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The Battle(S) of Grozny1

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The Battle(S) of Grozny1 Baltic Defence Review 2/1999 The battle(s) of Grozny1 Ib Faurby, Royal Danish Defence College in co-operation with Märta-Lisa Magnusson, University of Southern Denmark O n New Years Eve 1994 a large Rus- Yeltsin and the Russian Supreme Soviet, sian force tried to storm Grozny, 1. The Setting which more or less left the Chechens to the capital of Chechnya. The attempt failed themselves. However, the Duma elections and a drawn out urban battle raged until In November 1991 the Chechen Presi- in December 1993 strengthened the na- the Russians claimed to be in control of dent, Dzhokhar Dudayev declared tionalists and communists in Russian the city two months later. That, however, Chechnya to be independent. Russian politics and Yeltsin moved politically in was premature. One year later a Chechen President Boris Yeltsin reacted by send- a more nationalistic as well as authoritar- force entered the city for a few days, and ing Interior Ministry troops to Grozny, ian direction. in August 1996 the Chechens retook but the mission failed due to opposition Yeltsin appointed a number of minis- Grozny in an offensive which paved the from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev ters and advisers with a hawkish and de- way for the Khasavyurt Peace Agreement and the Russian Supreme Soviet. One year cidedly anti-Chechen attitude to influen- which lead to the withdrawal of the Rus- later, Russian troops deployed to contain tial positions. At the same time Chechnya sian forces from Chechnya. the North Ossetian/Ingusjetian conflict became increasingly isolated, and domes- The purpose of the following is to give moved towards the Chechen border, but tic Chechen politics degenerated into vio- a brief outline of the battles of Grozny stopped when Dudayev mobilised his lent confrontations between Dudayev and and discuss why the numerically and ma- troops for defence of Chechnya. a number of armed opposition groups. terially superior Russian forces had such Then followed a period of half-hearted Furthermore, the international game difficulties in conquering and holding a Russian economic blockade of Chechnya about how oil from the Azerbaijani fields medium size city. and a power-struggle in Moscow between in the Caspian Sea should be transported 75 Baltic Defence Review 2/1999 to the international market made the On Sunday December 11, 1994 at 07.00 ing the Dudayev forces into the south- Russian government anxious to get full the Russian forces commenced their at- ern mountains while establishing a pro- control over the Baku-Novorossysk pipe- tack which the secretary of the Russian Russian government in the liberated line, which runs through Chechnya. Security Council, Oleg Lobov, expected areas. This phase was expected to take be- Originally, the Russian leadership to be a small victorious war. It lasted tween five and ten days. thought it could gain control over for 21 months and ended in a complete 4. Elimination of pockets of resistance Chechnya by supporting the pro-Russian military failure for Russia. in the southern mountains. It was expected opposition to Dudayev with money and To the extend that there was a plan for that this phase could be quite long. weapons, or at least that the opposition the conquering of Chechnya, it had four The Chechen plan was to avoid set battle with covert Russian support could cre- phases:4 with the advancing Russian troops in the ate a military stall-mate, legitimating a 1. Border troops should surround open terrain but to slow down their ad- Russian peacekeeping intervention like Chechnya while the air force surveyed and vance through pinpoint and ambush at- the one in the North Ossetian/Ingusjetian controlled the air space over the repub- tacks in forests and hilly terrain prima- conflict in 1992.2 lic. On the ground three groups of army rily against the Russian rear and MVD However, the oppositions attack on and Interior Ministry troops should move troops. A first set battle was planned to Grozny in late November 1994 failed in from North West, West and East to- take place a few kilometres outside miserably, and it was revealed that Rus- wards Grozny and surround the city leav- Grozny. However, this should not be a sian soldiers, secretly hired by the secu- ing an opening towards the South through drawn-out battle either. The purpose was rity service, the FSK, had taken part in which the Chechen forces can leave the city. to delay the Russian advance in order to the attack and some of them been taken Grozny was not to be stormed. This phase gain time for preparing the defence of prisoners by Dudayev. Russia and the was expected to take three days. Grozny, where the Chechens planned for Russian army had been