Battle of Grozny (November 1994)


The November 1994 Battle of Grozny was an attempt to oust the separatist Chechen government of Dzhokhar Dudayev, sponsored and aided by the government of the Russian Federation, by seizing the Chechen capital of Grozny. The attack was conducted by armed formations of the opposition Provisional Council, led by Umar Avturkhanov, with a clandestine support of Russian Federation's armor and aircraft on 26 November 1994. The fighting subdued after the first 10 hours, but some clashes continued until the following day.
The Russian government officially denied military involvement in the operation, but openly supported the Provisional Council. The attack ended in failure, with 70 Russian soldiers being captured. Dudayev threatened to execute the Russian prisoners under Islamic law, prompting the government in Moscow to demand that rebels free the captives and lay down their arms within 48 hours or face military intervention. The incident led to the large-scale military invasion of the republic that began in December 1994.

Background

In the summer of 1994 the FSK began an active co-operation with leaders of the Chechen internal opposition against Dudayev, uniting them in a body named the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic. Forces of Umar Avturkhanov and Beslan Gantemirov received from Moscow not only money but also training and arms, including heavy weapons. The months of August and September saw the outbreak of fighting between the opposition and Dudayev's forces. By this time, the opposition had established a well armed force of several hundred men, equipped with armoured vehicles and covertly backed by Russian helicopters operating from an air base at Mozdok, Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. This military campaign climaxed in an attack on Grozny on 15–16 October, when the militias of Gantamirov and Ruslan Labazanov unsuccessfully attempted to take the city by a joint assault for the first time.
Disappointed by their failures and aware of their military weakness up to and after the October assault, the Chechen opposition, aided by an ethnic-Chechen former Chairman of the State Duma, Ruslan Khasbulatov, intensified their lobbying with the FSK and Russian president Boris Yeltsin's staff in favour of more direct involvement on Moscow's part. As a result, Avturkhanov and Gantemirov, who by then have joined their militias, received all the weapons, instructors, training and media support they requested, setting the ground for the final assault. In October, Russia's Defense Minister General Pavel Grachev ordered the formation of a special task force of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, led by the Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate Anatoly Kvashnin and General Leontiy Shevtsov. Active duty tank crewmen from Russia's elite formations in the Moscow Military District, as well as other Russian personnel such as 18 helicopter crewmen from the North Caucasus Military District, were recruited as a mercenaries, provided with fake documents and sent into Chechnya. A transport of 50 additional armored vehicles were also brought in by the FSK. The issues of recruitment and transfer of weapons involved the Deputy Director of the FSK in charge of supervising the Caucasus, General Sergei Stepashin and Russia's Deputy Minister for Nationalities, General Alexander Kotenkov, as well as his direct superior, Nikolai Yegorov.

Attack

On 22 November, the Provisional Council began preparing their final assault on Grozny. A large group of Russian officers led Chief of General Staff, Mikhail Kolesnikov, flew from Moscow to Mozdok, and the direct supervision of combat operations was entrusted to the deputy commander of Russia's 8th Guards Army Corps from Volgograd, General Gennady Zhukov. A convoy of Russian armored vehicles entered the territory of Chechnya. The first clash took place 10 kilometers from the border near Tolstoi-Yurt, when a small group of Dudayev's supporters ambushed the convoy and disabled two tanks. On the following day, en route towards Urus-Martan, the convoy was again attacked near the settlement of Alkhan-Kala resulting in a loss of another tank. In spite of this, the pro-Dudayev's forces in Grozny were believed to be unable to organize resistance to such a large-scale attack.
On the morning of 26 November, the Russian and their Chechen allies entered the capital in the motorised columns advancing from two directions, Nadterechny District and Urus-Martanovsky District, supported by several unmarked federal attack aircraft. According to Chechen commander Dalkhan Kozayev, the coup force in Grozny numbered 42 T-72 main battle tanks, eight BTR-80 armoured personnel carriers, various other vehicles, a number of aircraft, and more than 3,000 men. Russian sources give similar figures of about 40–42 tanks, supported from air by six helicopters and six Sukhoi Su-27 air superiority fighters, but give much lower figures of no more than 1,000–1,500 allied Chechen militiamen. The attack was met with an improvised but fierce defense by the Chechen government forces and loyalist militias in the city center, including an ambush near the Chechen presidential palace and the fighting at the State Security headquarters, the railway station and the television center. Soon the assault turned into a disaster as the defenders burned or captured most of the attacking armored vehicles, capturing scores of Russian servicemen in the process, and completely routed the opposition.

Casualties

This defeat was catastrophic, not only in military but also in political terms. Any Russian complicity and knowledge of the operation was at first denied by Moscow, but then acknowledged after 20 captured Russian servicemen were paraded before television cameras and Dudayev threatened to shoot them if Yeltsin would not recognise his own soldiers. On 1 December, Yeltsin vowed to help the Russian prisoners, the first indirect acknowledgement of Russian involvement.
A failure of the coup attempt exhausted Russia's means of waging war against Dudayev by proxy and led to Russia launching an all out direct invasion in December 1994. On 28 November, the Security Council of Russia met in an emergency meeting, adopting a secret decision to prepare a plan for a military operation in Chechnya within 14 days, and Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin called on for Yeltsin to "restore the constitutional order in the Chechen Republic". On the same day, a large air strike by the Russian military aviation eliminated every military and civilian aircraft available to Dudayev's government and destroyed the runways at both airfields near Grozny. On 29 November, Yeltsin gave Chechnya 48 hours to disband all "illegal armed formations", disarm, and release all prisoners. On 10 December 1994, tens of thousands of Russian regulars were ordered to move towards Grozny from Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, and the First Chechen War officially began.