To Bomb One’s People

Thirty years ago today, 40,000 Russian troops rolled across the border of the secessionist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Their destination was Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, which was home to approximately half a million people. As three Russian convoys crept toward Grozny from the north, east, and west, warplanes and artillery ramped up a deadly bombardment of the city. The attack inaugurated both the First Chechen War (which lasted from 1994 to 1996) and the Battle of Grozny, a vicious slog that killed thousands of soldiers and 25,000 to 30,000 Russian citizens in just two months. Grozny quickly became a crucible snaring fresh-faced Russian conscripts, hardened Chechen guerrillas, and shell-shocked civilians in a bombed-out Soviet cityscape.

On the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Grozny, this article explores the military adventurism that sabotaged Chechen dreams of autonomy and Russian dreams of humane governance. It presents an operation where unpreparedness and indifference led to tens of thousands of deaths and leveled a city. Tragically, the disproportionate, indiscriminate, and unnecessary bombardment of this dense urban environment was only an indication of where modern warfare was headed.

Operations in cities like Grozny put civilians at vastly disproportionate risk, particularly from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, which consistently kill nine civilians for every one combatant. Though cities have long been targets and battlefields, increasingly sophisticated military targeting and delivery systems have not translated into greater safety and consideration for civilians. Instead, urban warfare has only become more prevalent and lethal in the 21st century. Devastated urban areas across Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen face years if not decades of rebuilding. And today, a mix of cutting-edge technology and crude bombardment kills thousands in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Ukraine, and Myanmar.

For Russia, which is currently at war with Ukraine, Grozny served as the bridge from Soviet helicopters indiscriminately buzzing Afghan villages in the 1980s to Russian jets leveling Syria’s Aleppo in 2016 and Idlib in 2019 and Ukraine’s Mariupol and Bakhmut in 2022. While Grozny often serves as a cautionary tale for how not to conduct urban operations, there have been few attacks on cities that did not result in widespread death and destruction. Grozny’s suffering has been reproduced in dozens of cities around the world. Thirty years later, the trials civilians faced in those winter months warrant continued awareness and an unceasing call for accountability.

The Stakes

Three decades ago, the invasion of Chechnya was part of the new Russian Federation’s broader struggle of state building, political jostling, and reform and reaction. In rapid succession in autumn 1991, the eccentric Air Force Maj. Gen. Dzhokhar Dudayev overthrew a communist administration in Grozny, won a referendum as president, and declared Chechnya’s independence from the Russian Federation. However, his reliance on organized criminals, self-serving militias, and personality politics quickly froze Chechen politics in place while antagonizing officials in Moscow. In the ashes of the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 republics, Moscow’s elites were hardly eager to lose another province or for Chechnya’s secession to undermine negotiations with the North Caucasus’s other provinces on their borders and autonomy within the Russian Federation.

Russian politics were also in flux at home. In October 1993, just a year before the war, Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved Russia’s parliament, expanded his presidential powers, and ordered tanks to fire on parliamentarians sheltering in Moscow’s White House. Hundreds died in street fights between Yeltsin’s supporters and those of Parliamentary Chair Ruslan Khasbulatov and Vice President Alexander Rutskoy. Once Khasbulatov and Rutskoy were in jail, Yeltsin’s circle tightened. Throughout 1994, a core group of advisers and friends whose conservative militarism boded ill for Chechnya denied reformists’ and moderates’ access to Yeltsin. 

In the Kremlin’s Byzantine power politics, Chechnya became a subject of sharp disagreement and self-promotion. The hawks of Yeltsin’s inner circle—namely chief bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, and Nationalities Minister Nikolai Yegorov—categorically rejected negotiations with Dudayev and began arming and financing anti-Dudayev militias under Umar Avturkhanov and Beslan Gantemirov. Politics infested the security services as well, with Sergei Stepashin’s Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK, later FSB) leading these covert operations while intentionally sidestepping Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Interior Minister Viktor Yerin. Breaking the chain of command, the FSK secretly contracted 47 tank crews from the army’s Taman and Kantemirov Divisions near Moscow and sent them to support Avturkhanov.

Despite not-so-covert support from Russian tanks, helicopters, and jets, Chechnyan fighters repeatedly repelled Avturkhanov’s ramshackle forces from Grozny in October and November 1994. The situation escalated rapidly after Russia’s final defeat on Nov. 26, when Dudayev’s troops captured 58 Russian soldiers and Avturkhanov retreated. Grachev publicly disavowed the captives as mercenaries and boasted that the army could take Grozny with “one airborne regiment in two hours.” On Nov. 29, before even meeting with his security council, Yeltsin issued an ultimatum demanding that the Chechens disarm in 48 hours or face “all forces and means at the disposal of the state.”

