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The Search for Peace in Chechnya: A Sourcebook 1994-1996


Chronology of the Peace Process


Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
John F. Kennedy School of Government

March, 1997

Prelude to War

11/27/90 The First Congress of the Chechen People was held on November 26-27, in which Chechnya was declared a sovereign state. The Congress elected leaders and an executive committee, and adopted rules regarding the national flag, anthem, and the appropriate coat of arms. The Communist Supreme Soviet of People's Deputies of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR denounced the Congress and its decisions.

3/91 General Dzhokhar Dudaev became the leader of the OkchN party--the All National Congress of the Chechen People.

5/91 General Dudaev resigned from the Soviet military to take an active role in Chechnya's independence movement.

9/6/91 At the Second Congress of the Chechen People, held on September 5-6, the Chechen-Ingush Supreme Soviet led by Doku Zavgaev was pressured to resign. A provisional government was then set up by the Congress of Chechen Peoples and the Vainakh Democratic Party. (Vainakh is the term used to cover both the Chechen and Ingush peoples in recognition of their common heritage. The Vainakh Democratic Party initially represented both Chechens and Ingush until their split after Chechnya's declaration of independence from the RSFSR.)

9/30/91 The Kremlin, which had just recognized the independence of the Baltic States on September 6, denounced the Chechen claim to self-determination.

10/16/91 The Executive Committee of Ingushetia proclaimed a Northern Ingush Republic, in a move to separate the Chechen-Ingush ASSR.

10/27/91 General Dzhokhar Dudaev was elected President of Chechnya. Out of 638,608 eligible voters, 458,144 people participated in the election. Dudaev received 412,671 votes.

10/29/91 Resolution of the Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Chechnya Regarding the Outcome of the Elections of the President of the Republic of Chechnya.

11/1/91 Issuing the "Act of Sovereignty of the Chechen Republic," newly-elected President Dudaev declared the sovereignty of Chechnya and the republic's secession from the USSR. Seven days later, on November 7, 1991, Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin declared emergency rule in Chechnya, and sent in troops to the capital, Grozny. On November 11, however, the Russian Supreme Soviet voted to reverse Yeltsin's decrees, and the troops were pulled out.

11/2/91 Resolution of the Parliament of the Chechen Republic on the Ratification of the Decree of the President of the Chechen Republic on the State Sovereignty of the Chechen Republic.

11/27/91 The All National Congress of Chechen Peoples declared Chechnya's sovereignty and adopted a Declaration of Independence.

11/30/91 In a referendum, the Ingush voted to separate from Chechnya and to remain within the RSFSR as a separate republic.

3/92 Chechnya refused to sign the new Russian Federal treaty regulating relations between the center and the regions.

3/12/92 The Chechen Congress, Parliament, President, and Judicial bodies approved the Chechen Constitution. On March 17, the Constitution was formally adopted.

5/25/92 An agreement was signed between Moscow and Grozny making provisions for the removal of CIS/Russian troops from Chechen territory.

7/7/92 All CIS/Russian troops were withdrawn from Chechnya in accordance with the May agreement.

11/92 Russian troops moved into Chechnya during their intervention in the neighboring conflict between Ingushetia and North Ossetia, provoking a stand-off with Chechnya until Yeltsin ordered the troops back into Ingush territory.

4/14/93 Following an open power struggle between President Dudaev and the Chechen parliament over the administration of the republic, the Parliament issued a vote of no-confidence in Dudaev and the Council of Ministers.

4/17/93 Dudaev abolished Parliament and declared Presidential rule.

5/13/93 The Parliament, having continued to hold sessions in defiance of Dudaev, began impeachment proceedings, marking the escalation of internal conflict in Chechnya.

6/10-15/93 A small number of Chechnya's 18 administrative districts, mostly pro-Moscow, announced that they planned to secede from "the criminal regime in Grozny." Clashes erupted between Dudaev's forces and his opposition, escalating on June 14, the day before a referendum was held on Dudaev's presidency. Fewer than 36,000 people allegedly participated in this referendum on June 15, but the majority voted against Presidential rule and Dudaev. Dudaev subsequently survived an assassination attempt and after the referendum sat down with some of the opposition, changed his ministry to include opposition members, and took additional steps to ease tensions. Opposition to his presidency, however, continued as did assassination attempts. Quiet shuttle diplomacy was also conducted between Moscow and Grozny to discuss the possibility of negotiations on a new modus vivendi between the Russian Federation and Chechnya.

12/93 In the months after the referendum, Moscow's attention was diverted by the standoff between President Yeltsin and his own Vice President and the Russian parliament, over the adoption of a new Russian Constitution, which culminated in the shelling of the Russian White House in October 1993. In December 1993, with Moscow's internecine conflict at an end and the Vice President and leading parliamentarians in jail, Chechnya refused to participate in either the elections to a new parliament or the referendum on the new Constitution.

THE WAR BEGINS

1/94 Tensions between the Dudaev government and opposition groups mounted. In an attempt to unify the people, Dudaev and the Congress of Chechen peoples voted to change the name of the republic to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria--the name of a region in the mountains traditionally a symbol of freedom, bravery and unity.

5/94 An assassination attempt on Dudaev and many of his ministers in a motorcade leaving Grozny for a meeting of the cabinet killed several ministers and guards.

8/94 Many events in August 1994 contributed to Moscow's decision to encourage the Chechen opposition to topple Dudaev--including kidnappings of civilians in southern Russia and other criminal acts allegedly perpetrated by Chechens, the imminent signing of important international contracts for the production and eventual transportation of Caspian oil, and the inability of both sides to find common negotiating ground.

9/30/94 Appeal of the Leaders of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria to the World Community.

11/25-26/94 Moscow-backed Chechen opposition forces launched a failed assault on Grozny using Russian tanks, helicopters, combat aircraft and Russian officers recruited by the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK). Following the assault, 70 Russian servicemen were captured by pro-Dudaev forces and paraded before the Russian and international media.

11/29/94 Appeal of the President of the Russian Federation to the Participants in the Armed Conflict in the Chechen Republic.

11/30/94 President Yeltsin signed a decree on measures to restore constitutional legality, law and order in Chechnya to take effect at 6:00 am, December 1, 1994 and deployed troops on Chechnya's borders.

12/1/94 Edict of the Russian Federation President on Certain Measures to Strengthen Law and Order in the North Caucasus.

12/11/94 After sealing off Chechen borders and airspace, Russian troops entered Chechnya, beginning a military campaign to end Chechnya's independence drive.

12/15/94 After three days of bombing and armed clashes, peace talks were held on December 14, and promptly broken off. On December 15, Dudaev stated that he would talk with Russia only if the federal troops were first withdrawn.

12/20/94 As Russian planes and mortars battered the Chechen capital, a reported 100,000 Chechen civilians formed a 40-mile long human chain along the Moscow-Baku highway toward the border with Dagestan to persuade Russian forces to turn back from an assault on Grozny. This action resulted in the televised refusal of a number of key Russian commanders, including General Ivan Babichev, to lead their troops into Chechnya (Babichev later changed his mind under pressure from the Russian High Command).

1/1-19/95 Russian tanks advanced into central Grozny under cover of heavy shelling, after troops had already taken control of the military airport, sparking off a fierce battle for the Chechen capital. Hundreds of Russian servicemen were killed in the military action and more than 100 tanks damaged or destroyed. During the battle, the Russian Duma, and Russian Human Rights Commissioner Sergei Kovalev--who came to Chechnya with other members of the Russian parliament to protest the military offensive--issued an appeal to President Yeltsin to stop the "massacre" of civilians with non-discriminate bombing, to halt combat and to seek an immediate political settlement. Several countries, including the United States, France, and Germany, also expressed concern over civilian casualties. On January 19, the Russian forces finally succeeded in raising a Russian flag over the presidential palace the symbol of Chechen resistance in the heart of Grozny. The Russian government also announced that it was no longer open to negotiations with Dzhokhar Dudaev.

2/16/95 President Yeltsin defended the military action in Chechnya, but criticized the Russian armed forces for a poorly planned and executed campaign. Prior to Yeltsin's statement, a number of senior Russian military officials critical of the war, including Deputy Defense Minister Boris Gromov, were reported in January and February as claiming that the assault on Chechnya had been launched with no preparation and using "barbaric methods," and that the military operation had subsequently bogged down because of blunders by the Russian command and the demoralization of Russian soldiers. On February 4, the pro-Russian Chechen Interim Council, also accused the Russian forces of senseless barbarity, looting robbery, and unmotivated killings of civilians. Around the time of Yeltsin's defense of the military action, the Military Council of the Internal Forces of the Interior Ministry also distributed pamphlet to its troops denouncing "looting and outrages towards the civilian population" of Chechnya.

3/95 Moscow completed its capture of Grozny after most of Dudaev's forces abandoned the city. Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) established a Chechnya mission to intervene in the conflict. On March 10, 1995, Sergei Kovalev, Chairman of the Russian President's Human Rights Commission and Russia's High Commissioner for Human Rights, was removed from his position by the Russian State Duma, which censured him for his denouncement of human rights abuses during the war in Chechnya.

3/21/95 Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev was reported by Interfax to have declared himself in favor of peacetalks and ready for a dialogue with Moscow on a negotiated settlement to the war in Chechnya. Dudaev made his announcement during a meeting with Russian Duma deputy Lev Ponomarev, who had traveled to Chechnya on behalf of other Russian political figures--including the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, Ramazan Abdulatipov--to present a joint peace proposal worked out in February and to engage Dudaev in preliminary talks.

4/8-12/95 After the capture of Grozny, Moscow launched a concerted effort to subjugate other key Dudaev strongholds. In early April, Russian troops sealed off the small Chechen town of Samashki (population 15,000), keeping international aid workers and press out, while bombing raids destroyed the settlement. Reports of civilian deaths by international aid groups ranged from several hundred to nearly 1000 in the 4-day raid. Similar raids on other towns sparked protests and demonstrations among the civilian population throughout Chechnya.

5/95 Fighting continued in the mountains and regions of Chechnya, where the Chechen fighters had retreated.

6/95 The Moscow-based human rights organization, Memorial, published two detailed studies on civilian casualties in the war in Chechnya. One gave a detailed analysis of the November 1994-January 1995 assaults on Grozny and concluded that these had resulted in the deaths of some 25,000--mostly unarmed citizens and 3,700 children under 15. The second provided a list of 107 civilians from Samashki--mainly women, children and the elderly--killed in the April attack on the town.

6/14-21/95 On June 14, in retaliation for the Russian raid on Samashki and for the deaths of a number of his relatives in similar assaults, Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev led an attack on the town of Budennovsk, located in the Stavropol region of Russia. The approximately 70 Chechen fighters under Basaev's command reportedly attacked the police headquarters and administrative buildings, killing at least 41 residents. The gunmen then held close to 2,000 people hostage in the local hospital, and in exchange for their release, demanded the withdrawal of Russian federal troops from Chechnya. On June 17, Russian forces launched an assault on the hospital which, though it released some hostages, the assault left several hostages dead or wounded, and failed to complete the seizure of the hospital or capture the Chechen gunmen. Subsequently, on June 18, in a telephone exchange broadcast on national TV, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin negotiated the release of the hostages by agreeing to cease Russian military action in Chechnya, to open a negotiation process between the Russian and Chechen governments, and to provide amnesty to Basaev's forces. On June 19, per agreement with Chernomyrdin, Basaev's forces withdrew back to Chechnya in a convoy of buses, taking with them a group of 139 politicians, journalists and male residents, who had volunteered as hostages, to ensure safe passage to the Chechen border. Talks began immediately between the Russians and the Chechens resulting in a preliminary agreement on June 21, 1995.

6/25/95 Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Early Events in the Peace Process

JULY 1995

7/4/95 Proposals of the Delegation of the Chechen Republic Regarding the Complex of Political Issues

7/5/95 Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation on talks on the peaceful resolution of the crisis in the RF

7/30/95 Dudaev field commander Shamil Basaev's surprise attack in June on the Russian city of Budennovsk, in the neighboring Stavropol region, propelled Russia and Chechnya toward the negotiating table--resulting in a July 30 military accord between Russia and Chechnya which was concluded under the observation of the OSCE mission in Grozny. The accord stipulated a cease fire, an exchange of all prisoners within one week after July 30, the disarmament of the Chechen forces, the gradual withdrawal of most Russian troops, and negotiations to find a permanent peace settlement in Grozny. A Special Observation Commission, consisting of representatives from the opposing sides, the Committee on National Accord, local elders and clergy, and the federal Territorial Administration in Chechnya, was created to carry out the military agreements. In the wake of the accord, sporadic fighting continued and the prisoner exchange, Chechen disarmament, and Russian troop withdrawal were all delayed.

7/31/95 President Yeltsin downgraded the Presidential Human Rights Commission by transferring it to the section of the presidential administration dealing with citizens' correspondence. It was suggested that this move was aimed against former Human Rights Commissioner Sergei Kovalev, who had continued to speak out against the war in spite of his removal from his official position by the Russian parliament in March 1995. On May 30, 1995, for example, Kovalev had presented a report on detention and filtration camps in and around Chechnya in which he accused Russian forces of torturing civilian detainees.

OCTOBER 1995

10/9/95 Commander of Interior Ministry troops, Anatoly Romanov, was injured in bomb attack in Grozny. In retaliation to the assassination attempt, Russia suspended its participation in the post-Budennovsk peace negotiations. The Chechen leadership then responded by suspending the military accord between Russia and Chechnya. The Chechens called for international observers and UN troops before returning to the bargaining table. Russia rejected these calls for international intervention and stressed that the conflict in Chechnya remained an internal matter. In light of the escalating violence, the OSCE, which had been monitoring the negotiations between Russia and Chechnya, reduced the size of its mission in Grozny.

10/95 The Russian leadership debated how to respond to the latest intensification of violence. Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev called for the imposition of a state of emergency in Chechnya, but President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin rejected the proposal, noting that other measures were still not exhausted. Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin also resisted proposals by Grachev and Oleg Lobov, Presidential representative to Chechnya, to launch an aggressive response, and to eradicate those Chechen soldiers who failed to disarm. Later in the same month, Vladimir Zorin, the Deputy Head of Moscow's territorial administration in Chechnya, advanced a proposal to fight violence simultaneously with an overall strategy to solve the crisis through negotiations.

10/95 The Congress of the Chechen People met to discuss the extension of Dudaev's term as President until proper elections could be held.

DECEMBER 1995

12/3/95 Agreement on The Basic Principles of Relations Between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic.

12/8/95 Russia signed an accord in Moscow with former Soviet Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev's government-in-exile. The accord gave Chechnya equal rights, with other Russian republics, in line with the Russian Constitution, and set out a series of vague principles for a final settlement based on the "Tatarstan model" of regional autonomy. It allowed Chechnya (under Zavgaev) to have diplomatic offices abroad and conduct international trade, and offered those Chechen forces that turned over their weapons protection. It also laid down the framework for Chechnya to take part in the December 1995 Russian parliamentary elections and elect a new leadership. Moscow promised additional financial resources for Chechen reconstruction as part of the accord.

