Declaring its state independence at the end of 1991.

The Russian-Chechen war itself began on December 11, 1994 with the invasion of federal troops into Chechnya. This was preceded by a three-year process of distancing the Chechen authorities from Moscow, which began in the fall of 1991 under the leadership of the former Soviet Army general, General Dzhokhar Dudayev, who was elected the first president of Chechnya. After the collapse of the USSR, Dudayev declared the independence of Chechnya from Russia, although he did not break all ties with Moscow, especially in the financial and economic sphere. After the liquidation of dual power in October 1993 Russian authorities They tried to restore their control over Chechen territory. In the northern Nadterechny region of the republic, which did not recognize Dudayev’s power, opposition groups armed with Russian weapons were created with Russian money. On November 26, 1994, with the support of tanks with Russian crews, the opposition tried to capture the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, but were almost completely destroyed and captured by troops loyal to Dudayev. More than 70 Russian military personnel were captured. They were released before the start of the full-scale Russian-Chechen war. Among the dead and captured tankers were officers of the Kantemirovsky division hired by the Russian special services, who shelled the Moscow White House in October 1993.

After the failure of attempts to overthrow Dudayev with the help of the Chechen opposition, a full-scale military operation was launched using several divisions of the army and internal troops. The size of the group reached 60 thousand soldiers and officers, including elite airborne troops and the Moscow division of internal troops ( former name Dzerzhinsky). They were opposed by the regular Chechen army created by Dudayev, called the militia and numbering up to 15 thousand people. It was armed with tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), artillery, machine guns and small arms that remained in army warehouses after the withdrawal from Chechnya Russian troops in 1992. Dudayev later managed to illegally purchase some of the weapons and ammunition in Russia. The Chechens did not have combat aircraft, and all training transport aircraft located at the airfield near Grozny were destroyed before the invasion as a result of bombing by Russian aircraft.

Officially in Russia, the war was called “measures to restore constitutional order in the Chechen Republic” and pursued the goal of “disarmament of illegal armed groups.” Russian politicians and military officials expected that the fighting would not last more than two weeks. Defense Minister General Pavel Grachev said on the eve of the invasion of Chechnya that Grozny could be taken in two hours by one Russian airborne regiment. However, federal troops met fierce resistance and immediately suffered heavy losses.

The Chechens did not have aviation, were many times inferior to the enemy in artillery and tanks, but during the three years of independence they managed to turn into professional fighters, and in terms of the level of combat training and command they were significantly superior Russian soldiers, many of whom were recently drafted into the troops. Operations on the Chechen side were directly led by the Chief of the General Staff, General Aslan Maskhadov, a former colonel of the Soviet Army. Chechen troops successfully combined positional defense with mobile defense, managing to escape the massive attacks of Russian aviation in time.

Only on December 21 did federal units reach Grozny and on New Year's Eve 1995 launched a poorly prepared assault on Grozny. The Chechens almost unhindered allowed the attackers into the center of Grozny, and then began to shoot armored vehicles and infantry from fortified positions on the pre-targeted streets of the city. The fighters of the federal troops did not have plans for the city and had almost no orientation in it; they acted uncoordinatedly and, in fact, without a single command. Some of them were destroyed, some were blocked in occupied buildings, and only a few managed to break back. Up to 500 people were captured. Almost all Russian tanks brought into Grozny were burned or taken by the Chechens. Prolonged street fighting began as Russian soldiers slowly occupied the city, house by house, block by block. In these battles, the Chechens fought more skillfully, operating in small mobile groups whose commanders could independently make decisions in a rapidly changing environment without a continuous front line. Only a few Russian commanders possessed these qualities. Aircraft bombed Grozny and other cities and villages of Chechnya without targeting, across squares. Almost exclusively civilians suffered from the bombing. The death of relatives and friends only intensified the hatred of Chechen soldiers and officers towards the federals. In Grozny, by an evil irony of fate, the victims of bombs and shells were primarily Russian residents. The civilian Chechen population mostly managed to leave the besieged city and take refuge with relatives in the mountains, while the Russians had nowhere to go. In March, Chechen troops left Grozny. In April and May, the Russian army broke through into the foothills and mountainous regions in the south of Chechnya, capturing all the cities of the republic in order to gain time for the regular army to move to guerrilla warfare From hard-to-reach bases in the mountains, in mid-June, a detachment of 200 people under the command of one of the most famous Chechen field commanders, Shamil Basayev, a former student and now a general, carried out a raid on the Stavropol city of Budennovsk. Here Basayev’s soldiers took hostage up to a thousand civilians and drove them into city ​​hospital and threatened to destroy them unless a ceasefire was declared and Russian-Chechen negotiations began (the day before, almost the entire Basayev family died under Russian bombs). Federal troops launched an unsuccessful assault on the hospital, during which several dozen hostages died. After this, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin agreed to fulfill the demands of the terrorists, and also provided the terrorists with buses so that they could get to the Chechen mountains with some of the hostages to guarantee safety. In Chechnya, Basayev freed the remaining hostages and was beyond the reach of Russian troops. In total, about 120 civilians died on the streets of Budennovsk and in the hospital. Basayev launched his raid without the sanction of the Chechen command, but subsequently Dudayev and Maskhadov approved his actions.

