The First Chechen War took a heavy toll on the Russian army in terms of casualties. According to official figures, 3,826 Russian troops died, 17,892 were wounded and another 1,906 are missing. In addition, the war resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians and the destruction of a large number of facilities. For the next three years, Chechnya enjoyed de facto independence, although it remained part of the Russian ****some.
First Chechen War (1994-1996)
Chechnya*** and the State of Chechnya, one of Russia's 89 federal subjects, is located in the North Caucasus region and covers an area of about 20,000 square kilometers. Chechnya, which is rich in oil and is a hub for oil and gas pipelines and railroads to various parts of Central Asia, is strategically important. Its strategic position is very important. With a population of more than 1.2 million people, most of whom are Muslims, Chechnya is ethnically and culturally different from Orthodox Russia, and for this reason, there have been numerous independence activists in Chechnya since then; Dudayev was elected president of Chechnya in October 1991, and in January 1995 he announced that Chechnya had seceded from the Russian Federation and established the independent state of Chechnya, which triggered a long-lasting Chechen crisis. crisis. As Dudayev pursued a policy of confrontation with the Russian federal center in Chechnya and recruited and formed his own armed forces.
The course of the war
The first Chechen war broke out in December 1994, when the Russian government sent troops into Chechnya to stop the secessionist activities of Chechen gangs. Since the outbreak of the war in December 1994 to the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya in February 1996, the Russian army suffered 3,837 killed in action, 13,270 wounded, 337 missing, and 432 captured; it lost five aircraft, eight combat helicopters, and more than 500 tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored reconnaissance vehicles; and the Chechen militants suffered 15,000 deaths, and 40,000 were wounded and captured. And Western estimates put the Russian death toll at more than 10,000 people. And the worst failure for Russia was the failure of the large-scale military operation to achieve its objectives, laying the groundwork for successive years of terror in the future.
Attack on Grozny
During the attack on Grozny, Russian troops engaged in street battles with Dudayev elements, the battle lines were stretched out too long, and at times the distance between the Russian troops and the Chechen forces was only a few dozen meters, which made the fire support provided by the Russian air force particularly demanding in terms of precision of the aiming bombardment by the pilots and navigational guides. The results of the battle were regrettable. According to Russian airborne troops and infantrymen who took part in the capture of Grozny, due to large aiming errors and inaccurate guidance, there were many incidents of mistaken bombing, and buildings that had been completely captured by the Russian army were often attacked by aerial bombs and uncontrolled rockets from the Russian air force, resulting in large losses. Nevertheless, the Russian aviation played a very important role in the battle to capture Grozny.
Blowing up the passages
In early January 1995, Su-24 bombers fired KAB-1500L laser-guided aerial bombs, destroying in one fell swoop two highway bridges over the Argonne River to the eastern outskirts of Grozny, over which the Chekovs had been transporting their reserves to the battle area. Camera control data showed that the laser-guided aerial bombs were highly accurate and had a very good bombing effect. The use of high-precision weaponry has enabled the Russian air force to carry out constant precision strikes against small targets, such as bandit fire points, armored equipment, and even facilities in Grozny under poor weather conditions. To ensure nighttime reconnaissance in the theater, the Tu-22M3 also dropped flares over Grozny at regular intervals, which to some extent suppressed the destructive activities of small subversive units of Dudaev's gangs in the rear of the Russian army at night.
Example of precision strikes
The most successful example of precision strikes by the Russian Air Force air force during this period was the bombing of the defense center of the city of Grozny, the Dudayev presidential palace. At the beginning of the battle for the capture of Grozny, the Russian forces wanted to keep the city's infrastructure intact, especially the presidential palace, but after paying the price in blood, they finally realized that it was absolutely impossible to capture the Chechen capital without any effort, and the Russians were forced to engage in a brutal street battle with the Chechens, capturing every building, every block, and progressively advancing, at which point the necessity of destroying the illegal armed forces' General Command was self-evident. Therefore, before the Russian federal forces stormed the center of Grozny, the aviation began to carry out devastating precision strikes on the Chechen presidential palace.