12/14/95 The Congress of the Chechen People (also translated as the National Congress of the Chechen Republic) formally announced and signed a document extending the term of Dudaev's presidency until proper, democratic and internationally-monitored elections could be held.

12/17/95 Moscow-supervised elections were held in Chechnya to coincide with the Russian parliamentary elections. The results confirmed the Moscow-appointed Chechen leadership under Doku Zavgaev. Chechen deputies from single-mandate districts were also selected for the Russian State Duma in Moscow. The turnout for the elections was small and the legitimacy and outcome of the elections were hotly disputed by the pro-Dudaev forces and anti-war Russian political figures such as Sergei Kovalev.

12/22/95 The Congress of the Chechen People met and signed a decree stating that the elections in Chechnya were a farce and illegal. They made provisions for the existing government to remain in place and carry out functions until conditions for free and democratic elections could emerge. This was followed by four more sessions of the Congress of Chechen People. These frequent meetings, which represented all regions of the country, were difficult to conduct with the continued fighting and demonstrated the perceived urgency of the situation.

12/95 Escalation of fighting and bombing raids on Chechen villages and Dudaev strongholds--including the second-largest city of Gudermes (population 60,000, of whom more than 600 were reported killed by the Los Angeles Times), Shatoi, Shali, Bamut and Argun--led to divisions in Moscow and criticism of the Defense Ministry as well as the provocation of Military commanders in Chechnya.

JANUARY 1996

1/5-10/96 Russian Duma Deputy Konstantin Borovoi and others met with Dudaev to discuss peace initiatives.

1/18/96 The seizure of hostages in Kizlyar, Dagestan by the forces of the pro-Dudaev Chechen commander of Gudermes, Salman Raduev, ended in a Russian military debacle at the border village of Pervomaiskoye. Raduev had initially launched an assault on Kizlyar to wipe-out a Russian military base blamed for the bombardment of Gudermes and other settlements, but ended up, contrary to Dudaev's orders, seizing a hospital and taking civilian hostages. The Russian attack on the Pervomaiskoye failed to free the hostages, and some of the Chechen militia escaped. The crisis caused the Russian government and armed forces much humiliation, and sparked a political backlash in Moscow. At a meeting of the leaders of the CIS after Pervomaiskoye, Yeltsin promised reporters that Moscow would "wipe-out" Chechen strongholds and ammunition depots, and stated that "mad dogs must be shot." Dudaev also subsequently announced that Raduev had disobeyed orders in taking the hospital and hostages and would be brought to trail under full martial law. The Kizlyar-Pervomaiskoye incident coincided with the seizure of a Turkish ferry, with a number of Russian passengers on board, in the Black Sea Port of Trabazon by an ethnic Abkhazian in a signal of solidarity to the Chechens. The hijacking was brought to a peaceful conclusion by the Turkish government, but not before the ferry had sailed into the Bosphorous Straits and the heart of Istanbul accompanied by threats to blow up the ship with all on board.

1/31/96 Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the Supreme Commander of the Russian Federal Forces in Chechnya, asserted on January 31 that attempts to negotiate with Dudaev had led nowhere, and that the Russian leadership should concentrate on supporting Zavgaev's Government. Tikhomirov also spelled out his intention to conclude agreements with villages under the control of Zavgaev's Government as a precondition for withdrawing Defense Ministry troops from these areas and for focusing on a rout of Dudaev's forces.

FEBRUARY 1996

2/9/96 Daily demonstrations began in Grozny with approximately 2,000-10,000 Dudaev supporters, waving green Islamic flags, protesting the illegitimacy of the pro-Moscow government of Doku Zavgaev and demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the region. Attempts by the new Chechen parliament and Zavgaev to persuade the demonstrators to leave were unsuccessful. Numbers declined to around 1,000 after the Russian commander in Grozny announced that his troops would shoot to kill anyone who refused to disperse from Grozny's main square and the center of the city. Only after a shooting incident in which 6-10 people were killed did the remaining demonstrators agree to leave the city center. After the demonstrations, the Russian military blew up the ruins of the Presidential building, which had been the focus of the demonstrations and was a potent symbol of Chechen national sentiment.

2/11/96 Russia promised Zavgaev to begin withdrawing troops from Chechnya before the end of February. In early February, Zavgaev and Tikhomirov signed a peace protocol with an agreement to exchange prisoners and hand in weapons. This resulted in the withdrawal of a contingent of Russian troops from the Shatoi region on February 11--after the region agreed to subordinate itself to the Zavgaev government in Grozny and hand in weapons and prisoners.

2/20/96 President Yeltsin set up two commissions under Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Presidential advisor Emil Pain to find a negotiated settlement to the crisis. The Russian Parliament set up a third commission to analyze the conflict. At the same time, the Russian military began a series of offensives against Dudaev strongholds in Novogroznensky, Tsintaroi, Alleroi and other villages. A news blackout was also imposed in the region. Oleg Poptsov, the head of Russian State TV, was fired by Yeltsin in mid-February for critical coverage of Chechnya (New York Times, 2/21/96).

2/22/96 At a meeting with media executives, Yeltsin and Grachev accused the Chechens of being part of an international plot to take over the entire Caucasus and create a large Islamic state to block Russia's access to the Black and Caspian Seas (Monitor, 2/22/96).

2/24/96 After attacks were launched in Ingushetia on Russia's 58th army crossing the republic from Chechnya, Russian troops moved into Ingushetia to shell villages they claimed were shielding Chechen rebels--raising fears that the neighboring republic would be dragged into the war. Ingush President, Ruslan Aushev, threatened to sue Russia for the collateral damage and loss of life incurred. Meanwhile, retired Army General and Russian Presidential candidate Alexander Lebed accused the Russian government of trying to expand the war as a pretext for canceling the June 1996 Russian Presidential elections.

MARCH 1996

3/4/96 Russian Ministry of Defense forces launched an attack on Bamut, one of Dudaev's key strongholds near the border with Ingushetia, and fighting also erupted in other key villages such as Sernovodsk. Meanwhile, a section of the Baku-Stavropol natural gas pipeline was blown up twice, and a section of the Azerbaijan-North Ossetia oil pipeline. The Lenin oil refinery in Grozny was also set ablaze. Each side blamed the other for these actions; the Russian military, Dudaev's forces and Zavgaev's forces.

3/5/96 Defense Minister Grachev announced that he would travel to Chechnya to help draw up a peace plan for the conflict, by "[looking] on the spot at all versions for resolving the crisis in the republic." Grachev announced that he was willing to meet with Dudaev, and on a whistle-stop one day tour of Grozny he stated, "for such a meeting I am willing to go anywhere." Yet after meeting with Zavgaev, Grachev changed his mind and declared, "it is time to forget about Dudaev," whom he described as a murderer. Some Russian reports, however, suggested that he might actually have met secretly with Dudaev while he was in Chechnya.

3/6/96 Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation on the Russian Federation Government Mission in the Chechen Republic.

3/7/96 On March 7, simultaneous with an announcement that the Russian Security Council had approved the framework for a peace plan in Chechnya, Yeltsin signed a decree to strengthen anti-terrorist measures. Yeltsin formulated a law on anti-terrorism and instructed the Foreign Intelligence Service to uncover the international connections of Russian terrorist groups. The decree also urged the mass media to show restraint when covering terrorist acts and anti-terrorist operations. This decree was clearly aimed at the operations in Chechnya by Dudaev's forces in the wake of Kizlyar and Pervomaiskoye.

3/7/96 Fighting broke out again in Grozny, as a 1,000-strong Chechen force retook most of the city in a surprise attack that refuted Moscow's claims that resistance in Grozny had been stamped out. It took more than a week for the Russian federal forces to regain control. Russian casualties were high - reports from the GRU (military intelligence) suggested that 200 Russian soldiers were killed in the first two days of the assault alone.

3/96 A congress of the Chechen and Ingush peoples was held in Volgograd with representatives of both Dudaev's and Zavgaev's governments present, as well as Ingush President Ruslan Aushev and delegates from elsewhere in the CIS, Poland, Finland, Turkey, Bosnia and Jordan. The congress focused on finding a resolution to the conflict, and urged in conclusion: that Russia negotiate with all sides in the conflict; to hold new elections to elect a Chechen government of national unity; and to acknowledge Dudaev (for now) as the President of the republic. The Congress also called on the Russian government and the Chechen government to look for a compromise solution between their respective demands that Chechnya was part of the Russian Federation and that Chechnya was independent; and suggested that the final resolution of the republic's status should be decided in roundtable talks once the war was over. At the end of the congress, the delegates (on behalf of the 1/2 million Chechen Diaspora in Russia) issued simultaneous appeals to the UN, the Russian government under Chernomyrdin, and Dudaev to bring the war to an end. The delegates also adopted a plan proposed by the Chechen movement "Bashlam" as their basic proposal for the resolution of the conflict.

3/96 A simultaneous congress of the Russian Union of Muslims was held in Makhachkala, Dagestan and declared Dudaev's war against Russia a "little jihad" (a holy war against a faithless aggressor). In recounting this event, Igor Rotar' of Izvestiya noted the rise of Islamic sentiment in Chechnya as a result of the war and the analogous effect of the Caucasian Wars of the 19th century on the consolidation of Islam in the North Caucasus. Rotar stated that only a year ago it had been hard to describe the Chechens as a religiously observant people, but that the activities of the Russian military in the republic had changed this. He suggested that the Shariat (Islamic law) was now observed in the republic for the first time since the 1930s, that Chechen villagers were prohibited from selling vodka to Russian soldiers, and that in the territories controlled by Dudaev the Shariat was the absolute law and alcohol was banned entirely. According to Rotar', this accounted, in part, for the discipline and effectiveness of the Chechen forces. As in the time of Imam Shamil, Islam was now serving as a unifying force for Chechens from different villages and teips (clans). Rotar' further suggested that as a direct result of the war in Chechnya, Russia had created for itself an even greater problem than a separatist conflict--a conflict with Muslim fanaticism.

3/96 Reports in the Russian press suggested that the Russian government was close to completing a draft law (under the guidance of Presidential advisor Sergei Shakhrai) on the delimitation of powers between the Russian Federation and its individual units, which would regulate the conclusion of bilateral "Tatarstan-style" treaties. The law, which suggested that an eventual treaty with Chechnya might be possible, was to be submitted to the Duma in April.

3/14/96 On March 14, Russian press reports suggested that Doku Zavgaev and Vyacheslav Tikhomirov had concluded peace agreements with a number of villages and regions in Chechnya to facilitate their incorporation into the Zavgaev/federal forces-held territory and to ensure the withdrawal of some of the Russian federal forces before April. According to an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, this district by district pacification approach had already resulted in agreements with the Itum-Kalinsky (formerly Sovetskoe), Nadterechny, Naursky, Shatoisky, and Shelkovsky regions, and the Cheberloevsky, Sharoisky, and Galanchoisky districts, as well as a number of individual villages. In the meantime, Ministry of Defense troop assaults continued on villages in the Achkhoi-Martanovsky and Grozny regions, where Dudaev had strongholds. The brutality of the assaults forced even Zavgaev's pro-Moscow government to complain that Russian forces were "out of control," and to protest high civilian casualties that were turning increasingly more Chechens toward Dudaev.

3/15/96 On March 15, the Russian Security Council met to approve the government's "peace plan" for Chechnya. Yeltsin refused to divulge any information about the plan until the end of the month, but subsequent statements from his administration indicated that the implementation of the plan was already underway in Chechnya--suggesting that the framework might include agreements with individual villages and districts and then artillery assaults on those that refuse to comply to force them into submission, as described above. Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov stated that only the defeat of the "terrorists" (Dudaev's forces) would guarantee a durable peace in Chechnya. In Kommersant Daily, journalist Dmitry Kamishev noted that Yeltsin had obviously tasked the Ministry of Defense with routing Dudaev from his strongholds by the end of March and that he would then (hopefully) announce his "peace plan" with a military victory in his pocket. Were this to work, Kamishev suggested, the Ministry of Defense forces would be withdrawn in April, leaving the Interior Ministry forces to mop-up in the republic.

3/96 The regional parliament of Stavropol passed a resolution on the creation of a local self-defense force, in response to June 1995's assault on Budennovsk and the perceived inability of the federal forces stationed in the region to respond to terrorist attacks of this nature. The force, to be supported from the local budget, was to be recruited in towns, settlements and villages from volunteers who had served in the army and knew how to use weapons. The resolution did not suggest how to incorporate Cossack units into the self-defense forces, given their reserve force status in Russia and the region. Other republics in the region anxiously watched the developments in Stavropol, nervous that the resolution could set off the creation of a whole set of ethnically-based militias in the North Caucasus which might take punitive measures against non-Russians.

3/19/96 President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia visited President Yeltsin in Moscow on March 19, and proposed a Caucasus-wide resolution of the region's conflicts. A peace conference would take place in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, and would focus on bringing an end to the wars in Chechnya and Nagorno-Karabakh by strengthening ties between all the internationally-recognized governments of the region and neutralizing separatist leaders. Shevardnadze's proposal included a "Declaration of Peace, Stability and Cooperation in the Caucasus", which would involve support for internationally recognized borders, measures against separatism, guarantees of human and ethnic rights, protection of transport and communication routes, and economic cooperation.

3/22/96 A press conference with Vagap Tutakov, a spokesman for Dudaev, took place in Moscow on March 22. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, he asserted that there had been 78,000 fatalities in the Chechen war after the latest round of Russian bombardment, and that a total of 238,000 civilians had been injured to date. The spokesman also stated that Dudaev was ready to have negotiations with President Yeltsin, although he would prefer to do so after the Presidential elections. (In an earlier interview with Dudaev on Russian TV on March 17-18, he had asserted that negotiations with Yeltsin were futile as the Russian President was incapable of delivering on any agreement he might make.) In towns, settlements and villa addition, Tutakov stressed that an intra-Chechen dialogue would only be possible after the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, and the conclusion of an agreement allowing new presidential and parliamentary elections to take place across the whole of Chechnya. Dudaev's spokesman noted that negotiations with Zavgaev were impossible. He also asserted that Dudaev's government did not demand Chechnya's total independence and withdrawal from the Russian Federation. Instead, it supported the denunciation of the CIS accord, and announced that if the USSR were reestablished, Chechnya would be willing to become an equal founding member, but not in the capacity of "a subject of the Federation."