Basayev's inhumane action, however, led to a temporary cessation of bloodshed in Chechnya while negotiations continued. In October they were interrupted after the head of the Russian delegation, commander of the internal troops, General Anatoly Romanov, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt (he is still unconscious). The circumstances of this assassination attempt, carried out with the help of a radio-controlled landmine, are not clear today.

After the breakdown of negotiations, federal troops resumed their offensive in the mountainous regions of Chechnya. They captured cities and villages there more than once, but retained their positions long time It turned out to be impossible because the Chechens were blocking supply routes. Russian units are tired of the war. Their combat effectiveness, already low, fell to a critical limit. Federal troops failed to defeat the main Chechen forces. Maskhadov and Dudayev were able to maintain control over their main units. In December, Chechen forces occupied the second largest city of the republic, Gudermes, for several days, demonstrating their strength to Russia and the world.

At the end of December 1996, a detachment of about 200 people under the command of Dudayev's son-in-law Salman Raduev, later promoted to general, carried out a raid against a helicopter base in the Dagestan city of Kizlyar. The raid ended in failure, and the detachment was threatened with encirclement by federal troops. Then Raduev, following the example of Basayev, took hostages in the city hospital. At first he demanded an end to the war and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, then, under pressure from the authorities of Dagestan, he was satisfied with the promise of free passage to Chechnya under the cover of a human shield of hostages. In January 1996, near the border of Dagestan and Chechnya, a convoy of buses carrying terrorists was fired upon by Russian helicopters. Raduev and his men captured a police post made up of fighters from the Novosibirsk Special Purpose Police Unit (OMON) and took up defensive positions in the nearby Dagestan village of Pervomaiskoe. Raduev’s detachment was besieged by internal troops and special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the security service, numbering 2.5 thousand people. A few days later, the troops launched an assault, broke into Pervomaiskoye, but were thrown back to their original positions. Police special forces, trained to fight armed criminals, were ill-equipped to conduct conventional street combat with an enemy unit. Under the cover of darkness, most of the Raduevites with some of the hostages managed to break out of the encirclement. The battle at Pervomaisky once again proved to the Chechens the weakness of the Russian troops.

All Moscow's attempts to create a capable Chechen administration ended in failure. In the last period, the pro-Russian government was headed by Doku Zavgaev, the former leader of the Communist Party and chairman of the Supreme Council of Checheno-Ingushetia, which was dispersed by demonstrators on Dudayev’s initiative in the fall of 1991. Trillions of rubles allocated to restore the destroyed economy of Chechnya were embezzled by bankers and officials at various levels. The Zavgaev administration, having no real power, was unable to prevent the shelling and bombing of Chechen villages by Russian artillery and aircraft. As a result, Zavgaev lost popularity in his native Nadterechny district, whose residents had previously been in opposition to Dudayev.

In March 1996, Basayev entered Grozny for several days. “Terrorist No. 1” this time put his fighters in passenger cars. They moved through the streets at high speed, attacking federal checkpoints and commandant's offices, while themselves remaining virtually invulnerable. The Russian army was unable to do anything with the Basayevites, passively waiting for them to leave the city. As it became clear later, Basayev’s March raid was just a rehearsal for a larger-scale operation.

In mid-April, near the village of Yarysh-Mardan, a column of federal troops was ambushed, losing about 100 people. The Chechens suffered virtually no losses in this battle.