The presidential palace, the former office building of the Grozny regional committee of the Soviet ****, was built to be very strong and earthquake-resistant due to its location in the earthquake-prone zone of the Caucasus, and 500 militants were lurking inside. The firebombing carried out by Russian artillery failed to achieve the desired effect, and it was decided to use air force fighters, using BETAB-500 aerial bombs and S-24 heavy uncontrolled rockets capable of destroying reinforced concrete bunkers.On January 17-18, 1995, as soon as the weather conditions improved enough to make it suitable for combat flights, the Russian strong-armed fighters began to bomb the presidential palace, and the result was that they hit the underground command bunker of Dudaev underneath the building with great accuracy. Dudayev's underground command bunker, Dudayev himself was outside the city, escaped, and later in the mountains using satellite phone communications, the signal was intercepted by the Russian army, waiting in the air, a Su-25 rapier launched a precision-guided bombs, Dudayev was killed on the spot.
The Turning Point
The Russians have not released specific casualty figures for the Chechens during the bombing of the presidential palace, but the casualties can't be too small, with at least 130 Chechens killed in underground bunkers alone. What's more, the air raid on the presidential palace dealt a heavy blow to the resistance of the Chechens, as radio communications intercepted by the Russian army showed that the militants who were defending the presidential palace began to panic and soon retreated without a fight, leaving only a few snipers to guard the palace in an attempt to shoot coldly and die with the Russian army.
On January 19, 1995, the battle for Grozny reached a major turning point when the reconnaissance battalion of the Russian 20th Volgograd Kintetsu Division captured the presidential palace, eliminating the snipers who were lurking there. Dudaev's elements withdrew from the city center and consolidated their defenses in the so-called "defensive rear", south and southeast of Grozny, in Katayama and on the Black River, where they continued to resist, but with a markedly lower level of morale. The Chechen illegal armed forces assembled in the Minutka Square area of Grozny were subjected to a series of Russian artillery and air strikes, and the main body of Dudaev's elements began to withdraw from the Chechen capital, fleeing to the mountains in the south. In order to make full use of this favorable opportunity, the Russian Air Force's front-line aviation and army aviation took control of the highway on which the Chechens attempted to break out and flee from Grozny, *** destroying two of the Chechens' armored transporters and more than 50 trucks and cars transporting the militants.
After the ground forces captured the North Grozny airfield, the Russian Army helicopter units immediately began to deploy at this airfield.On January 18, 1995, the first Russian military transport aircraft landed at this airfield, and from the beginning of February 1995 the airfield was put into full working condition.
Of course, the combat operations of the Russian aviation were not limited to Grozny. on January 25, 1995, 18 Su-25 jammers destroyed underground ammunition and military material depots of the Dudayev elements in four silos of the former ICBM positions of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces northwest of Bamut. Another large ammunition depot north of the village of Arshd was also destroyed by Russian Su-25s, and the Chechen militants' staging area for their vital forces and armored equipment in the town of Shali was also hit by air strikes.
Dark day for aviators
But Jan. 25, 1995, was also the darkest day for helicopter pilots of the Land Aviation Corps, when two Mi-24 helicopters were shot down in combat and two pilots were killed.
Russian Air Force fighters managed to minimize losses to the greatest extent possible, 12 strong fighters were hit by ground anti-aircraft fire, all only suffered varying degrees of combat damage, and finally all returned safely to the airport, where 1 aircraft stabilizer was hit, another fighter was hit by one of the engines, the rest of the aircraft were hit by bullets or artillery shells.3 February 1995, the first time to suffer casualties when an Su-24 bomber flying at low altitude in dense fog accidentally crashed into a hill southeast of Chervrenaya station, destroying the aircraft and killing its crew; the accident may have been caused by a malfunction of the onboard navigation system. on February 4, 1995, during a strike against a Chechen bandit support 2 kilometers south of Chechnya-Aura settlement, an Su-25 hard-hitter was hit by fire from the Chechen bandit's "Shilka" anti-aircraft system. "The pilot, Major Bayrov, managed to eject, but his fate is unknown, most likely killed on the spot by militants after landing.