3/22/96 After March 20, Russian forces attacks on Dudaev strongholds were expanded from western Chechnya to villages in the southeastern, northern and central regions. However, Russian commanders complained to the press that they lacked the means to deal with Dudaev's small mobile units, which could strike anywhere. Meanwhile, a fact-finding mission by members of the Duma Defense Committee, including Aleksei Arbatov, Eduard Vorobev and Albert Makashov, concluded that the "so-called clean-up operations increase[ed] civilian casualties and the inflow of fresh volunteers to separatist units." The mission put the numbers of active Chechen gunmen at 1,500, with trained reserves numbering 5,000-6,000. The report also stressed that support for Zavgaev's government was very low among both the Chechen population and the Russian federal forces--concluding, therefore, that any intra-Chechen negotiations were not likely to succeed at this stage. The mission's report documented the low morale of the Russian troops, the lack of supplies, high casualties and absence of a clear strategy--asserting that none of the junior officers believed that the current tactics would work, and advocated instead the complete withdrawal of Russian forces and the sealing off of Chechnya's borders.

3/25/96 On March 25 in Moscow, Russian Presidential candidate and Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky appealed to the UN, the Council of Europe and Russian citizens to urge Yeltsin and his government to "come to their senses and stop lying and destroying everything alive in Chechnya." Yabloko, the Soldiers' Mothers movement, and Memorial (the society set up in the 1980s to commemorate and campaign for the victims of Stalinism) formed an action committee to organize a week of protests from March 30-April 6 against the "militarist policy of Russia's leadership." Meanwhile, Yeltsin scheduled the unveiling of his promised peace plan for Sunday, March 31. Notably, the protests were scheduled to begin the day before Yeltsin's announcement of his peace plan.

3/27/96 A lengthy report published in Izvestiya on March 27, 1996 asserted that the Russian Security Services had complete information on Dudaev's supply routes and on his sources of financial, material and military support in Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Muslim countries. The article further suggested that the Russian military was doing virtually nothing to cut off these routes. The report claimed that Dudaev had 5-7,000 fighters, down from as many as 15,000 fighters when the war began, including Afghan mujaheddin contingents (who also fought in Nagorno-Karabakh), Iranian volunteers from Hezbollah, Palestinians, Tajiks, Jordanians, Libyans, Iraqis, Ukrainians, Saudi Arabians and Azeris. The report concluded with a discussion of the Chechens' preparations for terrorist activities on Russian soil, and noted that Russian special forces sent to try to eliminate Dudaev had all been successively wiped-out. The article seemed designed to raise the maximum alarm in Russia about Chechen activities, as well as to further discredit the Russian military. It also depicted the Chechens as a well-organized and integral part of a wider complex of renegade, terrorist Islamic states, thus counteracting the image of a beleaguered people fighting a defensive war.

3/27/96 The Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus (KNK), which had been moribund for most of the Chechen war, met in Urus-Martan and demanded the withdrawal of all federal troops from Chechnya, an end to the "genocide of the Chechen people," and increased political efforts to resolve the conflict. It also condemned the Russian government's attempts to militarize the Cossacks in southern Russia and to use them against North Caucasians. Yusup Soslambekov, Chairman of the disbanded Chechen parliament, was elected as the new President of the Confederation. Notably, Dagestan declined to send a delegation to the Confederation's congress.

3/28/96 A report in Moskovsky Komsomolets on March 28 related how the Russian military attacks in the region were forcing villages to sign peace agreements with the federal forces and the Zavgaev government. The article noted that almost all of the villages in the mountain areas of Chechnya had signed: several days before the formal act of signing, the villages were subjected to artillery and aviation strikes to force them into submission. The agreements involved surrendering a certain number of weapons, recognizing the Zavgaev government and allowing Russian Interior Ministry troops to check passports and search the village. The very specific list of armaments that Russian forces demanded be surrendered often had to be bought by villagers from dealers (only to be sold back to the dealers by the Russian troops, it was suspected). The village searches often resulted in looting. Around the same time, Doku Zavgaev claimed that his government and the federal forces had signed 150 peace agreements with individual villages in Chechnya, and that the process of concluding agreements was almost completed.

3/29/96 Statement of the Hague Initiative II at the Peace Palace, The Hague.

3/30/96 On March 30, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that meetings at the Hague between Tatarstan President Shaimiev, Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov, and a representative of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev, Vagap Tutakov, regarding the possibility of talks with Dudaev, had forced President Yeltsin to put more emphasis on the official recognition of the Dudaev side as legitimate subjects of negotiations. Vladimir Zorin, the head of the Duma's Nationalities Committee, also made statements to this effect.

3/31/96 ITAR-TASS reported on March 31 that the Russian Government had spent 6 trillion rubles or $1.2 billion on the economic and social reconstruction of Chechnya in 1995. Russian Finance Minister Vladimir Panskov later noted on April 1 that the bulk of the money had been embezzled and some 90 billion rubles or $18.8 million had gone missing in November 1995 alone.

3/31/96 On March 31, President Yeltsin made his speech on the resolution of the conflict in Chechnya, noting that "the Chechen crisis is the hardest problem for Russia. There has not been and is no simple way to resolve the conflict." He also stressed, however, that the Russian military activities had created the conditions for a change in the conflict. Yeltsin stated that all troop operations on the territory of Chechnya would be terminated from midnight on March 31, and troops would withdraw gradually from areas where there was no conflict to Chechnya's borders. A program for the settlement of the conflict would be implemented jointly by federal and republican organs. In addition, Yeltsin proposed that the Chechen leadership should work to broaden the "zones of accord, security and peace" in Chechnya (Yeltsin claimed that these now covered 1/3 of Chechen territory). The peace plan also called for free and democratic elections for Chechnya's parliament to be held in the republic. The parliament, consisting of representatives of people from all regions of the Chechen republic, as well as representatives of the federal and republican authorities, would then recreate state authority in Chechnya, allowing for power to be devolved from the Russian government to the head of the government and parliament of Chechnya. According to Yeltsin, the peace process would culminate in a treaty on the delimitation of powers between Chechnya and the Russian Federation, which would eventually result in the resolution of the issue of Chechnya's status, through discussions between Russian and Chechen plenipotentiaries. To get the negotiations underway, the Russian government expressed willingness to begin talks with Dudaev through intermediaries. In addition, a state commission, headed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, and including representatives from the Federation Council and Duma, was proposed to supervise the entire settlement. Yeltsin stated that the State Duma should consider an amnesty for participants in the conflict, with the exception of those "who have committed grave crimes," and that the government should review its policies of distributing aid and reconstruction funds to areas in Chechnya where the situation had stabilized. Finally, Yeltsin declared that, within five days, the Ministry of Defense, the Interior Ministry, the Federal Border Forces and the Federal Security Services, along with the Chechen Government under Zavgaev, would draw up a plan of action to tackle terrorism and diversionary acts aimed at preventing the resolution of the crisis in Chechnya.

3/31/96 Simultaneous with Yeltsin's announcement, Russian forces continued to attack villages in the Nozhai-Yurt, Achkhoi-Martan and Vedeno districts. The commander of the joint federal forces, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, noted that, consistent with Yeltsin's plan, operations against "bandit formations" would continue. In addition, Russian military sources confirmed that two brigades would remain in Chechnya to ensure security in the republic even after all the other troops were withdrawn: one of Interior troops and the Defense Ministry's 205th Motor Rifle Brigade.

APRIL 1996

4/1/96 On April 1, Yeltsin signed a decree, the "Program for Regulating the Crisis in the Chechen Republic," which included all of the points in his March 31 announcement. This decree was presented as the blueprint for further action by Moscow.

4/2/96 An article in Izvestiya on April 2 raised questions about Dudaev's legitimacy as Chechen President, since the Soviet Parliament had never recognized his presidency in 1991 and given the fact that his term should have expired in October 1995. The article ignored the fact that the Congress of the Chechen People had voted to extend Dudaev's term on December 14, 1995. The paper further noted that Dudaev's status and the status of Chechnya itself were the new main stumbling blocks to negotiations.

4/3/96 The reaction to Yeltsin's peace plan was cautiously positive at first, then negative, with many calling it "too little, too late." Doku Zavgaev called the plan "a great victory for all peace-loving forces." The OSCE declared that it was ready to mediate in any settlement. Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov even suggested, optimistically, that new Chechen elections could be scheduled for the summer and that the "Tatarstan model" could be applied to Russian-Chechen relations. However, on April 2, Moskovsky Komsomolets pointed out that in promulgating the plan, Yeltsin and his team were presuming that Dudaev wanted to stop the war. Yet as the paper noted, Yeltsin, not Dudaev, needed to stop the war at this juncture in order to win reelection in the June 1996 Russian presidential elections. As Moskovsky Komsomolets further noted, when Dudaev was asked if the Chechens were prepared to accept a "Tatarstan model," he stated: "You can not kill people for 18 months in order to offer a very broad autonomy modeled on Tatarstan's to those who are still alive and hope that they will understand you." Dudaev added, in an interview, that he was willing to negotiate and then these issues could be discussed: "First the war must stop, troops must be removed and a spirit of mutual trust must begin with sincere efforts..." Also on April 3, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev had promised to fight to the end, and was continuing his attacks on Russian forces in the Vedeno region. Articles in Izvestiya on April 3 further suggested that Dudaev and his forces were simply considering Yeltsin's declared cease-fire as a breathing space in which to make preparations for the next round of conflict, as they had in the Summer of 1995.

4/3/96 On April 3, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published Presidential candidate General Alexander Lebed's response to Yeltsin's peace plan, "Gambling in Blood." General Lebed stated that Yeltsin's plan was a retreat and a political capitulation, just as Moscow's decision to come to terms with the Chechens in the summer of 1995 was a retreat in response to Basaev's assault on Budennovsk. Yet unlike 1995, at this point the army had urged Moscow to go forward and continue its assaults. Lebed described the peace plan as a betrayal--driven by a political game on the eve of the Russian elections. Lebed admitted that Yeltsin had made a mistake in starting the war in Chechnya, but argued that worse mistakes had been made since--such as putting faith in incompetent generals, not cutting off Dudaev's links with Moscow, and finally formulating a hasty and useless plan to find a "way out" of the crisis. Lebed concluded with the observation that Russia's national interests were more important than the elections, and that the country should no longer speculate on the "Chechen card."

4/3/96 A poll released by Interfax on April 3 stated that 62% of Russians ranked the war as their major concern in the elections and wanted their candidate to end it as the first task if they won. The poll was conducted between March 22-27, prior to Yeltsin's speech.

4/4/96 In spite of his pronounced readiness to deal with Dudaev, Yeltsin continued in campaign speeches to portray the Chechen leader as a terrorist who planned to take over the entire Caucasus. In addition, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on April 3 that Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, had stated that negotiations with Dudaev should focus only on the Chechen fighters laying down their weapons, and not on any concessions. The commander of Russian land forces in Chechnya was also quoted by Reuters as saying that troop withdrawals from the "remote regions of Chechnya" would not begin until the end of April at the earliest. In the meantime, Russian federal forces continued to attack villages in the regions still held by Dudaev's forces. Reports in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on April 4, suggested that the Russian General Staff and Ministry of Defense were furious with Yeltsin over the decision to withdraw federal troops from Chechnya. Russian military interviewees suggested that commanders of Russian units and sub-units in Chechnya would ignore orders and directives from Moscow and seek to obstruct any peace process. The Russian military also fully expected Dudaev's forces to keep fighting.

4/5/96 On April 5, Russian reporters were shown around the President's "Situation Room" in the Kremlin where state of the art computer technology had been set up to facilitate the work of the President's working group on Chechnya, headed by Emil Pain. The working group consisted of 9 people, including Emil Pain; General Kim Tsagolov, the Deputy Minister of Nationalities; Andrei Loginov, former Presidential aide and head of the analytical section of the Presidential Administration; and Valery Kucher, chief editor of Rossiiskiye Vesti.

4/5/96 A report by a Segodnya reporter published by the US Jamestown Foundation on April 5 described how the Russian military gradually had lost ground to the Chechen forces after the July 30, 1995 military accords, and how the number of Chechen fighters deployed in the field had been steadily increasing (in part because of "irregular" fighters taking up arms to defend their villages from Russian attacks). The reporter noted that the summer 1995 respite from fighting had allowed the Chechens to buy more arms and ammunition--including from the Russian military--and to improve their combat readiness. The foray into Grozny in March 1996 had been designed to demonstrate this combat readiness on the eve of the presidential election in Russia, to distract Russian forces from other operations against Dudaev strongholds, and to discredit Zavgaev and his claims that peace and calm prevailed. The war in Chechnya was depicted in the report as "a war without a definite front line and without open battlefields." As the Segodnya reporter pointed out, this kind of guerrilla war could continue indefinitely. The majority of Russian soldiers were unprepared for combat and ready to sign unofficial non-aggression treaties with local Chechen commanders to save their lives, as well as to obtain supplies of food. The report concluded that there had been no military victory in Chechnya, despite Moscow's pronouncements.

4/6/96 A new element was introduced into the conflict as Russian newspapers reported rumors that aerial bombardments on Chechen towns since April 1 had actually been carried out by Chechen aircraft operating from bases in Azerbaijan to derail the peace process. Officials in the Russian military had repeatedly denied that Russian planes were responsible for the aerial bombardments. Throughout the conflict, the Russian press reported that Azerbaijan was a conduit for arms and ammunition to the Chechen forces and a base for Chechen fighters. However, none of these reports were substantiated by independent investigations or by fact-finding missions from the Russian Border Service sent into Azerbaijan. On April 6, the President of Azerbaijan, Geidar Aliev, denounced the allegations as "slanderous and unfounded," and noted that "someone" was intent on harming relations between Azerbaijan and Russia.

4/6/96 President Yeltsin announced on April 6 that Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev were setting up negotiations as intermediaries with Dudaev. On April 4, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin also announced that his commission on the settlement of the Chechen conflict would include the Chairmen of the Houses of Parliament--Gennady Seleznev and Yegor Stroyev, President Shaimiev and the President of Kabardino-Balkaria, Valery Kokov.

4/6/96 Heavy fighting continued in southern Chechnya, including a full-scale offensive against the Dudaev strongholds of Vedeno and Dargo. Defense Minister Grachev stated that Russian troops were acting within the letter of Yeltsin's April 1 decree. Zavgaev's government in Grozny, however, complained that the continued civilian deaths "discredit[ed]" them in the eyes of the population. (According to the Russia Review on May 20, 1996, Grachev also admitted delaying the announcement of the President's peace plan to his troops for five days. On his own initiative he had modified the order to allow the use of "frontal and army aviation" if first cleared with him and of "artillery fire of all caliber" "in cases of self-defense".) In the meantime, Yeltsin claimed at a presidential campaign meeting reported in the Russian media between April 5-7, that the military attacks in Chechnya had ceased as a result of his peace initiatives. He invited other branches of government to verify this and confirmed the fact in a message to Dudaev. Simultaneous with Yeltsin's claims, on April 6 a demonstration of approximately 1,000 people was held against the war in Moscow's Pushkin Square. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky addressed the crowd, and denounced both Yeltsin's peace plan and the war. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Lebed also took part in the protest and called for the end of the war.