With this fait accompli, Yeltsin and the “Power Ministers” at the Russian Departments of Defense, Interior, and FSK swept aside concerns from the highest levels of government, including Justice Minister Yuri Kalmykov (who resigned in protest), the Foreign Intelligence Service director, and the chair of the Parliamentary Defense Committee. Much of the army was also against the war, including Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Lebed, the chief of the General Staff, and the deputy minister of defense. Two colonel generals, Aleksei Mityukin and Eduard Vorobev, even refused to take command of the invasion force.

Though impossible to determine the exact sequence of decision-making and the decisive voice in the Kremlin in late November, the hawks had clearly mobilized. Korzhakov, the bodyguard, insulated Yeltsin from voices desperately trying to change his mind, while Grachev, Stepashin, Yerin, and Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, important figures outside Yeltsin’s circle of friends, had also become supporters of an invasion. From Yeltsin’s circle, Soskovets became head of the Government Crisis Committee for Chechnya and Yegorov was elevated to deputy prime minister and special representative to Chechnya. Once the die was cast, Yeltsin disappeared into the hospital for two weeks with a supposedly deviated septum.

The Invasion

As Russia’s army mobilized, Yeltsin’s absence and Dudayev’s increasing intransigence doomed last-minute overtures for peace. The ultimatum’s deadline came and went, and on Dec. 11, 40,000 troops under Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin departed in three convoys from bases in Mozdok to the northwest, Vladikavkaz to the southwest, and Dagestan to the east.

That same day, the Russian Air Force and the Russian Ground Forces’ Artillery sections began an intense bombing campaign responsible for the vast majority of civilian casualties. Russia’s initial targets were reportedly roads and bridges, the television and radio station, the train system, government buildings, and Dudayev’s presidential palace in the city center, which was Yeltsin’s stated operational objective. The Russian Air Force had already established complete air superiority when it destroyed Dudayev’s air force on the tarmac of Grozny’s two airfields between Nov. 29 and Dec. 2. As the convoys inched toward Grozny, the bombs crept forward, striking targets from the airfields to the suburbs to the city center.

The invasion, however, was catastrophically disorganized. Yeltsin gave the army less than two weeks to mobilize. The war caught the Russian Armed Forces in the middle of a general reorganization and doctrinal reform, and it had recently lost great deals of manpower, expertise, and equipment in the Soviet Union’s breakup. Defense Minister Grachev wrote internally about the army’s poor training, unreadiness, and high suicide rates, and yet was a prime advocate for the invasion.

Grachev’s operational plan for the invasion allocated only 15 days to capture Grozny. Ad hoc units were thrown together and ordered to begin marching before reaching full strength. Many battalions departed at only half their official size and lacked heavy ammunition or specialized support troops. Lacking enough encryption tools for such a large and varied force, the army decided radio transmissions would be made over open airways. Tactical commanders were not provided with maps, reconnaissance was cursory, and FSK and Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) reports significantly underestimated the Chechens’ numbers, capabilities, and organization in the city. Ground commanders were surprised to find civilians peacefully protesting along the roads and trying to halt their progress, and the three convoys were ordered to eschew preparation and attack as soon as they reached the city. Refusing to declare a state of emergency and framing the invasion as an internal policing operation against criminal bands, the Kremlin and its generals gave little assistance to civilians while leaving their own troops wholly unprepared for battle.

The army’s untrained, unsupported conscripts faced Chechens who spoke Russian, wielded Russian equipment, and often wore Russian uniforms. Though hundreds of volunteers streamed toward Grozny from the countryside, there were only a few hundred men in the official Chechen armed forces. The core of Grozny’s defenders, especially commander Shamil Basayev’s “Abkhazian Battalion,” had often served as Soviet troops in Afghanistan, volunteers in the Abkhaz separatist war of 1992-1993, and crack troops in the autumn battles against Avturkhanov. They were low on ammunition and equipment, but they were quickly establishing an effective battle plan and logistical infrastructure in three concentric defensive lines around the city center.

As the battle loomed, Grozny was collapsing. Approximately 300,000 people crammed into long convoys out of the city to seek temporary sanctuary with family members in the villages. But most of Grozny’s ethnic Russian population did not have this option. Grozny’s Russians were likely members of the Soviet Union’s administrative, economic, and cultural class and thus inhabited much of the best real estate in the city center, which was now the prime target for their own government’s bombs. Many of those left behind were simply elderly pensioners unable to flee. Sergei Kovalev, chairman of the president’s Human Rights Commission, later estimated that 22,000 ethnic Russians had been killed in Grozny, making up roughly 85 percent of all civilian casualties. Regardless of identity or allegiance, civilians and soldiers alike sheltered in Grozny’s basements and braced for the assault.