On February 6, 1995, the Russian Federation troops crossed the Sundarbans River with little resistance and quickly cleared the "defensive rear" of militants. In the attack on the last center of resistance of the Chechens in the city of Grozny, the Russian army actively used the aviation units to carry out heavy bombardment of the Black River and Katayama to consolidate the defensive areas, especially in the area of the Black River, where the Chechens had a strong anti-aircraft cover. In order to avoid losses, for the first time, the helicopters of the land aviators used a tactic that had not previously been provided for in the operational orders: the launching of S-24 uncontrolled rockets while the aircraft was in the upward tilt, with the range of the missiles increased to 6-7 kilometers, to carry out the attack outside the killing zone of the anti-aircraft weapons of the Dudayev elements. Of course, the use of this tactic reduces the accuracy of hits, but the accuracy of munitions hits is still very satisfactory when carrying out strikes against ground targets. After that, the land air force began to widely use this tactic.
Risks of raids
Air Force front-line airmen and Army airmen usually operate jointly to carry out combat missions. on February 10, 1995, 11 Mi-24 helicopters and six Su-25 strong hitters carried out a series of strikes against Che bandits' fortifications in the Heihe River consolidation defense area. army helicopters not only attacked pre-selected targets and bombed temporary targets when called by ground forces. They also freely hunted a variety of enemy targets. Similar raids are more risky, because hunting operations are usually carried out over enemy-occupied territory, as in the case of the operation in the area of Gujarmez, where the Mi-24 squadron searched for and eliminated targets on three separate occasions, the first two of which were very successful and resulted in the destruction of an armored transport vehicle, a self-propelled antiaircraft artillery system, and an ammunition depot, but on the third occasion, the militants who had already been prepared for it counterattacked, and the three helicopters were attacked by the bandits, who had been attacked by ZU-23s, and by the army helicopters, which had been attacking the enemy. 23 anti-aircraft artillery and light weapons intensive fire hit, seriously damaged, one of them in the Russian position emergency forced landing, and then because of the damage is too large to repair and early retirement, fortunately, did not suffer casualties.
Temporary calm
In early March 1995, the Russian army completely liberated the city of Grozny and its suburbs, driving the militants into the southern mountains and ushering in a temporary calm situation that allows a brief summary of the early fighting. From 1 December 1994 to 17 March 1995, Russian air force aviation destroyed 265 enemy trainer fighters, 3 helicopters, 20 tanks, 25 armored transport vehicles, 6 self-propelled anti-aircraft systems, 10 artillery pieces, more than 130 military vehicles and blew up 7 bridges, several ammunition depots, a number of fuel and munitions depots, as well as other military targets in Chechnya***. In the meantime, two Russian air force aircraft*** crashed, 14 aircraft were hit by ground anti-aircraft fire and suffered combat damage, and all damaged aircraft returned to combat after repairs. The Russian Army Air Corps also eliminated a large number of enemy targets during the active phase of the war until mid-June 1995, while suffering large losses, with the total loss of five helicopters (two Mi-8s and three Mi-24s) and the deaths of nine pilots in the first three months alone.
Between March 6, 1995 and March 20, 1995, the situation in Chechnya was relatively calm. Russian units that had already captured Grozny advanced to a stronghold near the city of Argun, but instead of taking advantage of the situation and capturing Argun in time, the Russians tried to negotiate with the Dudayev elements. The Russian authorities soon realized that the militants were not at all sincere in their peace talks, but only used the time for negotiations to gain valuable breathing space to redeploy and consolidate their defensive positions. Anticipating that the two sides could return to war at any moment, the North Caucasus Cluster Command of the Russian Federal Forces immediately reinforced its forces in Chechnya and the adjacent border areas, increasing the number of land and air force helicopters deployed at the airfields of Mozdok, Beslan, and North Grozny from 55 to 105, with the Mi-24 helicopter gunships accounting for 52 of those helicopters.