On April 21, 1996, Dudayev was killed as a result of the explosion of an aircraft missile aimed at the signal of his cell phone. The post of President of Chechnya was taken by Vice President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, a famous Chechen poet, but as a politician inferior in popularity to Dudayev, Maskhadov and Basayev. At the end of May, during Yandarbiev’s visit to Moscow, a ceasefire agreement was concluded with him. On the eve of the presidential elections, the Russian leadership was interested in achieving at least temporary peace in Chechnya. It hoped that after the death of Dudayev, the resistance of the Chechens would weaken and it would be possible to establish the Zavgaev government in the country.

After Boris Yeltsin won the election, federal troops resumed their offensive in Chechnya and bombing mountain villages. On August 6, the Chechen army entered Grozny. This operation was developed by Maskhadov back in the spring. However, the Chechen leadership postponed its implementation until after the presidential elections in Russia, believing that Yeltsin's victory would be the least evil for Chechnya. A few days before the start of the operation, special leaflets warned Grozny residents that fighting would begin in the city in the very near future and that they should stock up on water and food and not go out into the streets. However, the command of the federal troops did not attach any importance to these leaflets and were taken by surprise. In the city and its environs there were up to 15 thousand soldiers and officers of the army and internal troops and riot police.

Initially, about 2 thousand Chechen militias entered Grozny under the personal leadership of Maskhadov and Basayev (the latter directly commanded the Grozny group). By that time, the Chechens no longer had armored vehicles and almost no artillery left. However, in terms of combat experience, ability to fight and morale, they were far superior to the soldiers of the federal troops, who did not show any desire to die in the name of “establishing constitutional order in Chechnya.” Many Russian units actually took a position of armed neutrality, not firing at the enemy if he, in turn, did not encroach on the positions they occupied.

In a week of fighting, the Chechens captured for the most part Grozny, blocking Russian troops in the main administrative buildings and premises of checkpoints and commandant's offices. By that time, the number of the Chechen group in Grozny had increased to 6-7 thousand people, thanks to the defection of part of the city police subordinate to Zavgaev to its side and the transfer of reinforcements from other regions of Chechnya. Counterattacks by federal troops from Khankala and Severny Airport located in the Grozny suburbs were repulsed. Russian units suffered heavy losses. Some units of the federal troops, in order to escape from the encirclement and obtain medicine for the wounded, resorted to the shameful practice of taking hostages among civilians. According to some estimates, up to 200 armored vehicles were burned, and the Chechens managed to capture several tanks and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) unharmed. As the Russian press wrote in those days: “Under the pressure of disparate gangs, our troops abandoned the city of Grozny.” Chechen troops also liberated the cities of Gudermes and Argun and carried out a number of attacks on federal units in the foothills.

The commander of the Russian troops in Chechnya, General Konstantin Pulikovsky, demanded that the residents of Grozny leave the city in two days, intending to subject him to massive bombings and shelling. In this case, the death of not only approximately 2 thousand federal military personnel, blocked in besieged buildings and left without food, water and ammunition, would have been inevitable, but also tens of thousands of citizens who could not leave the city for such a long time. short term. The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, General Alexander Lebed, who urgently arrived in Chechnya, achieved the cancellation of Pulikovsky’s order for a new assault on Grozny. Lebed became convinced of the complete incapacity of Russian troops in Chechnya, which he stated publicly.

At the end of August, in the Dagestan city of Khasavyurt, he signed an agreement with the Chechen leadership, according to which a ceasefire was established, federal troops, with the exception of two brigades, were withdrawn from Chechnya (supporters of independence call the country Ichkeria), and the determination of the political status of the republic was postponed until no later than the end of the 2001. The Chechens, however, insisted on the withdrawal of all federal troops and refused to guarantee the safety of the military personnel of the brigades remaining in the vicinity of Grozny.

On November 23, 1996, President Yeltsin signed a decree on the withdrawal of the last two brigades from Chechnya by the end of the year. When federal troops left the republic, presidential elections took place there. Maskhadov won them. His power extended to the entire republic. Local militias who returned to the Nadterechny region forced Zavgaev’s supporters to relinquish power. In May 1997, Presidents Yeltsin and Maskhadov signed a peace treaty between Russia and Chechnya, where the parties pledged never to use force or the threat of force in their relations with each other. This means Russia recognizes Chechnya as de facto independent. However, the Russian leadership is not yet ready to recognize Chechen independence de jure, that is, to officially agree that the Republic of Ichkeria is no longer part of Russian territory and to establish diplomatic relations with it as a foreign state. History knows examples when decades passed between the actual acquisition of independence and its recognition by the former metropolis. Thus, the Netherlands actually separated from Spain by 1572, but the Spanish monarchy recognized the new state after a series of wars only in 1607.