4/7/96 On April 7, Duma Deputy Konstantin Borovoi had a satellite telephone conversation with Dudaev, in which Dudaev suggested that he lay blame for the continuation of the conflict on groups in Moscow that surround and influence the President, but not on Yeltsin himself--who had unilaterally declared a cease-fire and a desire to find a path toward peace. Dudaev further stated that the Chief of the General Staff, Mikhail Kolesnikov, was ignoring the President's directives to end the war, and that his commission was in no hurry to implement the peace plan. During the conversation, Dudaev indicated that he supported Yeltsin's reelection in June, and feared that the possible election of Zyuganov would ascend to power "red-brown" forces which would wreak even greater havoc in Chechnya. At the end of the conversation, Dudaev offered the possibility of direct talks between himself and Yeltsin. However, as a precondition to the further settlement of the conflict, Dudaev once again stipulated the complete withdrawal of the Russian troops.

4/7/96 On April 7, Anatoly Kvashnin, the Commander of the North Caucasus Military District, stated that more than 100 Russian troops had been killed since the initiation of Yeltsin's peace plan on April 1. A report from the Presidential Commission for Prisoners of War in early April also noted that 550 Russian soldiers were missing in action or held hostage in Chechnya.

4/8/96 In a TV presentation, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin rejected Dudaev's offer of direct peacetalks with the Russian leadership, and attacked Dudaev as a criminal, noting that "this is our region and we will act there on our own, irrespective of anything and anyone." Also on April 8, Chechen demonstrators in Grozny and Shali again demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.

4/9/96 A report in the ultra-conservative Russian newspaper Zavtra on April 9, stated that US President Clinton had sent a confidential memorandum to Yeltsin in early April suggesting that it would be impossible for the G7 ministers to visit to Moscow in the light of the continued war in Chechnya. Zavtra proposed that Clinton was acting on the initiative of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had argued that Russia should be presented with an effective ultimatum on the issue of Chechnya.

4/10/96 On April 10, Aslan Maskhadov, the chief commander of Dudaev's forces, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in eastern Chechnya, which killed 10 other people in a bomb blast.

4/10/96 Also on April 10, the first working session of Chernomyrdin's State Commission on Chechnya was held. The Commission was described as a coordinating body which would interact with state and administrative bodies and inform the public of progress on a regular basis. Yeltsin and Presidential advisor Emil Pain read out a long list of mediators for negotiations with Dudaev (which was not made public) and Kremlin officials noted that the mediators would be constantly changed as the negotiating process proceeded. Observers noted that this would seem to rob the process of any continuity and make it unlikely that any of the mediators would be able to establish relations of trust with Dudaev.

4/10/96 An article in Moskovskaya Pravda offered an assessment of the progress of Yeltsin's peace plan on April 10, with 10 days having passed since its announcement. The paper pointed out that a dual policy was at work in Chechnya: "The essence of Yeltsin's plan for Chechnya is not at all in the immediate termination of the war. He needs an effective immediate result in the run-up to the elections...a phased troop withdrawal, creation of islands of peace, and the streamlining of financing procedures...negotiations with Dudaev--this is a "delicious" pre-election subject that will drive the President's rating sky-high...And because Dudaev needs to be pushed to negotiate, combat action--contrary to all assurances about its termination--should intensify, which is in fact happening." The newspaper went on to note that Chernomyrdin's Commission had, in effect, been reduced to a secondary, coordinating body, while all of the real information about the war was confined to a narrow circle of Security Council members. The paper stated, "The Security Council began the war, it conducts it, and it will also look for a way out of it."

4/10/96 Reports in the Russian press continued to indicate, however, that the combat action was not proceeding quite as well as the Security Council might have hoped. In a single battle in southern Chechnya, for example, the Russian military lost 30 troops, with a further 67 injured and 15 missing, and a SU-25 fighter shot down.

4/12/96 On April 11 and 12, the Russian military attacked additional strongholds in southern Chechnya, announced that Russian forces had been earmarked to be "permanently stationed" in Chechnya after "peace" was declared, and published a plan to conscript 60,000 Chechen draftees into Russian army construction battalions. On April 11, General Anatoly Shkirko, the Commander of the Russian Interior Ministry troops in Chechnya, declared on Russian TV and radio that Dudaev's men now had a choice between surrendering or being wiped out. Against this backdrop, Russian Public TV (ORT) confirmed again that Presidents Shaimiev and Nazarbaev had been officially named as mediators between the Russian Government and Dudaev. (An article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on April 13 noted that Doku Zavgaev and his government would prefer Nazarbaev to Shaimiev on the grounds that Tatarstan and the other republics of the Russian Federation had consistently supported Dudaev and achieved their own sovereignty in part as the result of Chechnya's separatist policy.)

4/14/96 As fighting in western Chechnya continued on April 13-14, the commander of the joint Russian federal forces, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, announced that the first contingent of Russian troops would begin withdrawing from Chechnya on April 15. At the same juncture, Dudaev's Chief of Staff, Aslan Maskhadov, stated in an interview with NTV that he was ready for peace talks and blamed the Russian forces for not observing the cease-fire.

4/15/96 Reports from Reuters on April 15 suggested that two battalions had indeed been pulled out of Chechnya as part of Yeltsin's peace plan. The two battalions were redeployed from the Shelkovsky district, northeast of Grozny near the border with Dagestan, and were heading back to their barracks in Siberia. There was no indication of the actual size of the contingent withdrawn (although the New York Times stated on April 23 that 6,000 had been redeployed). A government spokesman also told Interfax that most troops could leave Chechnya by the end of the year--beginning with a phased six week withdrawal through May of 8 out of 14 major army and Interior Ministry units currently in the republic and culminating in a second five month withdrawal of the remaining troops. In both of these two phased withdrawals the troops would be based close to the republic's borders and could return to Chechnya if the situation deteriorated. The ultimate plan would be to return the troops to their bases elsewhere in Russia in a third gradual redeployment beginning in November which would depend on the progress of the peace process. News services reported that Yeltsin's Security Adviser, Yuri Baturin, had flown to Grozny to supervise the implementation of the peace plan. In spite of this seeming step forward, armed clashes continued throughout Chechnya.

4/15/96 Defense Minister Pavel Grachev made an announcement in Yekaterinburg on April 15 that 10,000 Russian troops would be permanently stationed in Chechnya after the planned phased withdrawals, according to OMRI (4/16/96).

4/16/96 Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an appeal from Dudaev and the Chechen leadership calling on the peoples of the G7 states, the Vatican, the Islamic world, and all upholders of human rights and freedoms, not to let the G7 summit take place in Moscow in April while there were still Russian troops in Chechnya. The authors of the appeal pointed out that on the eve of every major world summit, the Russian "military-political leadership" began to express concern about the carnage and to talk of peace and negotiations. The authors further stated that Russia had not taken one specific action to achieve a peace settlement, that on the contrary a large-scale military action had been launched, but that the Chechen government was ready to conduct direct talks to find a peaceful settlement. On the same day, however, Yeltsin was quoted on Moscow radio as saying that he would never agree to direct talks with Dudaev who was a "bandit."

4/17/96 OMRI reported on April 17 that Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev had proposed Turkish President Suleyman Demirel as a mediator in the conflict in addition to Tatarstan President Shaimiev. A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official was reported to have suggested that Russia would not object to Turkish mediation. Turkey later played down this suggestion on April 17, when a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that it had not received any official information on the reports. Yeltsin was also reported to have suggested King Hassan of Morocco as a possible mediator, in an AFP report on April 17.

4/17/96 Interfax on April 17 reported that on April 16, Chechen fighters led by Ruslan Gilaev had ambushed a Russian convoy (the 245th Motorized Rifle Regiment from the Moscow Military District) in the Shatoi region, killing 26 servicemen and wounding 51--again belying Moscow's claims of military success. In later press statements Russian military sources increased the number of casualties first to 53 and then to between 70-90, which made this the most devastating raid by Chechen forces on Russian troops in the conflict. Also on April 17, President Yeltsin visited Budennovsk, site of Shamil Basaev's raid in June 1995, as part of his election campaign. Here Yeltsin pledged to crush "terrorism" in Chechnya with a combination of force and negotiation, and referred to Chechnya as "a center of international terrorism."

4/17/96 On April 17, in an address to the UN Human Rights Commission, former Russian human Rights commissioner Sergei Kovalev blasted the West for ignoring human rights violations in Chechnya to help President Yeltsin in his re-election bid. Kovalev noted that the prospects for human rights in Russia were now grim no matter who was elected.

4/18/96 On April 18, representatives of 126 Chechen parties and public organizations comprising a Coordination Council held their second congress in the town of Shali. The congress was attended by Aslan Maskhadov, a number of Chechen field commanders and Chechnya's religious leaders in addition to the political representatives. The congress called for an immediate cease-fire, direct negotiations between Yeltsin and Dudaev, and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. In an interview at the congress published by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Maskhadov was also reported to have called for a "calm, sober, and realistic" assessment of the geopolitical, military and economic aspects of Chechen-Russian relations. A further meeting of some Chechen political parties was held in Grozny under Zavgaev's auspices on April 20, but without Maskhadov's participation. This meeting was rejected by Dudaev supporters as a charade. Chechen commentators remarking on both events in interviews with Nezavisimaya Gazeta on April 20, noted that under current conditions it was difficult for any one figure or any forum to say that it expressed the will of the entire Chechen people. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, there were now 130 political parties, public movements and foundations operating in Chechnya, indicative of the depths of the divisions within a republic where perhaps only around 500,000 out of the original population of 1 million remained.

4/18/96 A split was also reported on April 18 in Zavgaev's camp, with his Deputy Prime Minister, Beslan Gantimerov (the former Mayor of Grozny), splitting from his government as a result of its "pro-Russian" position and attempting to set up his own shadow cabinet.

4/18/96 Kommersant reported on April 18 that Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov and Presidential Council Member Emil Pain were traveling to Chechnya to hold consultations on the settlement of the Chechen conflict. The paper noted that as yet the Russian government had no specific negotiating plan, but that Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev had hinted on April 17 that Dudaev could be cleared of criminal charges if talks went well.

4/18/96 Also on April 18, the respected French medical group, Medecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), issued a rare direct appeal to the G7 leaders in Moscow, asserting that the Russian military operations in Chechnya were among the most bloody that the organization had witnessed anywhere in the world, and citing flagrant abuses of human rights in the republic.

4/19/96 The Jamestown Foundation's Prism reported on April 19 that Yeltsin's peace plan had already fallen apart and that its two key elements--ceasefire and negotiations--had been negated. "Special operations" were continuing in Chechnya with plans being made for federal forces to be relocated from "pacified" to combat areas, and the idea of mediations was proving to be a farce with a changing group of intermediaries being selected by Moscow. Prism also reported that President Shaimiev's role as a mediator had been suspended by Chernomyrdin's Commission on April 16 as a direct consequence of remarks made by his aid, Rafael Khakimov, after his trip to the North Caucasus, to the effect that Dudaev's forces were still moving freely about the republic. Nevertheless, Shaimiev provisionally planned to meet with Dudaev over the weekend of April 20-21, and a Chechen-Tatar contact group had been set up to facilitate a meeting, according to Khakimov (Izvestiya, 4/18/96).

4/19/96 On April 19, Russia radio reported that Pavel Grachev had told Russian Duma deputies he would resign if they believed him to be responsible for the disarray in the Russian military and the heavy losses sustained in the ambush on the Russian convoy on April 16. He also took the opportunity to complain to the Duma deputies that he had not been allowed to "finish the gunmen off" and seemed to criticize Yeltsin for his approach to the war. In further reaction to the events of April 16, Zavgaev announced that the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya was being suspended. Later, reports in the Western press on April 20-21 quoted Yeltsin as saying that the military leadership would be held responsible for the losses sustained in the Chechen ambush of April 16, and would presumably be subject to personnel changes as a result. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta on April 23, one the of pretexts used for making the military personnel changes might be a recent report prepared for the President by the Russian Federal Prosecutors Office, based on a visit to the region in March by the General Prosecutor, Yuri Skuratov. The report claimed that bodies of Russian servicemen killed in action were concealed and not reported and that no record of civilian casualties was maintained by the Russian military.

4/23/96 On April 19, President Yeltsin was reported to have accepted an offer from King Hassan of Morocco to mediate in the Chechen conflict. On April 21, President Shaimiev of Tatarstan stated on NTV that he would not begin his own mediation efforts until large-scale military operations in Chechnya had ended. Shaimiev reaffirmed his commitment to mediation, however, after a meeting of Chernomyrdin's commission on April 23, and stressed that contacts with Dudaev's field commanders and Dudaev himself should continue in spite of the worsening situation in the republic. Yeltsin's national security advisor, Yuri Baturin, returning from a trip to Chechnya to oversee the implementation of the peace plan on April 22, was reported by ITAR-TASS to have warned that the "artificial" acceleration of the peace plan for election purposes would prove too costly, and to have noted that some army generals were in favor of continuing the war.

4/23/96 Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev was reported killed on the night of April 21-22, in a Russian rocket attack on the village of Gekhi-chu (about 20 miles southwest of Grozny), according to reports from ITAR-TASS, Reuters, and the US State Department on April 23, and confirmed by Chechen spokesman and former chief negotiator, Khozhakhmed Yarikhanov. According to Russian press reports, Dudaev and his aides (who were also killed--including Vakha Ibragimov who was found alive months later) were conducting discussions with a Moscow-backed negotiator by satellite telephone when the rocket attack took place. However, other Chechen spokesmen, including Dudaev's personal secretary, Sainudi Khasanov, and Deputy Prime Minister Hasan Khasuev, continued to deny the reports of Dudaev's death. Some asserted that Dudaev was alive and working normally, while others claimed he was severely wounded. Rumors circulated for many months about the circumstances and veracity of Dudaev's reported death. Also on April 23, Zavgaev's Deputy Prime Minister, Badruddin Dzhamalkhanov, was injured in an assassination attempt in Grozny.

4/24/96 A report in Segodnya on April 24 suggested that Dudaev's death had removed the dilemma of negotiating with a declared criminal, and would pave the way for Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov to become a fully acceptable figure, pushing the negotiation process further. Other reports, such as in the New York Times on April 25, suggested that on the contrary, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Dudaev's official successor (see below) would be more difficult to negotiate with than Dudaev and would be unlikely to soften Chechen demands. Sergei Kovalev was quoted as noting in an interview with ITAR-TASS that, "It will be difficult to negotiate with Yandarbiev. His statements are the most extreme."