Assaults
To prevent the Chechens from replenishing their reserves and building up their strength, the Russian Air Force's front-line airmen and the Army Air Corps carried out numerous missile and bomb attacks on the Dudayev elements' staging areas in the Shali, Atagi, Meskel-Yurt, and Shah-Ami Yurt regions.On the night of March 21, 1995, the Russians launched an offensive, and that night the Northern Cluster of Mozhdok and On March 22, 1995, when Chechen militants under the cover of tanks attempted to lift the Russian siege of the city of Argun from the direction of Shali and Gujelmers, Russian air force strike planes and helicopter gunships of the Land Aviation Corps took off to participate in the battle, launching Strike guided missiles and destroying nine tanks and armored vehicles, and firing S-8s to destroy nine tanks and armored vehicles of the bandits. The Russian Air Force launched "Strong Strike" guided missiles, destroying nine tanks and armored vehicles of the bandits, and S-8 uncontrolled rockets, killing and wounding a large number of infantry of the bandits. The Dudayevs suffered large casualties and were unable to fight the Russians, so they fled. on March 23, 1995, the Russians liberated the city of Argun. on March 30, 1995, the Russians liberated the second largest city in Chechnya, Gujelmers.
Unlike the attack on Grozny, in the liberation of Argun and Gujelmes, the Russian aviation operations did not cause major damage to the cities, and only carried out precision strikes against the Chechen bandits' fire support points and armored equipment positions on the outskirts of the city, and the Dudaev elements wisely gave up their recalcitrance and the tactics of street fighting, which could have resulted in large casualties, and withdrew to the mountainous regions with little resistance, turning into a group, and engaging in sneak attacks activities.
On March 31, 1995, Russian federal forces captured the city of Shali after fierce fighting, where the main force of a tank regiment deployed by the Chechens was largely wiped out, and the Russians attacked the city without the use of aviation in order to avoid civilian casualties.
Improvements in April 1995
As we entered April 1995, meteorological conditions over Chechnya improved a lot, the dense winter fog began to lift, and most of the time it was tomorrow, with the sun high enough for the Russian strong fighters and helicopter gunships to show off their skills. on April 8-9, 1995, the helicopter gunships of the Land Aviation Corps carried out an attack on the Dudayev Bandits' Abkhazia Battalion in the Samashesh In mid-April 1995, Russian troops launched a fierce offensive against the village of Bamut, which was held by 750-1,000 militants; the bandits were well-equipped with armored transport vehicles, field artillery, and mortars, and the fighting was relatively brutal. on April 15, 1995, the first Russian charge on the village was unsuccessful, and the troops involved in the offensive were met by the militants occupying the On April 17, 1995, land and front-line aviation began bombing the Chekists' fire and support points in and around the village of Bamut, and the Chekists suffered heavy losses, gave up their resistance, and fled to the mountains. on April 18, Russian federal troops occupied the village of Bamut, and local elders negotiated with the Russian commander, guaranteeing that illegal armed elements would no longer be allowed to enter the mountain village, and the Russian troops then withdrew. the mountain village, and the Russian troops then withdrew from the village.
New tactics bring new situation
From the battles of Shali and Bamut, one can find the new characteristics of the use of Russian aviation in combat: minimize the involvement of aviation in the battle, trying to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and damage to property, ground forces usually launch attacks without aviation pre-strike on the target of the attack, and only after the recalcitrant resistance to the attack, call on the forced strike planes and helicopter gunships to provide fire support. helicopter gunships to provide fire support. However, this new combat practice, while significantly reducing civilian casualties, increased Russian losses, at the cost of the blood of Russian soldiers.It was only at the end of May 1995, when the main fighting shifted to relatively sparsely populated mountainous areas, that the Russians abandoned this tactic and reintroduced greater combat use of the air force.
