping of a Russian aid worker.
2002 August - Georgia accuses Russia of carrying out air raids in the Pankisi gorge, close to Georgia's border with Chechnya. Moscow says the gorge is a safe haven for Chechen rebel groups and presses for an international operation to flush them out.
2002 October - Chechen rebels seize a Moscow theatre and hold hundreds of people hostage.
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Head of Russian security service says none of the Chechen rebels escaped. Special forces storm the Moscow theatre where Chechen rebels were holding hundreds of people hostage, ending a three-day siege. The group's leader, 