4/24/96 Dudaev's Vice President, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, a radical Chechen nationalist, writer, and ideologue committed to Chechnya's independence, was appointed as the new Acting President of Chechnya in accordance with the republic's Constitution, according to reports on April 24. Although in an interview with the New York Times on April 24, the OSCE representative in Grozny asserted that Yandarbiev had the support of Dudaev's field commanders, Shamil Basaev (a Dudaev supporter) opposed Yandarbiev's appointment initially. Basaev later gave respect to the stipulations of the Chechen Constitution which transferred the presidential post to the Vice President, in case of death, until new elections could be held. At this juncture, the Russian government still had not confirmed Dudaev's death officially, but an unnamed official suggested that the Russian special forces had produced confirmation--although Russian intelligence and others actively searched for the burial site for a long period of time. A three-day mourning period was announced by the pro-Dudaev Chechen government to mark his death, and Chechen leaders assured Interfax and other news agencies that they would launch even more active military actions against Russian federal forces as a result of Dudaev's death.

4/25/96 On a campaign visit to Khabarovsk, President Yeltsin's response to reports of Dudaev's death was quoted in Izvestiya: "I want to point out that it was Dudaev himself who sparked war. It was he who wanted war. We proposed negotiations with him many times. It was time to begin them at last, in order to finish with the conflict in a peaceful manner. But he wouldn't agree. With Dudaev or without Dudaev we will, nevertheless, end this peacefully in Chechnya. We will not have a war...If the man has died, so what....We will just have to be careful that the fighters don't become even more stirred up without him."

4/25/96 Articles in the Russian press on April 25-26 speculated about the circumstances of Dudaev's death and the consequences. Moskovsky Komsomolets on April 25 attributed his death to a long-planned assassination by the Russian secret services that Moscow was now trying to cover up so that it could not be accused of combating terrorism with terrorism. The newspaper further noted that the death of Dudaev would be a great blow to the Chechen cause, complicating the flow of funds to Chechen forces, removing the symbol of independence, and removing the legitimate leader--all of which should make it easier for Russia to bring the war to an end. In another article on April 25, Moskovsky Komsomolets asserted that killing Dudaev was the best way for Yeltsin to show his "presidential power" on the eve of the election, and on April 26 the paper published the text of what they claimed to be Dudaev's last conversation before his death with Duma Deputy Konstantin Borovoi. Nezavisimaya Gazeta tied Dudaev's death directly to the April 16 attack on the 245th Motorized Rifle Regiment which had exhausted Moscow's patience. It also suggested that the assassination was carried out by the GRU (military intelligence) rather than the FSB (security services).

4/26/96 On April 26, an article in Izvestiya noted that the Council of Europe (CoE) had established a committee in March to study the crisis in Chechnya (with the participation of a number of Russian deputies), and that there was a general consensus in the organization that Russia had continued to grossly violate human rights in Chechnya since its entry into the CoE 3 months previously. The CoE Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg discussed Chechnya at its April session, in which former Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis called for a minute of silence to mark Dudaev's death (which was observed by a number of the participants). Russian officially protested these activities and declared them "unfriendly and insulting." Speaking before the Assembly, Gennady Seleznev, the speaker of the Russian Duma, also asserted that Yeltsin's peace plan "ha[d] created all the necessary political conditions for the cessation of bloodshed and the search for a compromise resolution" in Chechnya.

4/26/96 On April 26, Kommersant reported that Shamil Basaev had been appointed the head of the Chechen delegation at any future talks with Moscow. Vagap Tutakov, Dudaev's spokesman in Moscow, asserted that the appointment was the personal decision of Yandarbiev. The newspaper noted that this marked a more hard-line stance in the Chechen leadership's approach toward Moscow.

4/26/96 OMRI reported on April 26, that new Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev had stated at a news conference that the Chechen field commanders would exact revenge on the members of the Russian intelligence services responsible for Dudaev's death. He also ruled out the possibility of peace talks if it became evident that either Yeltsin or Chernomyrdin had given the orders for Dudaev's elimination. Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov gave official Russian confirmation of Dudaev's death. In addition, President Shaimiev was reported to have stated that Dudaev's death now removed the need for him to act as a mediator in the war. Shaimiev noted that Dudaev's death would result in the worsening of the situation in the republic and severely complicate negotiations. In a speech in Moscow to members of the political faction Our Home is Russia, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin also noted that Dudaev's death had destabilized Chechnya and that the prospects for negotiations had now deteriorated.

4/26/96 On April 26, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported a Russian Ministry of Defense proposal to give a high state award to those responsible for Dudaev's death, perhaps even "Hero of Russia." The paper further reported that Yeltsin had given orders for the Russian security and military forces to take all necessary measures to combat any terrorist activity from the Chechen fighters. However, Pavel Grachev announced during a visit to China that Moscow was prepared to conduct negotiations with both Maskhadov and Yandarbiev. Meanwhile, the commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, denied that his forces had launched a special operation against Dudaev. He noted that Dudaev's death now paved the way for a power struggle among the Chechen leadership. Indeed, Nezavisimaya Gazeta stated that, with Dudaev gone, Zavgaev now considered himself to be the only legitimate power in Chechnya.

4/26/96 On April 26, Nezavisimaya Gazeta also reported that the Russian military had begun a bombardment of Shali, one of Chechnya's key centers, in response to an exchange of fire with Chechen fighters on April 24. The paper noted that a Russian command of about 200 soldiers was deployed in Shali and had been effectively kept prisoner in the town by Chechen forces as a guarantee against bombardment. The presence of the Russian soldiers did not prevent the assault. Fighting was also fierce in the same period around the Grozny and Shatoi regions.

4/27/96 In a meeting on April 27, the pro-Dudaev coalition council of Chechen political parties unanimously called for a cease-fire and peace talks. This was a reiteration of calls made after the council's second congress on April 18, which was then attended by Aslan Maskhadov.

4/27/96 Doku Zavgaev claimed to have met Maskhadov around April 27, and stated that Maskhadov was completely "out of his depth" in dealing with the post-Dudaev political situation in Chechnya. Zavgaev noted that none of Dudaev's field commanders now had any authority to conduct negotiations with Moscow. On April 28, OMRI reported that leaflets had been posted in Grozny threatening reprisals against Zavgaev in revenge for Dudaev's death.

4/27/96 On April 27, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published the text of a report by Lev Rokhlin, the Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, on the results of an investigation into the killing of the servicemen from the 245th Motorized Rifle Regiment on April 16, 1996. Rokhlin blamed the incident on the regiment's lack of preparedness for combat operations (insufficient training, negligence and loss of vigilance), and noted that it was gunned down at close range. He also pointed out that this particular regiment had lost 220 men since being deployed in Chechnya in a series of badly handled incidents. The ultimate blame was, however, laid on the leadership of the Ministry of Defense for not leaving any full-strength, well-trained and fully-equipped units intact in its armed forces reductions. Rokhlin pointed out a number of mistakes that the Ministry of Defense had made repeatedly in the Chechen conflict: replacing officers in the combat zone every three months and giving them no time to pass on their experience to their replacements; replacing injured servicemen with volunteers and reserves from military commissariats without preliminary training; denying sufficient assistance and oversight to the armed forces (the majority of the Interior Ministry units in particular were at only 70% strength and had only 50-60% of the necessary serviceable hardware, and all units had experienced serious delays in wages and were short of food and clothing); failing to call to account those responsible for combat losses; and failing to visit the troops on the ground.

4/29/96 Reports circulated by Zavgaev's government suggesting that Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Dudaev's successor as Chechen President, was killed in a clash between rival Chechen factions, immediately led to great speculation in the Russian press about the fragmentation and disintegration of the pro-Dudaev Chechen forces. Moskovsky Komsomolets noted on April 30 that "the 'Dudaevites' were increasingly taking on the image of uncontrollable gangs with whom negotiating is a waste of one's breath. In effect this is what our military has sought to prove so it can continue the war without hindrance."

4/29/96 Also on April 29, the Chechen military intelligence chief, Abu Movsaev, asserted that Moscow planned to eliminate all of the pro-Dudaev leadership, and Dudaev's widow appealed to Turkish President Suleyman Demirel to assist in launching a new peace initiative, and also to President Yeltsin for a personal meeting.

4/30/96 On April 30, Chechen representatives announced that Yandarbiev was indeed alive, and that there was no internecine fighting in the Chechen ranks. They also refuted the press reports that Shamil Basaev had been appointed commander in chief, and noted that all the prominent field commanders had ruled out talks with Russian officials implicated in Dudaev's death. Chechen forces also launched a series of attacks on Russian convoys in Grozny and seized a police HQ in Argun--all in areas supposedly controlled by Russian troops.

4/30/96 On April 30, Yeltsin ordered the Russian security services to take tough measures to prevent and combat Chechen terrorist attacks in Moscow over the May Day and Victory Day holidays in Russia. Viktor Ilyukhin, the leader of the Duma's Communist Party faction, was also reported in Kommersant to warn against Chechen terrorist attacks.

MAY 1996

5/3/96 An article in the Jamestown Foundation's Prism noted that Dudaev's assassination had struck the final blow to Yeltsin's March 31 peace plan for Chechnya. As the article suggested, even before Dudaev's death the announcement of a troop withdrawal had not been taken seriously, the cease-fire and mediated talks had not materialized, and a true discussion of the political status for Chechnya had not occurred. Moreover, the article reported that military operations against civilian targets in Chechnya had escalated, that plans for basing troops permanently in Chechnya had been publicized and that a Russian General, Nikolai Koshman, had been appointed Prime Minister of Chechnya unilaterally by Moscow (without consulting Zavgaev)--while, at the same time, Chechen fighters continued to move unimpeded in the republic. The article also discussed the fact that Western pressure from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the UN Human Rights Commission, senior European officials and Medecins Sans Frontiers, had had no impact on Russia's actions.

5/3/96 In another article in Prism on May 3, Segodnya reporter, Maria Eismont described Dudaev's importance for the Chechen cause: Dudaev was the embodiment of Chechnya's legitimacy: Chechen fighters had a President, a Constitution, a Chief of Staff, and unit commanders appointed by the President to look to; as such they had become the Chechen Army rather than a group of bandits. Also, Dudaev had been the "binding force" keeping all of the field commanders together, holding regular meetings every two months and giving the semblance of being in control of all activity. He was, in addition, the symbol of Russia's "helplessness in resolving the Chechen problem."

5/3/96 At the end of a two day Council of Europe meeting in Strasbourg, Russian Foreign Minister Evgeny Primakov defended Russia's policy in Chechnya. He asserted that Russia was prepared to hold talks with Chechen rebels, even about Chechnya's status, but stressed that independence was not a possibility. In answering criticism of Russian brutality in the campaign, he reasserted the position of many Russian leaders that a large-scale military campaign was a direct response to a high-level of terrorism that Europe did not have to face.

5/4/96 In Moscow, the Russian authorities arrested Beslan Gantimerov, the former Mayor of Grozny and now a Deputy Prime Minister in Zavgaev's government. Gantimerov was accused of corruption (embezzling several billions of rubles intended for the reconstruction of Grozny) and detained in Lefortovo prison. Prior to his arrest, Gantimerov had strongly criticized the Russian operation in Chechnya and the treatment of Chechen civilians by Russian troops. In response to Gantimerov's arrest, Zavgaev appealed to Moscow, noting that the arrest now undermined his government's position in the republic. However, as Segodnya suggested on May 5, the arrest could also have been motivated by the fact that Gantimerov had publicly announced on April 18 that he was now in opposition to the pro-Moscow Zavgaev government, and planned to go off on his own with the backing of his several hundred-strong paramilitary group. The article noted that Gantimerov posed a real threat to Zavgaev's position, and suggested that Zavgaev's protest to Moscow was disingenuous, and that he was, in fact, complicit in Gantimerov's arrest.

5/4/96 Moscow radio reported that President Yeltsin was planning a May 16 visit to Chechnya to conduct trilateral talks between the Russian leadership, the pro-Dudaev Chechens and Zavgaev's government. Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, the new Chechen President, responded to this news on May 5 by warning that he could not guarantee Yeltsin's safety during such a trip, and that Zavgaev's government should participate in the talks as part of the Russian delegation rather than as a third party. Yandarbiev also demanded an official denial from the Russian government that it played any role in Dudaev's death.

5/5/96 Over the weekend of May 4-5, Chechen fighters were reported to have stepped up their action against the Russian forces in the republic. They attacked the Russian Interior Ministry headquarters in Grozny, killing 3 soldiers. In addition, they broke into radio frequencies to spread "propaganda;" shot down a Sukhoi-25 ground assault plane in southeastern Chechnya, killing the two pilots; ambushed a Russian column in eastern Chechnya; and kidnapped 11 members of the Moscow-backed Chechen government's police force.

5/6/96 According to the Moscow press, Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov proposed that the Special Observation Commission, first created by the July 30, 1995 Military Accord between Russia and Chechnya, be reinstated in the Shali district of the republic as an experiment. The idea would be to test the Commission as an effective mechanism for bringing combat operations to an end. The Commission could work to prevent a military show-down in the region, which had been under siege by Russian federal troops for several weeks. Maskhadov also stated that he was ready for military talks with the Russian high command but not for political negotiations (ITAR-TASS, 5/6/96). Maskhadov noted that he would discuss exchanges of prisoners, security guarantees for Russian troops and the establishment of cease-fire zones. Vladimir Zorin, the Chairman of the Duma's Committee for Nationality Affairs and the Deputy Head of the Russian delegation to the 1995 Russian-Chechen peace talks, endorsed the view that the July 30 Military Accord should be used as the basis for a new round of talks between Russia and Chechnya.

5/11/96 Russian Interior Minister, Anatoly Kulikov, told Interfax on May 8 that President Yeltsin's planned visit to Chechnya was impossible from the security point of view. In spite of Kulikov's assertion, in campaign speeches on May 10-11, President Yeltsin announced again that he planned to visit Chechnya before the Presidential elections to hold tripartite talks with the Russian government, the pro-Moscow Chechen government and the pro-Dudaev forces. Simultaneous with Yeltsin's statements, fighting continued on the ground in Chechnya, with 8 Russian soldiers killed in clashes over the weekend and Russian attacks on civilian targets and Dudaev strongholds.

5/14/96 The head of the OSCE's mission in Grozny, Tim Guldiman, held talks in Moscow with Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. He was then scheduled to return to Chechnya for meetings with pro-Dudaev Chechen leaders and to brief Chernomyrdin on the outcome. These meetings seemed to mark the beginning of a new phase of shuttle diplomacy in the peace process, spearheaded by the OSCE.

5/14/96 The pro-Moscow Chechen parliament scheduled new legislative elections for the republic on June 16, parallel with the Russian Presidential Elections.

5/17/96 On May 17, Russian Public TV reported that the Duma had adopted in principle an amnesty for both Russian and Chechen fighters in the Chechen war with the exception of those who perpetrated hostage-taking or terrorist acts.