After the fighting in April 1995, Russian forces established control over all plains areas of Chechnya under the Greater Caucasus Mountains.On April 26, 1995, President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree announcing a moratorium on the use of force in Chechnya and a cease-fire for the period April 28, 1995 to May 12, 1995, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the victory in the Patriotic War.
As they had done earlier when the ceasefire was negotiated, the Dudaev elements took full advantage of this rare respite to replenish their forces and consolidate their positions, while never letting up on the opportunity to attack Russian army checkpoints and convoys. The Russian army did not let its guard down, and the air force continued to conduct patrols and reconnaissance flights over Chechnya. on April 30, 1995, while on a patrol flight over the village of Ghilyane in southeastern Chechnya, the Russian air force was attacked by militants, and an Mi-24 helicopter was hit by anti-aircraft machine gun fire. the pilot used all his strength to pilot the severely damaged helicopter out of the area controlled by the bandits, and it made a forced landing on the territory of Dagestan, with no injuries to the pilot. The pilot was unharmed and the helicopter was completely scrapped. The second similar incident in the meantime was not so lucky. On May 5, 1995, two Su-25s were flying on patrol over the village of Benoi, and while Major Sarabeev was flying the long Su-25 over a hill at low altitude, the bandits attacked from the flanking hill with a DSHK machine gun, and the bullets penetrated the glass of the unarmored cockpit canopy. The pilot was killed instantly, and the plane fell rapidly and vertically, hitting the ground instantly.
Time of the ceasefire
During the Russian ceasefire, the Dudaevists secretly mobilized a large number of troops to the Grozny region, and on May 14, 1995, began indiscriminately bombing the Russian-occupied capital city of Chechnya with mortars and recoilless artillery in an attempt to retake Grozny. The Russians then launched a counterattack, and on the 15th, federal forces supported by aviation fire routed the incoming militants.
Special forces break in
On May 15, 1995, Russian forces pushed deeper into the mountainous regions of Chechnya, launching a massive offensive in an attempt to rout the militants once and for all. Heavy fighting between Russian troops and Chechens took place in the Shatoy, Vijensk, Shali, Orekhovo, Serren-Yurt, and Nozay-Yurt regions. The Chechen militants, using the mountainous terrain, stubbornly resisted and did everything possible to stop the Russian offensive. In support of the ground forces' offensive in the Shatoi region, the Russian air force used helicopters for the first time to airlift special forces detachments behind enemy lines.
Escalation of the war
In late May 1995, the Russian aviation launched a larger-scale combat operation in Chechnya, with Su-25s, Mi-24 helicopters, and Mi-8MT helicopters of the Internal Security Forces carrying out heavy airstrikes on the militants' deployed positions and points of support, destroying the bandits' armored equipment, munitions depots, and command posts. On May 21, 1995, one Su-24M bomber fired a KAB-500KR guided bomb southwest of Dagu-Borzoy village, destroying a building occupied by a group of armed men. On May 24, 1995, a Su-24M bomber at 4,000-5,000 meters in the air and at a speed of 800-900 km/h fired two KAB-500L navigation bombs with a direct hit on the target, completely destroying a secret ammunition depot of the Chechens in a cave in the southern part of the village of Zonay.
New role for land aviators
During this time, the helicopter pilots of the land aviators accomplished 5-6 combat sorties per day, an intensity of combat never before experienced by Russian pilots in any military conflict since World War II. In addition to providing fire support to ground attack units, the Land Aviation Corps helicopters actively participated in combat missions aimed at destroying Dudaevist terrorist subversive squads infiltrating the rear of the Russian Army, and it was during one such operation, on May 24, 1995, that an Mi-24 helicopter was shot down near the town of Chechnya-Aura, with the death of one of the pilots on the spot.