According to official data, during the entire conflict in Chechnya, about 6 thousand Russian military personnel, border guards, policemen and security officers died or went missing. Today we do not have any summary data on the irretrievable losses of the Chechen army. One can only assume that due to the smaller number and more high level During combat training, Chechen troops suffered significantly fewer losses than federal troops.

The total number of killed residents of Chechnya is most often estimated at 70-80 thousand people, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians. They became victims of shelling and bombing by federal troops, as well as so-called “cleansing operations” - inspections of cities and villages abandoned by Chechen formations by Russian soldiers and Interior Ministry officers, when civilians often died from federal bullets and grenades. The bloodiest “cleansing operations” took place in the village of Samashki, not far from the border with Ingushetia.

The Second Chechen War began after the August 1999 invasion of the Chechen detachments of Shamil Basayev and Khattab into Dagestan, counting on the assistance of local Wahhabis, explosions of residential buildings in Moscow and Buinaksk, and the invasion of federal troops in September. The plan for this invasion, according to some sources, was developed in the spring of 1999. By early February 2000, the Russian army captured Grozny, which was practically wiped off the face of the earth. In February - March, federal troops penetrated into the southern mountainous regions of Chechnya, but were unable to establish effective control over them. A large-scale guerrilla war is currently ongoing throughout Chechnya. By the end of 2000, Russian losses, according to official, probably significantly understated data, amounted to about 3 thousand dead and missing. There is no reliable data on the losses of Chechen armed forces and civilians. One can only assume that several times more civilians died than military personnel.

There is a term in the military lexicon - irretrievable losses. In operational reports, this is how killed servicemen are designated. No one counts the civilian deaths in the war. As a rule, during large-scale combat operations using aviation and artillery, ten times more of them die than soldiers. However, the figures for military casualties in different reports sometimes differ like heaven and earth. An example of this is the tragedy that took place on April 16 on a mountain road near the Chechen village of Yarysh-Mardy.

AMBUSH

The rear column of the 245th consolidated motorized rifle regiment, which had been fighting in Chechnya for almost a year, was marching. It consisted of 199 people: 29 officers, 17 warrant officers and 153 soldiers and sergeants, mostly contract soldiers. The unit was headed by the deputy regiment commander for armaments, Major Terzovets.

Immediately after the tragedy, statements were heard in the Duma that the column was practically unarmed. This is wrong. All of Major Terzovets' subordinates had standard weapons. And there was enough ammunition. After all, in Khankala they were loaded to capacity with cartridges and shells, fuel and military equipment.

The cars were accompanied by tanks and combat vehicles infantry.

On mountain serpentine ground reconnaissance is essentially useless. After all, a combat reconnaissance patrol can detect an ambush at commanding heights only by chance. You won’t be searching all the surrounding rocks on foot. Therefore, according to the experience of Afghanistan, “turntables” are always patrolling in the air at low altitude above the column. From above, especially when there is no greenery yet, everything is clearly visible. But at that time we had to go through the “peaceful” Shatoi region, with the administration of which a corresponding agreement had recently been signed.

According to the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District, about 200 militants of Shamil Basayev were in the ambush at Yarysh-Marda. Other sources say that the men of the famous field commander Ruslan Gelayev acted. But everyone agrees on one thing: the Afghan Mujahideen led the operation. The tactics were typical of that war. The ambush site was chosen ideally from a tactical point of view. On one side there is a steep cliff and a mountain river. On the other hand, there are almost vertical cliffs.

Having missed the reconnaissance, at about 14.30 the militants detonated a guided landmine under the lead tank and immediately hit the headquarters vehicle with the radio station, as well as the trailing one, with grenade launchers. The column found itself clogged in a bag of fire. Moreover, without communication and control, Major Terzovets died after the first salvo.

The shooting of the column lasted almost three hours. Only 8 - 12 motorized riflemen emerged from that battle intact.

LOAD "200"

HOW MANY zinc coffins or bodies simply wrapped in foil (there are not enough coffins in Chechnya) will be brought home by the infamous “black tulips” after the massacre at Yarysh-Marda is still unclear. At first they reported 93 killed, then the figure dropped to 76. And Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said that on April 16 “only” 53 were killed and 52 wounded.