5/18/96 On May 18, NTV reported that Chechen opposition leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and OSCE Grozny mission chairman Tim Guldiman had discussed the possibility of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev acting as a mediator between the Russian government and the separatist Chechen leadership.

5/18/96 A session of the Chechen Internal Affairs Ministry was held to consider the question of ensuring the security of Yeltsin's proposed visit to Chechnya. Pro-Dudaev Chechen leaders also displayed considerable interest in the possibility of talks with Russian leaders who were not implicated in the killing of Dzhokhar Dudaev. The President of Bashkiria, Murtaza Rakhimov, suggested in the Russian press that President Yeltsin might revise his peace plan based on a visit to Chechnya, by taking into account the actual state of affairs there (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 5/18/96).

5/20/96 On May 20, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the commander of the Russian federal forces in Chechnya, asserted that the Chechen resistance would be eliminated by early to mid-June, prior to the Russian presidential elections. Two days later, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said that Russian troops would be withdrawn from Chechnya between June 1 and August 1. A high ranking military officer also told ITAR-TASS that there were now more than 41,000 federal troops in the republic, including 19,000 which belonged to the Defense Ministry. Grachev noted that after the pullout, only units of the North Caucasus military district would remain in Chechnya. Meanwhile, Russian actions against both military and civilian targets continued in Grozny and elsewhere in Chechnya.

5/22/96 Russian forces invaded and captured the Chechen stronghold of Bamut. The village had been the site of heavy fighting between Russian and Chechen troops over the past year. Nikolai Koshman, Prime Minister of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, claimed that Bamut was the "rebel's last stronghold," OMRI reported.

5/23/96 On May 23, the Jamestown Foundation's Monitor reported that the Russian command for the North Caucasus had acknowledged on May 22 that 40 Russian soldiers had been killed and 48 wounded in a counterattack staged by Chechen fighters defending the stronghold of Bamut. In Moscow, the Defense Ministry offered conflicting figures along with and unsupported counterclaim that Russian forces had killed more than 100 Chechen fighters in the same battle. At the same time Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev announced that his leadership council had proposed negotiations with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The proposal linked the negotiations to a "real end to combat operations" and a commitment to withdraw Russian troops from Chechnya.

5/24/96 Boris Yeltsin announced that he was ready to receive Acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev for talks in Moscow. The Russian press reported that the talks were intended to relaunch the negotiations on military issues suspended in October 1995, but would not include a discussion of Chechnya's political status. In an article in Segodnya, Russian commentator Pavel Felgengauer declared that there had been intensive informal contacts between the Russian authorities and the inner circle of new Chechen leaders, Yandarbiev and Aslan Maskhadov. Felgengauer asserted that the storming of Bamut by Russian troops had not in fact been a senseless act, as the weakening of the more radical forces concentrated around Bamut might actually strengthen the moderate wing of pro-Dudaev Chechens.

5/24/96 Izvestiya reported that to date, Russian Defense Ministry casualties in the Chechen war included 1947 people killed, 5693 wounded, and 376 missing. Among the Russian Interior Ministry troops, 678 were killed and 3175 were wounded.

5/27/96 A Chechen delegation comprising Acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, the co-Chairman of the suspended Special Observation Commission Khozhakhmed Yarikhanov, southwestern front commander Akhmed Zakaev, Vice President Said-Hasan Abumuslimov, and Information Minister Movladi Udugov flew to Moscow for talks with Boris Yeltsin. After the talks, an agreement was signed by the Chechen delegates and by Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Security Council Chairman Oleg Lobov, Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov, Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, and pro-Moscow Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev--as a member of Russian delegation. The document called for the cessation of hostilities as of 00:00 hours on June 1 and an exchange of prisoners within two weeks. Future relations between Russia and Chechnya were deferred to further talks by mutual agreement. Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, whose imminent dismissal had been rumored for several weeks, was absent at the signing of this Russian-Chechen preliminary agreement. Prior to the May 27 talks he denied that the military high command was displeased with Yeltsin's decision to pursue peace negotiations with Chechen separatists, saying that "the leadership of the defense ministry...cannot have a position different from the supreme Commander-in-Chief."

5/28/96 On May 28 Boris Yeltsin flew to Grozny, accompanied by Security Council Secretary Oleg Lobov; Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov; Emil Pain, member of the State Commission for Chechen Settlement; Sergei Stepashin, Executive Secretary of the State Commission for Chechen Settlement; Yuri Baturin, the President's National Security Aide; Sergei Shakhrai, Chairman of the Commission on Separation of Powers between the Subjects of Federation; and Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. On the evening of the same day Yeltsin left Chechnya. The Chechen delegation stayed in Moscow during the Russian President's visit to their republic. During his meeting with local residents, Yeltsin said that extreme measures had been used in Chechnya because "a coup had taken place here and power had been seized by the separatists." While not denying the success of the talks with the Chechen delegation, the President also said that "the criminal regime which seized Chechnya should be eliminated in the name of the protection of the population of the republic, restoration of the law and peace on its territory, order in the North Caucasus, and preservation of the unity of Russia." Addressing the Russian troops, President Yeltsin asserted: "You've won. We have gained a victory over the rebellious Dudaev's regime." During his visit, Yeltsin also noted that an important condition of a political settlement in Chechnya would be new legislative elections on June 16.

5/28/96 Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on May 31, that President Yeltsin had decreed on May 28 that a public discussion should begin in Chechnya in June on a power-sharing treaty with Russia. The draft treaty would recognize Chechnya's right to self-determination and guarantee its special status within the Russian Federation--but without giving the republic any special powers. According to the draft treaty, foreign relations and economic responsibilities would be shared by the Chechen and federal governments. Chechnya, however, would have jurisdiction over the domestic political affairs and would have the right to conclude international treaties. A new version of the treaty, based on Chechen responses would be submitted to Yeltsin by the end of the month.

5/29/96 The reaction to Yeltsin's meeting with Yandarbiev by a substantial part of Russian political establishment was on the one hand hopeful, and on the other -- guarded and distrustful. State Duma deputy General Eduard Vorobev, who had resigned from the military after refusing to lead the federal armed forces in Chechnya, was afraid of "cunning" on the part of the Chechens. Communist Party leader Alexander Shabanov, speaking to Nezavisimaya Gazeta on May 29, described the meeting as a propaganda-populist stunt by Yeltsin. Among the Chechens, Salambek Maigov, co-chairman of the Coordinating Council of Chechnya's Socio-Political Organizations, said that there was "too much euphoria" around the accords and that it was too early to reach any conclusions. According to Maigov, the proposed June 1 cease-fire could not take place unless political issues, such as the legality of the Chechen resistance movement, were addressed simultaneously. Nevertheless, Maigov was convinced that Boris Yeltsin had achieved his main strategic objective: he presented the cease-fire agreement to the Russian public as an end to the war.

5/31/96 According to the preliminary agreement, the cease-fire should have taken effect at midnight on May 31, but the Chechen forces were reported to have attacked Russian troops. Deaths were claimed on both sides. Russian TV and ITAR-TASS reported that the disarmament talks scheduled for June 1 had now been postponed and would be held in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, on June 4-5.

JUNE 1996

6/3/96 The Presidents of Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, along with pro-Moscow Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev and other North Caucasian presidents, met in Kislovodsk for a summit on the Caucasus. OMRI reported that at the conference, the presidents signed a declaration supporting territorial integrity and the rights of ethnic minorities, and condemning terrorism, aggressive separatism, and religious extremism.

6/4/96 Protocol on the Results of the Negotiations by Representatives of the Federal and Chechen Sides.

6/5/96 At a press conference before the proposed June 5 round of negotiations, Said-Hasan Abumuslimov, the Vice President of Chechnya, stated that the Chechen side had prepared a protocol proposing to withdraw all the federal troops by June 15--before the disarmament of the Chechen forces--and to postpone the elections to a new Peoples Assembly (Parliament) until a peaceful settlement was reached. The head of the pro-Moscow Chechen government, Doku Zavgaev, strongly opposed the postponement of the elections. According to Reuters, Abumuslimov admitted that the Chechen camp was split between those who wanted to continue talks with President Yeltsin and a faction that preferred to await the outcome of the Russian presidential election. On June 6, the Russian-Chechen talks were adjourned for three days without signing a written agreement.

6/6/96 NTV reported on June 6 that during a campaign trip to Tver, Russian President Boris Yeltsin asserted, "there is no war in Chechnya, it's only a battle with crime" and that all that remained of the Chechen resistance to Moscow were small bands of "three, five or ten people."

6/10/96 The talks between the Russian federal authorities and the pro-Dudaev Chechen forces under Yandarbiev resumed in Nazran on June 9. Russian Minister for Nationalities and Federal Relations Vyacheslav Mikhailov issued a protest to the Chechen delegation in response to the continuing attacks and terrorist acts against federal troops. Both sides reaffirmed their adherence to the understandings reached in Moscow on May 27 on a cease-fire and the exchange of prisoners. In the course of the negotiations, the Russian and Chechen delegations reached an agreement to postpone the elections to a new People's Assembly until after the withdrawal of federal troops. With this obstacle removed, Vyacheslav Mikhailov and Aslan Maskhadov signed two separate protocols on June 10, one on the withdrawal of Russian troops by late August and the disarmament of the Chechen fighters, and the second on the release of all hostages and prisoners of war.

6/10/96 During a campaign trip to Novosibirsk, Boris Yeltsin said that although the war was over, the Chechen peace process must be approached carefully, as "we can't surrender to a bunch of bandits, either." Meanwhile, formations of the 245th Infantry Brigade began to leave their positions in the Chechen region of Shatoi. Roman Sokolovsky, chief spokesman for the federal force in Chechnya, stated that the federal command was planning to complete the withdrawal process by August 31. Only two federal brigades, he reported, would remain in Chechnya on a permanent basis: the 205th Infantry Brigade and the 101st brigade of Interior Ministry troops.

6/11/96 According to a statement made on June 11 by representatives of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, in spite of the agreement in Nazran the Chechen parliamentary elections were still scheduled to take place June 16 as planned. Acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev vowed to employ "any means" necessary to disrupt the elections to a new Chechen People's Assembly, and Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov threatened an "incredible" response if the elections were not, in fact, postponed. President Yeltsin remained aloof from the dispute, announcing in St. Petersburg that the question of the election was the local matter.

6/14/96 On June 14, the last official day for campaigning in the mass media for the Russian Presidential elections, Russian Public TV broadcast a lengthy interview with Boris Yeltsin. In this interview, the President emphasized that he had never declared a war "against the Chechen people" and personally felt "pain for every mother and every family who lost someone." He argued, however, that the military campaign was absolutely necessary to prevent the disintegration of Russia and that the Russian Constitution "gives the right to put down a riot by force."

6/16/96 Russian presidential elections and elections for a new Chechen People's Assembly began simultaneously in Chechnya on June 16. The Chechen opposition refrained from carrying out its threats to disrupt the voting. ITAR-TASS reported the final turnout in Chechnya as 58.9%. There was no voting in the Vedeno region, which was controlled by the pro-Dudaev opposition. In its official June 18 statement, the OSCE described the voting as "unfree and unfair" and "incompatible with OSCE principles," according to the Jamestown Foundation's Monitor on June 19.

6/18/96 Alexander Lebed won third place in the first round of the Russian Presidential elections. Subsequently, Boris Yeltsin met with him twice in two days, and hoping to win over Lebed's supporters in the second election round, appointed him Security Council Secretary and National Security Aide on June 18. Lebed replaced Oleg Lobov and Yuri Baturin in these security positions. In an interview with NTV, Alexander Lebed said that he would personally take charge of the Chechen peace negotiations. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin invited Lebed to join the State Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta on June 22, Sergei Slipchenko, the head of the press service of the State Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict, stated that Lebed's appointment would enhance political realism, and that very soon there would be a swing toward actual stabilization in Chechnya.

6/20/96 Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov on June 20 ordered his forces to refrain from further hostilities until after the second round of the presidential elections, but sporadic fighting continued in Chechnya. Another Russian-Chechen negotiating session was held on June 22, but the sides were unable to define either the notions of "special operations," or "demilitarization," or other points contained in the June 10 Nazran agreements. On June 24, Monitor reported that since the ceasefire went into effect on June 1, the Russian side had lost 38 soldiers with some 130 wounded; while on the Chechen side - 25 had been killed and 72 wounded in sporadic exchanges of fire and mine explosions. According to Interfax, on June 25, Russian and Chechen delegations exchanged initial lists of prisoners to be released. These lists, comprised of 1,089 names submitted by the Russian side and 1,322 names on the Chechen side, covered POWs, MIAs, filtration camp detainees and hostages.

6/25/96 Edict of the President of the Russian Federation on the Withdrawal of Forces and Equipment Making up the Temporary Combined Forces Carrying out the Tasks of Disarming all Illegal Armed Formations on Chechen Republic Territory.

6/28/96 NTV reported on June 26, that Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov, and the Secretary of the Russian State Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict, Sergei Stepashin, had flown to Grozny and then to the Vedeno district to discuss the future of the peace talks with the village elders. On June 27 in Khankala, two working groups responsible for implementing the June 10 peace agreements exchanged lists of prisoners. On June 28, Vyacheslav Mikhailov met with the Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov in the village of Novie Atagi to discuss the failure to implement the peace agreements signed on June 10.

6/28/96 On June 28, under the order of Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, commander of the joint force in Chechnya, the 245th Motorized Infantry Regiment began its withdrawal. Defense Ministry force commander Vladimir Shamanov announced to Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the withdrawal of federal forces from Chechnya would proceed depending on the stabilization of the situation in the republic and on the "actual disarmament of illegal armed formations."

JULY 1996

7/7/96 On July 7, Russian forces renewed their artillery bombardment of villages in south-east Chechnya amid mutual accusations of non-compliance with the peace agreements of May 27 and June 10 (OMRI 7/8/96). A spokesman for Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov said that the Russians had failed to remove roadblocks outside Chechen towns and villages and to close filtration camps by the Nazran agreement's deadline of July 7. The Russians, for their part, accused the Chechens of continuing attacks on Russian forces. On July 8, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov presented an ultimatum to Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, demanding the release of all prisoners by 6:00 PM on July 9, or else he would undertake "adequate measures against the bandits and begin their elimination" (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 7/10/96).

7/9/96 The Chechen villages of Gekhi and Makhkety, near Grozny, were attacked by Russian troops on July 9 in response to the rebels' failure to respond to Tikhomirov's ultimatum. The OSCE in Grozny issued a statement warning that fighting could spread. Alexander Lebed was reported in the Washington Post to blame the rebels for the latest surge in fighting. According to Alexei Arbatov, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Parliament's Defense Committee, Yeltsin's statements about seeking peace in Chechnya had now begun to "look like an election farce." (Washington Post, 7/12/96).