The Battle

Close combat began on New Year’s Eve when several thousand motorized troops entered Grozny from Kvashnin’s northern column. Kvashnin had launched the attack after the other two columns’ commanders falsely reported being closer to the city than they were. Though some officers may have fought in Afghanistan, the New Year’s troops were largely unprepared for combat and unfamiliar with their units. They faced no serious resistance in Grozny’s suburbs or outlying districts as the Chechens lured them into the city center. Tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) drove in parade order toward key objectives like the palace and the train station but were soon ambushed and routed by Chechens shooting from windows and basements. Young men burned alive in their vehicles while others ran and fired at an enemy they could not see. The 81st Motor Rifle Regiment lost half of its men, while almost the entire 131st Maikop Brigade was besieged inside the train station and destroyed, losing more than 1,000 men and 122 out of 146 of its tanks and APCs.

After this catastrophe, Kvashnin retreated and reorganized, and the battle turned into a slog. Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov kept most of his men in reserve in the provinces while squads of 15 to 25 urban guerrillas held on to key positions in Grozny. Terrified of ambushes and booby traps, Russian infantry moved slowly and methodically. Meanwhile, the Russian Air Force and Russian Ground Forces’ Artillery sections were trying to carpet-bomb their way out of Grozny’s cat-and-mouse conundrum. There was virtually no coordination between the army and the Interior Ministry’s troops or between ground units and the air force. As such, friendly fire soon became the primary cause of death for Russian troops. 

Even the army’s Afghan veterans had little experience with urban combat, learning the hard way that unwieldy armored vehicles driving down narrow streets were prime targets for rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Chechen teams ducked in and out of buildings lugging sniper rifles, grenades, machine guns, and RPGs while continually listening in on the Russians’ open-air radio transmissions.

Once ambushed, inexperienced Russian infantry tried sheltering in broken-down APCs, which were quickly blown up, or tried escaping onto side streets where they were executed or captured. Russian tanks were unable to move their turrets low enough to hit basements, and reinforcements were ambushed when trying to save their comrades. All the while, Shamil Basayev’s “Abkhazian Battalion” acted as a rapid reaction force of 100 to 200 heavily armed commandos plugging holes in the line or reinforcing embattled positions.

As Chechen hunter-killer squads took out thousands of demoralized, malnourished Russian infantry, Sukhoi Su-24 and Su-25 tactical bombers and BM-27 Uragan and BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers dropped tens of thousands of bombs on Grozny a day. The Uragans and Grads were notably imprecise artillery systems, guaranteeing the wholesale leveling of neighborhoods and city blocks without discernment. Russian artillery doctrine focused on massing firepower against enemy armed formations, but in Grozny there were neither armed formations nor clear targets. Rather than adjusting doctrine to the situation, the army’s Artillery Services simply fired massive barrages on broad areas. Similarly, as targeted airstrikes were difficult in supersonic Su-24s and subsonic Su-25s, the air force opted for broad “free fire” bombing zones. 

Additionally, as Chechen guerrillas used sewers, residential buildings, and civilian bomb shelters as bases and staging grounds for attacks, the Russian Air Force and artillery ended up targeting and destroying much of Grozny’s essential civilian infrastructure.

The bombing also expanded to surrounding villages, killing dozens. The Russian Armed Forces failed to fully encircle Grozny, which allowed the Chechens to continually resupply and reinforce their men while extracting the wounded. While the official justification for the failed encirclement was to allow civilians a path out of Grozny, the Russian army repeatedly bombed the southern roads out of the city and even convoys of fleeing civilians. As Grozny and various villages progressively came under Russian control, poor discipline and morale led to widespread looting and abuse, especially by reserve troops and police. Russian forces often burnt down homes, robbed civilians at checkpoints, sexually assaulted women, and beat, tortured, and conducted mock or real executions of suspected guerrilla fighters and informers.

On Jan. 18, 1995, after three weeks of house-to-house fighting and indiscriminate bombardment, two “bunker buster” bombs annihilated the presidential palace and forced its evacuation. The next day, the Russian flag was hoisted over the ruins and operations officially transitioned to the Interior Ministry to “reestablish constitutional order.” The Russians imposed a new presidential administration and began coercing civilians into returning to a war zone without essential infrastructure or government aid. Still, Chechen forces continued to fight and hold on to the city’s southeast until March 7, when they finally slipped out of Grozny. By this time, roughly 6 percent of Grozny’s prewar population had been killed.