True, to the village of Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod region, where the 245th consolidated motorized rifle regiment was formed on the basis of the district training center, and to other places in Russia, the Grozny commandant’s office sent 163 “200” cargoes only after April 16 - this is how the dead are called in military jargon.

LOSSES

WHAT IS IT? full list dead in Chechnya? At a meeting of the State Duma on March 15, 1996, the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Russian Federation Colonel General Viktor Barynkin named the number of killed servicemen of the Ministry of Defense during the entire period of hostilities in Chechnya - 2134 people. The losses of the militants are “within 15.5 thousand”, more than 1000 Dudayevites were captured.

The greatest losses in the federal troops occurred from the tragic New Year's Eve until January 10 last year. Then, more than 1,300 Russian soldiers were ground in the Grozny “meat grinder.” Before this, according to some data, at the end of December 1994, over 800 Russian military personnel were killed.

IN Lately The lion's share of losses falls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to official data reported by the First Deputy Commander of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia lieutenant general Viktor Gafarov, in Chechnya on March 15, 1996, 423 servicemen of the Internal Troops were killed, 157 people were missing. According to more recent information, the Internal Troops lost more than 650 of their comrades in the Chechen war.

Border guards now have fewer irretrievable losses. In 1995, the “green caps” lost 27 people in battles on the administrative border with Chechnya.

In Chechnya, unfortunately, representatives of almost all types and branches of the military are dying. Except, probably, missilemen and military personnel Military space forces. Children not only from worker-peasant families die. More than 10 sons of generals were killed in Chechnya. The last person to receive news of the death of his son, a senior lieutenant, was the corps commander, Lieutenant General Kulikovsky.

So, how many people died in Chechnya? Recently, retired General Alexander Lebed cited the following figures: 6-7 thousand federal troops died. Chechens, including civilians, number 70 - 80 thousand. The list of losses is constantly growing.

in the photo: one of the last Russian residents of Grozny meets the Russian army

Perhaps the most authoritative expert on civilian casualties in Chechnya today is Sergei Maksudov, the author of the book “Chechens and Russians: Victories, Defeats, Losses,” the presentation of which took place last summer in Moscow. Alexander Babenyshev (Maksudov is his pseudonym) now lives in the USA, but, as they say, a man in the subject - this is far from his first professional book about Chechen wars Oh. After its publication, the author was condemned by some human rights organizations, and some, on the contrary, supported him. Regardless of political leanings, the book “Chechens and Russians” is perhaps one of the most complete summaries of data on those killed in Chechnya.

I used various data to write the book. Both the official ones - from all the warring parties, and the research of the Memorial society,” Alexander Babenyshev commented on the documentary sources of his work. - However, I don’t always consider the latter to be the most objective. The story here remains to be sorted out.

Nevertheless, Babenyshev was able to analyze information about the size of the Chechen people from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day. And the officially registered number of Chechens at the beginning of the 19th century was 130 thousand people. Let's remember this number...

A little more arithmetic. The estimated number of Chechens in 1859 is already 172 thousand (natural population growth is comparable to similar indicators in European Russia, the Stavropol Territory and Georgia). Their losses during the Caucasian War over 16 years (from 1859 to 1875) amounted to 27 thousand people, another 23 thousand emigrated to Ottoman Empire. From 1816 to 1864, the Russian army lost 23 thousand killed, 62 thousand wounded and 6 thousand died from wounds in the Caucasus. The highlanders suffered greater losses than regular troops - due to artillery fire, infantry square tactics, and the bayonet was preferable to the saber in close combat.

We continue to work with the calculator. The 1926 census already speaks of a population of 395,248 people. By 1943 there were already 523,071. In 1958 - 525,060. The years from 1944 to 1948, when losses, including from deportation and participation of Chechens in war and uprisings (there were such things), went into minus. exceeded the birth rate.

Well, the most interesting part of Sergei Maksudov’s research is the period from 1991 to 1997, which included the first war and the massive outflow from the republic (and partly the destruction) of the Russian-speaking population. Before 1994, there were facts of Russians being forced to leave Chechnya. With robberies, murders and rapes. There are several hundred of them in the book. “No one was specifically engaged in collecting such information,” writes Alexander Babenyshev. “The list contains data from various publications, which do not pretend to be complete; these are just individual examples, random elements of the overall picture... However, it can be assumed that the sample fairly reflects the typical situations in which Russian residents found themselves during that period.”