7/14/96 The Financial Times and the New York Times both reported that the new Security Council Secretary, Alexander Lebed, once known as an advocate of self-determination for Chechnya, had now endorsed the offensive and defended the actions of Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, Russia's troop commander in Chechnya. Lebed was reported to have also spoken of Doku Zavgaev, the Moscow-backed Chechen leader, as the "legitimate, freely-elected choice of the will of the Chechen people."

7/16/96 The New York Times reported that to date, it was estimated that 30,000 people, most of them civilians, had been killed in the Chechen conflict.

7/17/96 On July 17, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Col. Gen. Igor Rodionov to replace Pavel Grachev as Defense Minister. According to the Washington Post (7/19/96), Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who had been relatively conciliatory on the war, had told US Vice President Albert Gore that Russia would begin pulling out troops from Chechnya. However, hard-line Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov was reported to be opposed to a troop withdrawal, asserting, "today is premature to consider any withdrawal of the federal forces from the region."

7/19/96 Citing Chechen press spokesman Movladi Udugov, OMRI reported that a group of field commanders had recently discussed possible options for strikes against Russian troops. The field commanders had decided to refrain from further full-scale military operations, although they reserved the right to respond to "provocations." However, Sergei Slipchenko, spokesman for the Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict, argued that there were discrepancies between Movladi Udugov's claim that the various field commanders' were all subordinate to Yandarbiev and a statement by renegade commander Salman Raduev (the leader of the January 1996 raid on Kizlyar), that he rejected the Nazran peace agreement and would continue combat operations. Slipchenko asserted that these discrepancies demonstrated serious rifts within the Chechen leadership.

7/19/96 On July 19 Russia's lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, urged President Yeltsin to halt the fighting in Chechnya and restart the peace talks. The resolution, approved by a vote of 272-4, stated: "We call on you to stop all military actions, renew negotiations and reveal their contents to the whole population of the Russian Federation."

7/27/96 On July 27, Chechen representative Kazbek Makhashev and Russian Colonel Alexander Pilipenko met to discuss the exchange of prisoners. The two sides agreed on necessary steps for further exchanges. Prior to this meeting, some 200 people held a demonstration in Grozny to demand the resignation of the Moscow-backed Chechen government and the withdrawal of Russian troops.

AUGUST 1996

8/3/96 On August 3, Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov and the Secretary of the Russian State Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict, Sergei Stepashin, announced in Grozny that they were ready for the direct talks with Chechen rebels (OMRI, 8/5/96). Chechen spokesman Movladi Udugov, however, said that no talks would be possible as long as Russian forces continued military operations against Chechens.

8/6/96 On August 6, on the eve of Yeltsin's inauguration as the newly-elected President of Russia, Chechen militants attacked Grozny. It was not clear how many militants had participated in the attack, but various estimations ranged from 200 to 600 men. At the same time, attacks were launched against two neighboring cities, Argun and Gudermes. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta (8/7/96), the State Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict demanded that Zelimkhan Yandarbiev condemn the actions of the field commander in charge of the operation, Ruslan Gilaev. Aslan Maskhadov told Ekho Moskvy radio that the assault was ordered by Yandarbiev to force Moscow back to the negotiating table and to show "Russia and the world community...that the war is not over."

8/7/96 In a television interview on August 7, Alexander Lebed, Security Council Secretary asserted: "This war is beneficial for too many people. The roots of the war are economic. We have to create a way to bring the two sides to the bargaining table. It is a torturous path but it is the only way." According to the New York Times on August 8, the Chechen forces had virtually no hope of defeating the Russian forces and it was likely that they would withdraw from Grozny after inflicting as much damage as possible on Russian military, following a pattern established by their March raid on the capital..

8/8/96 The upper house of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council, decided on August 8 to set up its own commission to seek a peaceful settlement of the Chechen crisis. Valery Kokov, the president of North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, was named to head the commission (OMRI, 8/9/96). The newly reappointed Prime Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, simultaneously demanded an investigation into why Russian troops had been unable to prevent the Chechens' attack on Grozny, which, up until this point had been under federal forces' control for more than a year.

8/9/96 On August 9, the siege of Grozny intensified when Chechens surrounded 7,000 Russian troops and began bombarding them with grenades and mortars. This action forced Russian officials to evacuate civilians from their main military bases at the Severny and Khankala airports. A Russian military spokesman was quoted as saying that "the situation is totally out of the control of the federal command." According to the New York Times, the rebels would have lacked the supply lines and the fire-power to hold Grozny, but nevertheless, the Chechen attack on Grozny served as an admonition to President Yeltsin, who had bragged during his six hour-long campaign trip to the region in May that Russia had won the war.

8/10/96 On August 10, Alexander Lebed replaced Oleg Lobov as the Presidential Envoy to Chechnya. On August 12, he returned from a secret trip to Chechnya. He reported immediately to Boris Yeltsin on his talks with Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov in Novie Atagi, which included a discussion of the terms for a bilateral cease-fire and the pullout of the separatist forces from Grozny. The Russian President reportedly approved his proposals for a settlement of the conflict. Although no details of the peace plan were released, Chechen spokesman Movladi Udugov stated that it contained a "principally new" approach to settling the conflict. Lebed also expressed outrage at the condition of Russian troops in Chechnya, describing them as "lice-ridden, hungry and underclothed." He said that they had been sent to Chechnya as "cannon fodder," and should be recalled from combat for "purely humanitarian considerations."

8/13/96 By mid-August, the Chechens seemed emboldened by their easy capture of the capital and several other Chechen cities. On August 13 the acting commander of Russian troops in Chechnya, General Konstantin Pulikovsky, and the Chechen chief of staff Aslan Maskhadov met in Novie Atagi. Media reports stated that the two sides had agreed on a truce to evacuate hundreds of wounded civilians from Grozny. However, General Pulikovsky denied that a formal cease-fire agreement had been negotiated with the Chechens, and stated that the two sides had agreed merely to limit combat operations while civilians were evacuated and the exchange of dead and wounded took place.

8/14/96 The truce was scheduled to go into effect on August 14 at noon. Fifteen minutes later two Russian planes fired at a caravan of refugees trying to flee Grozny. No one died in the attack, but several people were wounded. Against this backdrop, President Yeltsin signed a decree on August 14, giving Alexander Lebed broad powers and full responsibility for overseeing the Chechen crisis. The State Commission for the Settlement of the Chechen Conflict, headed by the Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, was dissolved by the same decree.

8/16/96 Alexander Lebed, President Yeltsin's National Security Adviser and Security Council Secretary, demanded the dismissal of the Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, whom he blamed for Moscow's humiliating retreat in Grozny before the Chechen attack. Lebed accused Kulikov of ignoring advance information about a rebel offensive on Grozny and of conspiracy to spread the war into neighboring Caucasus republics. In response to Lebed's allegations Kulikov threatened to resign.

8/18/96 Negotiations between senior Russian and Chechen commanders continued on August 18, concentrating on the creation of a truce-monitoring commission that had been agreed on earlier during the preliminary talks between Alexander Lebed and Chechen leaders. Simultaneous with the negotiations, Russian helicopters began dropping leaflets warning all remaining civilians in Grozny-- by some estimates 200,000 people--to leave the city within 48 hours, after which time Russian troops reserved the right to relaunch air strikes. General Pulikovsky told reporters that he was ordering the assault because the Chechen rebels had violated the terms of the ceasefire negotiated the previous week (although he had denied that this was a formal agreement on August 13). Around Grozny the fighting intensified. According to Interfax, Pulikovsky insisted that "the only way out of the current situation in Grozny [was] the use of force." General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, who had returned from holiday to resume command of the Russian forces in Chechnya, also said that he would attack Chechen positions. However, the new Russian Defense Minister, Igor Rodionov, voiced disagreement with Pulikovsky's actions on Russian TV.

8/19/96 On August 19, Yeltsin called on Alexander Lebed to submit a plan for the settlement of the Chechen crisis, along with a report of who was at fault for the failures of the last two weeks, by no later that August 26.

8/21/96 Several hours before the expiration of the Russian ultimatum to the Chechens, US President Bill Clinton sent a letter to Boris Yeltsin with an appeal to reopen the negotiations. Ministries of other countries, including Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Turkey, and the Secretary General of the Islamic Conference Organization, also expressed their concern about the situation in Chechnya, and asked Russian authorities to cancel the proposed military assault on Grozny, urging them to find the way out of the crisis at the negotiating table.

8/22/96 Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed arrived in Grozny on August 21, met with Tikhomirov and then went to Novie Atagi to meet with Chechen leaders. Lebed called Pulikovsky's ultimatum a "bad joke" and stated that there would be no assault on Grozny. On August 22, the Russian Security chief signed a detailed peace agreement with Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen Chief of Staff. The agreement, "On Urgent Measures to Stop Fire and Combat Operations in the City of Grozny and on the Territory of Chechnya," included provisions for a ceasefire as of noon on August 23; an exchange of prisoners, refugees, and the dead; and the withdrawal of troops to specified areas.

8/25/96 Russian-Chechen Truce Agreement and Principles for Determining the Fundamental Relations Between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic

8/27/96 Subsequent to the agreement with Lebed, the Commander of the federal troops, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, and Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov signed a Protocol about the realization of the first stage of the ceasefire agreement. At the same time, during press conference in Moscow, the Moscow-backed Chechen head of state, Doku Zavgaev, accused Lebed of staging a second coup d'état in Chechnya (the first being Dudaev's overthrow of Zavgaev's government in 1991).

8/28/96 On August 28, 1996, the negotiations between Alexander Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov were put on hold in response to President Yeltsin's silence on the agreements. Izvestiya speculated that this silence was due to the fact that the balance of forces in the Kremlin battle over Chechnya had not yet been determined, and that the main objective of this battle was not peace in Chechnya, but the political elimination of Lebed. Meanwhile, Gennady Seleznev, the speaker of the State Duma appealed to the President, Prime-minister and to Lebed personally to prevent the Chechen forces from celebrating their seeming victory over Russia on September 6--the fifth anniversary of the proclaimed independence of Chechnya.

8/29/96 Lebed headed back to Chechnya after a telephone conversation with Yeltsin which he refused to comment on publicly. According to Izvestiya, an agreement between the Kremlin and the Chechen forces had already been signed by the Justice Minister and the Prime-Minister.

8/31/96 In the villages of Khasavyurt, in Dagestan, Alexander Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov signed a peace agreement: the "Statement and Principles for Determining the Fundamentals of Relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic." In these accords, the two sides agreed to postpone a decision on the status of the Chechen republic and to resolve the issue sometime before December 31, 2001. In addition, they agreed to establish a joint commission of Russian and Chechen officials by October 1, 1996, which would monitor the troop pull-out, prepare crime-fighting measures, prepare proposals for financial and budgetary relations, and make arrangements for the economic reconstruction of the republic. The accords were published in Izvestiya on September 3.

SEPTEMBER 1996

9/5/96 Approximately 200 people gathered in Moscow in support of Lebed's peace initiatives in Chechnya. Representatives and supporters of the Democratic Union, led by Valeria Novodvorskaya, the Committee of Soldier's Mothers, and the Democratic Russia movement attended. Demonstrators coined slogans such as: "Those against Lebed are pro-war," "An agreement giving Chechnya independence is the way to peace," and "President, support Lebed."

9/6/96 The Russian Federation Council commission on Chechnya was established at a closed session of the Russian parliament's upper house. Its first move was to draft a letter to the President and government, inquiring why the Chechen crisis was being resolved "in an unconstitutional way." Members of the commission expressed concern that "the legitimately elected Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev" had been left out of the Chechen settlement (Interfax, 9/7/96). The commission included Lebed adversaries such as Doku Zavgaev himself and the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov.

9/7/96 The Deputy Prime Minister of the Moscow-backed government of Chechnya, Kharon Amirkhanov, announced his resignation, along with First Deputy Prime Minister Abdulla Bugaev and Deputy Prime Minister Vakha Zagaev. According to Moskovskiye Novosti (9/1-8/96), nearly all the ministers of the Zavgaev government had announced their intention to leave their posts, stating that they did not want to interfere with the peace process. However, it was not clear that pro-Moscow Chechen head of state Doku Zavgaev and Prime Minister Nikolai Koshman would leave the Chechen political scene equally voluntarily.

9/7/96 Segodnya published an interview with Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. He noted that Chechnya was "interested in restoring the closest economic and political ties" with Russia and a "key to bilateral relations is the attainment of guarantees that what has happened up to date will never recur." "These guarantees must not depend on the situation in Russia, and for this reason such relations are being established within the framework of international law rather than the framework of Russia," he stressed. Yandarbiev declared: "We still trust Lebed; we still adhere to the agreements that have been reached, and expect a proper attitude from the Russian side.... Although we are more optimistic than ever, the danger remains first of all from the Russian top leadership. It is reassuring that Boris Yeltsin has positively assessed Alexander Lebed's efforts and the peace process in general." Speaking about the elections in Chechnya, Yandarbiev suggested that the Chechen side was ready to hold them if "Russia withdraws its troops and no longer threatens to interfere in our affairs. In this case we pledge to hold elections within two to three months, coordinate this issue with Russia and take its interests into account."

9/8/96 The New York Times reported that, according to an official announcement by Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed, 80,000 people had been killed in the Chechen war. Lebed asserted that most of those killed were civilians caught in Russian bombings, while more than 10,000 were Russian soldiers. He suggested that many times this number of soldiers had been wounded. Human rights groups in the region also noted that more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had been taken prisoner, about 700 were missing and thousands had deserted.

9/9/96 Lebed met with Prime Minister Chernomyrdin to discuss the results of a Russian legal examination of the documents signed in Khasavyurt, and the overall situation in Chechnya. The examination was conducted by the Ministry of Justice and by a group of independent experts, headed by the Vice President of the Russian Association of International Law Oleg Khlystov.

9/9/96 In accordance with the Khasavyurt accords, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev signed orders under which three ministers from the Moscow-backed Chechen government (in charge of housing, road construction, and the power industry), were included in the coalition government. Pro-Moscow Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev, on the other hand, told Interfax that not a single member of the current Chechen leadership would join the coalition government. Representatives of the Chechen Coordinating Council of Political Parties and Movements were expected to be given 14 seats in Yandarbiev's coalition government, including the position of Prime Minister, five ministers, four first deputy ministers and four deputy ministers. The Coordinating Council, co-chaired by Vice President Said-Hasan Abumuslimov, united about 20 Chechen political parties and movements. Representatives of Chechen communities from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan also belonged to the Council (Interfax, 9/9/96, 9/10/96). The leaders of the Coordinating Council stated that it would be difficult to set up a moderate coalition government since almost all politicians in Chechnya supported Chechen independence (OMRI, 9/9/96).