humiliated. In that 2. Securing of Grozny through occu- the decisive confrontation.5 situation Yeltsin quickly decided to make pation of presidential palace, other gov- a full-scale military intervention in ernment buildings, television and radio 2. Order of Battle Chechnya in order to re-establish con- stations and other important objects. stitutional order as it was officially This phase was expected to take four days. It is extremely difficult to give a pre- said.3 3. Clearing the lowlands through push- cise account of the forces involved in the 76 Baltic Defence Review 2/1999 Russian-Chechen war. Not only the provided 55 helicopters during the ini- snipers in white tights from the Baltic sources are problematic and contradic- tial phase of the war.7 countries. In fact there were relatively few tory. Most of the Russian units were com- Although it is difficult to give a pre- mujaheddins in Chechnya and no west- posite units and even so not always fully cise picture of the Russian order of bat- ern journalist ever saw any of the ama- manned. Terms such as regiment, brigade tle, it is nothing compared to the diffi- zons from the Baltic States. etc. should not necessarily be understood culties in describing the Chechen forces. At the time of the invasion the organ- as full units. Even greater difficulties are The sources give all kinds of figures from ised Chechen units were probably only connected with getting a reasonable pic- 1,000 to 45,000 men. One of the reasons the following:8 ture of the rather casually organised is, that there were relatively few organ- • President Dudayevs National Guard Chechen units with impressive names. ised military units. At the same time a consisting of about 120 men. According to Defence Minister Pavel considerable number of Chechen men • Shamil Basayevs so-called Abkhasian Grachev the original Russian force con- took up arms when Russian troops Battalion of around 350 men. sisted of 23,800 men approximately moved into their local area, but went back • A tank unit (called regiment) with 19,000 from the Army and 4,700 from to their daily chores, when the Russians between 12 and 15 working tanks (T-54, the Ministry of the Interior. The force left the area. T-62) had 80 battle tanks, 208 APCs and 182 Another difficulty is, that besides the • An artillery unit of approximately artillery pieces. However, during the fol- organised forces of the Dudayev regime, 80 men and 30 light and medium heavy lowing weeks reinforcements were there were the forces of the non-Russian artillery pieces. brought in from all Russian military dis- financed opposition to Dudayev. Almost • A motorised Commando Battalion tricts until the number reached 58,000 in all of them joined in fighting the Rus- of approximately 250 men and lead by March 1995.6 sians as soon as the war began. Ruslan Galayev. Most of the air assets came from the Finally there is the uncertainty about • And finally, the Chechen MVD force 4th Air Army in the North Caucasian the number of non-Chechens from abroad of maybe 200 men. Military Districts but were supplemented who came and fought on the Chechen • The Chechen air force consisted of with aircrafts from other parts of Russia. side. Several Russian sources have fanci- about 15 L-29 or L-39 trainers all of which The total number of air- crafts is unknown, ful reports about thousands of were destroyed on the ground in the first but it was very large. The Army Aviation muhajeddins from Afghanistan and female hours of the war. 77 Baltic Defence Review 2/1999 These figures about the Chechen forces The air campaign started before the are not only uncertain but also highly 3. The Invasion ground invasion on December 11. In the controversial. Russian sources generally period from November 29 to December give much higher figures for Chechen The Russian invasion force consisted 2 Russian planes had attacked the two air- tanks, APCs, and - particularly - airplanes. of three groups. The Northern group ports in Grozny with the purpose of Thus, for example, the chief of the Rus- advanced from Mozdok, the Western eliminating all Chechen airplanes. In par- sian Airforce, Colonel General Petr group from Vladikavkas and Beslan allel with the ground invasion, the air Denykin, claimed that his forces had de- through Ingusjetia, and finally, the east- force attacked other Chechen airfields, stroyed 266 Chechen planes. Although it ern group moved in from Dagestan. The bridges, and major roads, a tank repair is true, that the Chechens had more than troops advanced in columns with the air- facility and the television tower in Grozny. the approximately 15 trainers mentioned borne troops first, then followed the other Also several towns were attacked in this above9 , the planes had not been main- army units and in the rear the MVD units.
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