Then the Russians became slaves - more than 10 thousand throughout Chechnya. The slave trade in the center of Grozny was a common occurrence, which the Chechen authorities turned a blind eye to. The road to Georgia through Itum-Kale (between the first and second Chechen wars) was built by Russian slaves. According to some estimates, there were 47 thousand of them!

November 26, 1994, when the Russian army entered Grozny, was not yet the infamous New Year's assault. The nightmare of the Chechen war was separated by just over a month... But it was a nightmare for Russian army, for Russian speakers in Chechnya. The losses of Chechen civilians were incomparably smaller!

At the beginning of the first Chechen war, Memorial human rights activists counted 25 thousand dead civilians in Grozny and, extrapolating these data to the whole of Chechnya, began to talk about 50 thousand dead. In Western publications, this figure rose to 250 thousand Chechens killed in two wars (of which supposedly 42 thousand were children). The speaker of the Chechen parliament, Dukhvakha Abdurakhmanov, once claimed that 200 thousand people were killed and another 300 thousand were missing. According to Babenyshev’s calculations, for every 200 thousand killed there should be 600,000 wounded - the average ratio for military operations - which means that every Chechen should have been either killed or wounded!

Memorial’s calculations, according to Babenyshev, are, to put it mildly, unconvincing. The author of the book estimates the military losses of the Chechens at 20 thousand people, another 8 thousand - civilians. The losses of Russian military personnel and police officers are approximately the same - 25 - 30 thousand.

These figures were calculated mostly mathematically, admits Babenyshev. - But it seems to me that they are close to the truth.

WHO WON THE LAST CHECHEN WAR?

What are the results of these considerable losses? The political goals that Russian and Chechen leaders set for themselves have been practically achieved, although all participants find themselves in a noticeably worse position than before the conflict began. Russia kept Chechnya within its borders, but received a black financial hole, absorbing huge amounts of money. Xenophobia is growing in Russia due to the fact that the younger generation of Chechens, raised on two recent wars, suddenly began to often aggressively spill out into Russian cities.

But Chechnya received completely different results - it became de facto free. Freed from the Russians. The Russians were not only driven out from the ethnographic territories of Chechen settlement, they were driven out from the ancestral Cossack lands - the plains along the left bank of the Terek. Russian-speaking citizens are eliminated from political, social and even city life. Full Chechen control has been established in the republic - now under the auspices of Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chechnya has established a unique relationship with Moscow. Chechens are not drafted into the Russian army, they pay virtually no taxes. Russia pays all Chechen expenses, supplies gas and electricity, at its expense they build and restore buildings in Chechnya, reconstruct roads (luxurious!), pay salaries to officials, police, teachers and doctors. They pay pensions, scholarships, benefits... It is noteworthy that with all this, the residents of Chechnya do not feel a sense of gratitude, considering the huge money coming to them free of charge from Russia, almost as an indemnity due to the winners, or compensation for recent (or centuries-old) suffering

Human losses in the First Chechen War

The first Chechen war was accompanied by large casualties among the military personnel of the federal group of troops, activists of the Chechen armed formations and civilians of the republic. The beginning of the war, as a rule, is considered to be the entry of Russian troops into the territory of Chechnya (December 11, 1994), and the end is the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements (August 31, 1996). The bloodiest period of the war was from December 1994 to June 1995, with the bulk of the casualties occurring during the assault on Grozny (January-February 1995). After June 1995, fighting was sporadic. They intensified in the spring and summer of 1996 and reached their climax during the attack by Chechen militants on Grozny, Argun and Gudermes in August.

As is the case with many other military conflicts, both sides' estimates of their own, enemy, and civilian casualties vary widely, with statistics on civilian deaths being very approximate. Due to these circumstances, it is not possible to name a more or less exact number of casualties in the First Chechen War.

Losses of federal forces

Immediately after the end of the war, the headquarters of the United Group of Federal Forces provided the following statistics (October 13, 1996):

* dead - 4103
* prisoners/missing/deserters - 1231
* wounded - 19,794

Thus, irretrievable losses at that time were estimated at 5,334 people.