The Aftermath

After capturing Grozny, the Interior Ministry, intelligence services, and “kontraktniki”(contractors) fanned out into the villages. Masked men besieged and torched villages, sent the men off to disappear in “filtration centers,” and drove away with truckloads of rugs, furniture, and jewelry to sell on the black market. In April 1995, Russian forces massacred 100 to 200 civilians in the village of Samashki, a particularly egregious raid but in no way exceptional. Hundreds of thousands of people spent years languishing in under-serviced tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia while Moscow continually demanded they return.

Finally, the war that began with an ultimatum ended in a rout. Though a precision strike killed Dudayev in a remote forest a few months prior, on Aug. 6, thousands of Chechen forces infiltrated Grozny, isolated the surprised garrison, and captured the city. By this point, Yeltsin had just won a new term, fired the war hawks, and was finished with the Chechen farrago. Yeltsin soon sent Alexander Lebed, an initial skeptic of the invasion, to make peace with Dudayev’s more level-headed successor, Aslan Maskhadov, in Khasavyurt.

But the Khasavyurt Accords delayed the final decision on Chechnya’s status, and in 1999, new President Vladimir Putin reinvaded Chechnya and reimposed a reign of surveillance, torture, and disappearances that crushed the region’s spirit. Today, strongman Ramzan Kadyrov eagerly sends troops to fight in Ukraine while suppressing or co-opting any public recognition of the First and Second Chechen Wars.

Though Russia’s judiciary tried only a handful of individual crimes and obfuscated on questions of war crimes or crimes against humanity, Chechen survivors found success in the European Court of Human Rights. Wielding extensive documentation compiled by Chechen and Russian civil society, survivors won hundreds of civil cases for individual crimes. Respecting the court’s rulings until 2015, Russia paid the compensation but let perpetrators walk free.

The Legacy

After Grozny, Russia reformed its military. It became more innovative but no more discerning in its attacks on urban centers. In the Second Chechen War (1999-2009), Russia deployed fuel-air explosives (aka thermobaric or “vacuum” bombs), which can penetrate bomb shelters and cause horrific deaths through suffocation or extreme heat across a wide area. In Syria (2015-), Russia and the Assad regime deluged cities and villages with unguided barrel bombs, systematically targeted health facilities, and dropped cluster munitions that spray explosive pellets, which lie unexploded for years and injure unsuspecting civilians who pick them up or step on them. In Ukraine (2014-) and Syria, Russia deployed reconnaissance assets to track when first responders arrived at blast sites so that it could “doubletap” a target, killing the responders and creating a culture of fear undermining civilian and civil protection efforts. In Ukraine, both Russia and Ukraine have used cluster munitions, while Russia has deployed kamikaze drones and thermobaric bombs in its routine attacks on critical civilian infrastructure.

Russia is not the sole perpetrator of widespread civilian harm in urban operations. The United States invented thermobaric weapons and is not a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits all use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. U.S. coalition campaigns in Baghdad (2003), Raqqa, and Mosul (2017) killed thousands of civilians. Today, Israel is conducting an unprecedented bombing campaign in Gaza and Lebanon, wielding artificial intelligence, quadcopter drones, and, potentially, thermobaric bombs with targeting policies that allow for dozens if not hundreds of civilian casualties to kill a single militant. In Sudan, the military authorities have indiscriminately bombed the cities of Khartoum and El Fasher during pitched battles, while in Myanmar an embattled junta increasingly relies on indiscriminate airstrikes across the country.

Urban combat and especially urban bombings clearly result in inordinate suffering for civilians. Though there is a wealth of discourse on how to learn from past urban operations and plan for the future, history hardly bears many benefits for those who engaged in urban warfare. If Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said two thousand years ago that “the lowest is to attack a city … [and the] siege of a city is only done as a last resort,” this rationale has only become stronger as weapons have become more lethal and indiscriminate.

In Chechnya, a few men’s precipitous decision to invade and their callous indifference to civilian casualties hyper-charged the militarism, authoritarianism, and ethno-nationalism seen in Russia today. Chechnya was pivotal in the Russian Federation’s slide away from the era of “glasnost”(openness). Impunity for everyone from the “kontraktniki” to the war hawks in the Kremlin ensured that the Chechen tragedy would be revisited on the people of Syria and Ukraine. Though militaries will continue to plan for urban operations, the sheer amount of human suffering these operations have caused and will cause may ideally give policymakers a moment’s pause.