The Chechen War's Unforgivable Crimes

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It’s a familiar story: a former area of the Soviet Union tries to pursue independence from Moscow, and soon Russian tanks are rolling across its borders and killing civilians by the thousands. No, not Ukraine, nor Georgia, but Chechnya, a tiny nation in the Caucasus whose long struggle with Russia was filled with war crimes and atrocities.

The Chechen Crisis

The Chechens themselves are mostly Muslim with a distinct culture that made them a target for persecution throughout history. Stalin had deported and killed hundreds of thousands of them, so when the time came to throw off the Communists, Chechnya was eager for it. They declared independence in 1991 under the leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev, just as the Soviet Union was unravelling everywhere, but the new post-Communist government did not recognise their claim. Still, Moscow was too distracted with establishing the new Russia to bother with little Chechnya. That was until 1994.

Tired of Chechnya’s insubordination, President Boris Yeltsin funded and supported an anti-separatist Chechen militia to overthrow Dudayev’s separatist government. It failed spectacularly. The Chechynan separatists proved overwhelmingly loyal to Dudayev and his forces crushed the coup and captured Russian soldiers embedded in the groups.

Embarrassed, Yeltsin decided full military intervention was needed, and on November 30th signed Presidential Decree 2137 to, quote, “re-establish law and order in… the Chechen Republic.” The conflicts that followed consumed thousands of lives over the next 20 years.

The First Chechen War Begins