More accurate data is given in the book “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century: Statistical research", published in 2001:

* dead - 5042
* missing persons - 510
* wounded, shell-shocked, injured - 16,098

In general, irretrievable losses of federal forces amount to 5,552 people, including 3,680 military personnel Armed Forces RF and 1872 people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other departments. At the same time, the percentage of non-combat losses is very low: during the entire war, only 191 people died in various incidents and died from illnesses, that is, about 4% of the total number of deaths (in modern military conflicts, non-combat losses usually account for 10-20% of the total).

According to the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers, about 14 thousand military personnel died in Chechnya in 1994-1996.

According to sources of Chechen militants, the losses of federal forces in the First Chechen War amounted to up to 80 thousand people killed.

Losses of Chechen fighters

According to federal forces, as of August 15, 1996, during the fighting in Chechnya, the irretrievable losses of illegal armed groups (that is, it is possible that not only killed, but also captured) amounted to 17,391 people.

Sources of Chechen militants report that the losses of their formations during the war reach 3,800 people killed. At the same time, Aslan Maskhadov in 2000 mentioned 2,870 militants killed in the First Chechen War.

Civilian casualties

In January 1996, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rubanov, in an interview with the Interfax news agency, said that there were no official statistics on casualties among civilians in Chechnya, there was only an estimate by human rights activists - 25-30 thousand dead. In 1997, on the eve of the signing of the Russian-Chechen treaty, the head of the Department of Demographic Statistics of the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, Boris Brui, turned to the International Committee of the Red Cross for estimates of the losses of the civilian population of Chechnya (which confirms the lack of official statistics on this issue). The ICRC referred him to the Memorial human rights center. Thus, the subsequently released data from the State Statistics Committee about 30-40 thousand civilian deaths in the First Chechen War is based on information from Russian human rights activists.

At the same time, some departments appeared to have their own estimates of the death toll. At the end of 1995, in the article by I. Rotar “Chechnya: a long-standing turmoil” (Izvestia. - No. 204. - November 27, 1995. - P. 4), with reference to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, information was given that about 26 thousand died during the year of hostilities. people, of which 2 thousand are Russian military personnel and 10-15 thousand militants, the rest are civilians (that is, from 9 to 14 thousand).

The assessment of Chechen militants is available from the words of Aslan Maskhadov, who in 2000 spoke of 120 thousand dead.

Human losses in the Second Chechen War

The Second Chechen War, which began in 1999, was accompanied by large casualties among military personnel of the federal group of troops, activists of Chechen armed groups and civilians of the republic. Despite the fact that the cessation of the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya was officially announced after the capture of Shatoy on February 29, 2000, military operations continued after this date, leading to new casualties.

Losses of federal forces

According to official data, from October 1, 1999 to December 23, 2002, the total losses of federal forces (all law enforcement agencies) in Chechnya amounted to 4,572 people killed and 15,549 wounded. Thus, these figures do not include losses during the fighting in Dagestan (August-September 1999). After December 2002, as a rule, only figures for losses of the Ministry of Defense were published, although there were also losses of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Below are known data on deadweight losses by year. For example, 547+12 is 547 dead (combat and non-combat losses) and 12 missing.

1999 547+12
2000 1297+13
2001 502+2
2002 463 or 485
2003 263 or 299+1
2004 174 or 162 84 or 118
2005 105 or 103+4 47 or 48
2006 57
2007 54
2008 12 (by June)

According to estimates by the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia, official data on human losses in the second Chechen war are underestimated by at least two times (about the same as what happened during the first Chechen campaign).

Losses of Chechen fighters

According to the federal side, as of December 31, 2000, militant losses amounted to more than 10,800 people, and according to another source, at the beginning of 2001 - more than 15,000 people. In July 2002, 13,517 militants were reported killed.

The militant command estimated the losses suffered from September 1999 to mid-April 2000 (the period of the most intense fighting) at 1,300 dead and 1,500 wounded. In an interview given in 2005 to journalist Andrei Babitsky, Shamil Basayev voiced the figure of 3,600 people killed by militants for the period 1999-2005.

Civilian casualties?