Siege
After the militants retreated to the mountains of southern Chechnya, they built their command post in the village of Vedeno, and the precision strikes by the Russian air force against the Chechen bandits' command post in the village of Vedeno are a classic. on May 28, 1995, a Russian air force Su-24 bomber fired a KAB-500 navigation bomb, which accurately struck the left flank of the Chechen bandits' headquarters building. on May 31, 1995, two Su-24s were shot down at 12:00 p.m., killing one pilot. On May 31, 1995, at 12:00 a.m., two Su-24 bombers carried out another air strike, the first of which completely destroyed the club building 70 meters away from the headquarters building, where the Dudaevs had installed a high-powered radio station, and the second of which leveled the headquarters building to the ground. Two other precision strikes destroyed the Chetniks' special and police office buildings in the village, respectively.On May 31, 1995, Russian Su-25 hard-hitters also carried out intensive bombing of Chetniks' positions in the Argun and Vijensk gorges.
On June 1-2, 1995, Russian army units encircled the village of Vedeno from two directions, and airborne troops, using Mi-8 helicopters, raided the back of the village to cut off the Chekistas' retreat.On June 3, 1995, the Russians captured the Chekistas' last strategic stronghold. After the Battle of Vedeno, the Che bandits lost their headquarters and the last 1 heavy armored equipment, the unified command system was broken, and the illegal armed forces were divided into two areas, Shatoy and Nozay-Yurt.
On June 4, 1995, during the attack on Nozay-Yurt, another Mi-24 helicopter was shot down by the Russians, and the pilots, First Lieutenant Karpov and Lieutenant Khokhlachev, were killed.
On June 9, 1995, the militants downed another Mi-8 transport helicopter, and Major Malikov and First Lieutenant Sergeyglov were killed.
War results
Early in the summer of 1995, the main fighting in the first Chechen war was nearing its end. Dudayev's army, which had lost its unity of command, was disintegrating and gradually turning into individual bands fighting alone, unable to coordinate their actions with each other; some militants began to voluntarily surrender their weapons, and the Chechens controlled only the last of Chechnya's 12 mountainous centers: Shatoi.
On June 11, 1995, Russian federal forces began to attack Shatoy, and to complement the ground forces' offensive, Mi-8 transport helicopters, under the cover of Mi-24 helicopter gunships, airdropped tactical airborne troops behind the enemy lines.
On June 12, 1995, an Mi-8 helicopter transporting weapons and ammunition for the airborne troops was attacked by the Chechen bandits' well-disguised ZU-23 antiaircraft artillery, and the helicopter caught fire in the air. The helicopter caught fire and the pilot miraculously piloted the helicopter to a safe landing and ran out of the danger zone before the helicopter exploded, making this Mi-8 helicopter the last helicopter lost by the Land and Air Corps during the first Chechen war.
On the night of June 13, 1995, Russian MPCs and airborne troops fell from the sky and surrounded Shatoy, launching a charge that left the panicked Chechens, realizing that it was pointless to resist, withdrawing in the darkness of the night along a mountainous road. on June 14, 1995, the Russians captured Shatoy, with the Russian flag raised high in the sky. At this point, the first Chechen War active fighting is basically over, after that, the Russian army did not launch a large-scale war, but the pursuit of scattered in the mountains of the remnants of Dudayev's army, disarming the car bandits of the battle lasted another year, June 28, 1996, President Boris Yeltsin flew to Chechnya, declared the end of the war, the victory belongs to Russia.
Historical impact
After the end of the first Chechen war, Chechen militants changed their operational strategy, adopted guerrilla tactics, planned terrorist attacks, waited for the opportunity to rise again, and the Russian army launched a cat and mouse game of death, the North Caucasus region has since entered a non-war, non-peace state before the second Chechen war.