USSR and Russia at the slaughter. Human losses in the wars of the 20th century Sokolov Boris Vadimovich

First Russian-Chechen war, 1994-1996

The invasion of Russian troops into Chechnya, which at that time was a de facto independent but unrecognized state, began on December 11, 1994. The purpose of the operation was to restore supremacy federal center over the rebellious republic. Contrary to expectations, the troops met stubborn resistance. The Chechen capital Grozny was captured only on February 22, 1995, and the Chechen separatists were driven out of all other major cities only in June. Chechen formations switched to guerrilla warfare. Fighting were completed in August 1996, when Chechen troops recaptured Grozny from Russian troops, and on August 31, the Khasavyurt agreements were signed to end the war and the readiness of the parties to resolve the conflict peacefully. The question of the status of Chechnya was postponed until the end of 2001. By the end of 1996, all Russian troops were withdrawn from Chechnya.

According to official data, the losses of the Russian army amounted to 3,602 people killed, dead, missing and captured, including 538 officers. Of this number, 78 people were missing or captured, including 26 officers. The losses of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs amounted to 1,551 people killed, dead, missing and captured, including 197 officers. Of this number, 187 people were missing, including 11 officers. 311 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (policemen) were killed, including 134 officers and 1 civilian employee who went missing. In addition, another 36 policemen, including 8 officers, went missing. FSB losses amounted to 47 people, including 39 officers. The Federal Border Service suffered 38 killed and killed, including 11 officers. 1 railway soldier and 2 FAPSI employees, including 1 officer, were also killed.

On August 7, 1999, the Second Russian-Chechen War began with the invasion of Chechen troops into Dagestan, during which Russian troops occupied the entire territory of Chechnya. In guerrilla form, this war continues to this day, covering the territory of almost all the republics of the North Caucasus, with the exception of North Ossetia. It is too early to sum up its results, including losses. A total of 5,528 people were killed or missing, including 1 civilian. 24 people, including 5 officers, returned from captivity alive. The 486 remaining missing include 279 unidentified corpses of servicemen who were in the 124th Central as of June 1, 1999. medical laboratory Department of Defense identification research.

4,513 Russian military personnel, including 784 officers, were killed in action or died during the medical evacuation stages. 338 people, including 63 officers, died from their wounds in hospitals. 191 people died from illnesses and accidents, including 22 officers. Losses in wounded, burned, shell-shocked and injured amounted to 16,098 people, including 2,920 officers, and 35,289 people fell ill, including 3,821 officers. In total, the total sanitary losses amounted to 51,387 people, including 6,741 officers. It is unknown whether the official losses of Russian troops include the losses of the Chechen formations that fought on the side of the federal forces. Most likely, they are not included in Russian official losses.

There is also a higher estimate of Russian irretrievable losses in the First Russian-Chechen War. The Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia estimates the number of Russian military personnel killed and died in Chechnya in 1994-1996 at 14 thousand people, including both conscripts and contract soldiers, as well as officers. This estimate was obtained by extrapolating data obtained for individual Russian regions to the entire population of conscripts who served in Chechnya. Such an estimate may not be particularly accurate and may either overestimate or underestimate the death toll. Obviously, the assessment of the Union of Soldiers' Mothers' Committees did not include the dead policemen and employees of the FSB and FAPSI. With the addition of irretrievable losses of these categories of military personnel total number dead, if we use the estimate of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, should be increased to 14.4 thousand dead and missing. In addition, this number probably did not include the losses of the Chechen formations fighting on the side of the federal forces. At present, it is impossible to say which of the official estimates of 5,528 dead and missing, or our adjusted estimate of the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of 14.4 thousand dead and missing, is closer to the truth. It is possible that the true death toll lies somewhere between the two estimates mentioned. The Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers draws attention to the discrepancy between the data of the military authorities and the number of “funerals” actually received in the regions; on data received from the Forensic Medical Examination Center in Rostov, indicating a discrepancy between the officially recognized casualties for each day and the number of dead bodies arriving at the laboratory for identification; on the imperfection of the system for recording human losses in Russia. Since the primary documents are about Russian losses in the First Russian-Chechen War have not yet been published and are inaccessible to researchers; it is not possible to more accurately determine the size of these losses.

There is no reliable data on the losses of Chechens, both anti-Russian armed forces and civilians. Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov said at the beginning of 2000 that 2,870 military and militiamen and up to 120 thousand civilians died on the Chechen side in the First Russian-Chechen War. Probably, the figure for military losses is minimal and most likely underestimated, since Maskhadov is unlikely to have information about the losses of all Chechen troops, given the partisan nature of the war. The figure of 120 thousand dead civilians seems overestimated, with the caveat that we do not have reliable data on the losses of the civilian Chechen population in 1994-1996.

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