9/10/96 A congress of Chechen political public and religious representatives groups took place on the 10th of September. The congress gave its support to the end of the war and welcomed the settlement plan drawn up by Alexander Lebed and approved by Boris Yeltsin and Viktor Chernomyrdin, according to a statement by the Russian Security Council's press service. The congress also supported the formation of a coalition government and favored conditions for free elections in Chechnya (Interfax, 9/11/96). Lebed offered this opinion about the congress: "We hoped the congress would gather three sides: supporters of Doku Zavgaev and Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, and the Chechens living outside Chechnya. However, the congress got drowned in emotions, and it's impossible to take any reasonable decision when emotions run too high" (Interfax, 9/12/96).

9/10/96 On September 10 the New York Times published a letter from Michael Lucas, Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute of the New School for Social Research, in which the author claimed, that according to official auditors of the Russian Federation, the Defense Ministry in 1995 alone spent 5.71 trillion rubles, or $1.2 billion, on maintaining its armed forces in Chechnya. This figure did not include expenses of other defense-related ministries and agencies. Mr. Lucas stipulated, that a conservative estimate of the cost for 1996 was likely to be $2 billion. He also noted, that as of January 1996, the Defense Ministry's unpaid wages to military and civilian personnel amounted to 4.3 trillion rubles, or $930 million.

9/11/96 Commenting on the results of the legal examination of the Khasavyurt accords signed by Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed and Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov, Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev told Interfax that the accords were "a political declaration" and had no separate legal significance. However, according to Kovalev, the agreement offered a basis for concluding two legal documents: a treaty on the general principles of defining the status of Chechnya and a power sharing agreement between Moscow and Grozny. The Minister stressed the two key priorities of Russian policy: to restore peace in Chechnya and to guarantee the unity and territorial integrity of the country. Boris Yeltsin instructed Alexander Lebed to continue his work to settle the conflict, taking into consideration the conclusions made by the Russian Justice Ministry.

9/11/96 Ruslan Martagov, the Moscow-backed Chechen government's press-secretary, told Interfax on September 11 that the supporters of Doku Zavgaev did not rule out an armed struggle by pro-independence Chechens against the Chechen opposition. Zavgaev claimed that separatist Chechen forces were interning those who fought against them in concentration camps, while Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov warned of civil war in Chechnya (OMRI, 9/12/96). Martagov noted that there were about 4,000 armed supporters of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, mostly based in the Urus-Martan, Nadterechny and Grozny districts.

9/12/96 The Presidium of the Coordinating Council of the Popular-Patriotic Union of Russia (NPSR), chaired by Gennady Zyuganov, published a statement on 12 September, reported Interfax. Reading the statement at a news conference, Zyuganov, along with Duma Deputy Alexei Podberezkin, declared, "What has happened in Chechnya is the start of Russia's territorial disintegration." Blaming the President, State Duma, and Federation Council, the statement read: "Russia has been betrayed and sold out... The army and the soldiers have been betrayed...What did so many people die for?"

9/13/96 Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the commander of the joint Russian federal forces in Chechnya, suspended the pullout of Russian troops from Chechnya, according to Interfax on September 13. "Federal units will not leave Chechnya until the package of issues concerning the exchange of prisoners of war and hostages is resolved," he stated. He also noted that his position fully matched that of Alexander Lebed. However, Lebed told journalists in Moscow, that General Tikhomirov was "a little hot-headed" when he announced a pause in the troop withdrawal. "We'll sort the matter out," he pledged. Subsequently, on September 17, Lebed gave a press conference in Novie Atagi, in which he asserted that Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya and the demilitarization of the Chechen capital of Grozny would be continued.

9/14/96 Viktor Chernomyrdin opened a conference on Chechnya in Moscow. He stressed that a settlement in Chechnya could only rest on the Constitution and territorial integrity of Russia. Alexander Lebed reported on the actions taken to settle the Chechen conflict. Participants in the conference discussed the formation of government structures in Chechnya during the transition period, and the military and legal aspects of the settlement, along with pressing social problems such as a guarantee of citizens' personal safety, securing the release of detainees, and curbing crime. Attending the conference were Presidential Administration Chief Anatoly Chubais, Minister for Nationalities Affairs and Federal Relations Vyacheslav Mikhailov, Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev, Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Kovalev, Army Chief of Staff Mikhail Kolesnikov, Chief of the Government's Administrative Department Sergei Stepashin, and Chairman of the Duma Committee for International Affairs Vladimir Lukin (Interfax, 9/14/96).

9/18/96 According to Interfax, 71% of Moscow residents supported the actions of Russian Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed in Chechnya in a poll conducted by VTsIOM among 1,305 Moscow residents over the weekend of September 14-15. Only 13% of Moscow residents categorically opposed Lebed's moves in Chechnya. Those supporting Lebed were mainly managers, businessmen and high-skilled specialists. Those opposing Lebed's Chechen efforts mostly included military servicemen and policemen over 40 years old.

9/19/96 On September 19, Boris Yeltsin appointed Emil Pain as his presidential adviser on Chechnya. Pain was previously Deputy Director of inter-ethnic relations and CIS problems at the Presidential Analytical Center. Prior to his appointment to Yeltsin administration, Pain was Director of the Center for Ethnopolitical and Inter-Ethnic Research. Pain also worked in the State Commission for Chechen Settlement, which was disbanded after the appointment of Russian Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed as Yeltsin's envoy to Chechnya.

9/21/96 Another conference on Chechnya, ordered by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, was held in Moscow to focus on "urgent measures to stabilize the situation in Chechnya." According to Interfax on September 21, a planned visit to Moscow by Acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev could also have been on the agenda.

9/23/96 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe hearings on Chechnya, scheduled for September 23, were postponed after both Alexander Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov decided not to attend the proceedings. Both had been invited to Strasbourg two weeks previously. Lebed reportedly did not attend because he believed that doing so would give legitimacy to Chechnya's claims of independence (OMRI, 9/23/96).

9/23/96 The Russian Interior Ministry reported on the casualties suffered during the conflict in Chechnya. The Ministry spokesman informed Interfax that 921 servicemen had been killed, 4,500 troops wounded, 279 were missing, and 50 were in captivity. According to the Ministry, the conflict also had claimed the lives of 280 policemen, with 2,013 wounded, 7 missing and 1 held hostage.

9/24/96 According to a poll conducted among 1,600 Russian residents by the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Research and reported by Interfax , 46% of respondents said that those responsible for military actions in Chechnya should be made accountable for their actions, and 39% stated that all existing agreements on ending combat actions in Chechnya should be honored. As many as 32% of respondents also said that the choice made by the Chechen people regarding their future after the war was over would have to be accepted. On the other hand, 14% deemed it necessary to restore Russian military control over Chechnya and 11% were against recognizing the Chechen separatists' independence bid. A total of 16% of respondents believed that the Chechen problem was Russia's internal affair and that foreign intervention should be avoided. 45% of those polled also believed that the Khasavyurt agreements would result in stable peace in Chechnya.

9/26/96 On September 26 Izvestiya published an interview with Alexander Lebed, in which he asserted that the Chechens would likely decide to remain with Russia, given the good work of Russian Nationalities Ministry, Justice Ministry, Economics Ministry and Ministry of Finance. "I am confident their choice will be sensible. We will have to do a momentous job to convince them, but there is no other way out," said Lebed. According to Lebed, the formation of the Chechen coalition government to both finance and hold the elections under the supervision of observers, was an important part of the peace process.

9/27/96 On September 27, a conference of Russia's North Caucasus republics and regions opened in Nazran, Ingushetia. The conference was attended by Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed, Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov, and several regional presidents and governors. Chechen leaders Zelimkhan Yandarbiev and Aslan Maskhadov did not attend, while the head of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, Doku Zavgaev, was not invited. The conference participants expressed unanimous support for the Khasavyurt and Novie Atagi agreements. They also approved a special appeal to the Federation Council and the State Duma supporting Lebed's initiatives aimed at a settlement in Chechnya, and discussed the creation of regional security machinery for the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the North Caucasus. Ingush President Ruslan Aushev expressed the concern that territorial disputes were likely to arise not only if Chechnya seceded from Russia, but even if Chechnya opted to remain within the Russian Federation. Indeed, as Monitor pointed out on September 30, Chechnya's borders had never been formally determined. In the Soviet period, for example, they had been repeatedly re-drawn, especially after Stalin's deportation of the Chechens and the Ingush in 1944, and again after their return in the mid-1950s (Monitor 9/30/96.)

9/30/96 Russian presidential adviser Emil Pain indicated during a news conference in Moscow that he considered the present situation in Chechnya to be an interim truce, which "may be long lasting but not endless and will lead either to peace or a renewal of combat actions" (Interfax, 9/30/96). In Pain's opinion, the Moscow accord of May 27 and the Nazran accord of June 10 were "far more reasonable and beneficial for Russia." The Nazran accords, according to Pain, were more "symmetric" for Moscow because they envisaged Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya and the republic's demilitarization at the same time. Pain stated that the only way to move on from the present situation would be to "pass over from the discussion of military matters to the consideration of political and economic problems," and to sign a treaty on an interim status for Chechnya, on interim authorities, and on free democratic elections in the near future.

OCTOBER 1996

10/96 At a session of Parliament, 93 Duma deputies signed an appeal to the Russian Constitutional Court denouncing the Khasavyurt agreement. The court appeal was initiated by two deputies from Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and claimed that Lebed had exceeded his authority in signing the document. The deputies also objected to the accord's provision which recognized Chechnya as a subject of international law.

10/2/96 On October 2, the Russian State Duma held hearings "On the situation in North Caucasus with regard to the events in Chechnya." In his report to the Duma, Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed stated that by different estimates, between 80,000 and 100,000 people had died in Chechnya since the beginning of hostilities. Federal losses included 3,826 killed, 17,892 wounded and 1,906 missing in action. Lebed also criticized those who had suggested that Russia's withdrawal from Chechnya was shameful, saying that "it [Russia] has simply come to its senses and stopped what was discrediting it and could have discredited it for many more years." He stressed that until a special status for Chechnya within the federation is defined, a number of conditions must be observed, including the unconditional termination of hostilities and terrorism by both sides, the minimal presence of federal armed forces in Chechnya, and financial aid from the federation. Lebed stressed that his mandate as a presidential envoy had been exhausted to a great extent and that now all the federal bodies should get involved in the solution of the Chechen problem. The opposition to Lebed's peace plan was in full force at the Duma hearings. Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov claimed that Khasavyurt agreements were beneficial only to those forces that sought the destruction of Russia. Doku Zavgaev and Duma Security Committee head Viktor Ilyukhin concurred. Duma Defense Committee Chairman Lev Rokhlin warned of an influx of criminals into neighboring Dagestan as a result of peace in Chechnya, and suggested sending additional troops to secure the republic's border with Chechnya. Only Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky assessed Lebed's actions favorably.

10/3/96 As of October 3, Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya had proceeded according to the schedule. All Russian Defense Ministry troops, except for the 205th motorized brigade, which was expected to be permanently stationed in Chechnya, were scheduled to pull out by October 20. The Russian Interior Ministry's 101st brigade was also anticipated to remain in Chechnya. The Russian press noted, however, that as the Russian troops withdrew, fears of possible terrorist acts and arms trafficking from Chechnya were taking hold in the neighboring Russian territory of Stavropol. As a result, the Coordinating Council for the Struggle Against Terrorism and other serious crimes in the Stavropol territory had given its support to the Stavropol Cossacks' intention to create armed self-defense units in areas bordering Chechnya.

10/3/96 A Chechen delegation headed by Zelimkhan Yandarbiev held talks on October 3 with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed and Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov. Yandarbiev and Chernomyrdin signed an agreement on the creation of a joint Russian-Chechen commission which would monitor the Russian troop withdrawal, and resolve problems related to the prevention of crime and terrorism, and the economic restoration of Chechnya. One of the tasks of the commission was also agreed to be the preparation for elections in Chechnya. During the meeting, the problems of demilitarizing Chechnya, preventing persecution on political and ethnic grounds, and combating criminal groups, were also discussed. Chernomyrdin stated that military matters must be settled on the basis of the June 25 presidential decree with due account to the security of Russia and its borders. "Chechnya is an internal affair of Russia," he told Interfax, and noted that the pro-government Our Home is Russia Duma faction fully supported the agreement on the formation of the joint commission to resolve the Chechen crisis. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, however, in interviews with the press expressed the opinion that the Moscow meeting between Russia and the Chechen separatists was "a shame." "Not a single Western government would have sat down at the negotiating table with people against whom a criminal case has been opened. This shows that our government is no government," he declared (Interfax, 10/4/96).

10/3/96 On October 3, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who was preparing for the heart surgery later in the year, met Alexander Lebed for the first time in nearly two months. In a radio address he gave his support to the peace plan, stating: "My aide Alexander Ivanovich Lebed carried out my instruction and stopped the military conflict. The main thing is he succeeded in stopping the bloodshed" (Reuters, 10/4/96). Yeltsin further asserted that the next step would be the restoration of the administrative and economic system in Chechnya.

10/7/96 The conflict between Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed and Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov increased when Kulikov attacked Lebed's peace plan at an October 7 press conference. Kommersant-Daily, on October 8, described Kulikov as the leader of the "anti-Lebed opposition." At the press conference, the Interior Minister said that there was no compelling need to sign the Khasavyurt accords, because there was no "military catastrophe" in Grozny in August. According to Kulikov, Lebed's figure of 80-100,000 dead during the war was far too high, and the true figure was closer to 18,500. Kulikov insisted that the continued presence of the 101st Interior Ministry Brigade and 205th Motorized Defense Ministry Brigade in Chechnya was necessary, because "their presence will mean that the republic is a part of the Russian Federation."

10/8/96 Speaking to the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin stated that Russia's territorial integrity and the inviolability of its borders, as well as the Russian Constitution's application to all Russian territory, including Chechnya, "cannot be a subject for bargaining." According to Interfax, the Prime Minister outlined guidelines for further settlement in Chechnya: First, all Chechen problems should be settled by talks in accordance with Boris Yeltsin's peace plan and his special decree on June 25. Second, Chechnya's status should be determined based on the interests of the Chechen and Russian peoples and through negotiations. The negotiation process should result in the signing of a treaty on power-sharing between Chechnya and the Russian authorities. At present, Chernomyrdin stated, the goal was simply to secure the peace settlement in the republic.

10/8/96 The legitimacy of the Khasavyurt accord was questioned in the Federation Council, as Valery Kokov, co-chair of the Federation Council working group on Chechnya, stated that while the accord had helped to stop senseless bloodshed in Chechnya, it was observed only by the Russian side, particularly in regard to the section on troop withdrawal. Kokov stressed that "the principle of the territorial integrity of Russia, as a subject of international law, should be stipulated in Russian-Chechen documents," but was not done so in the Khasavyurt agreement. Interfax reported that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov had also expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Khasavyurt accord, calling it a "huge bomb beneath the Russian Constitution." In addition, Luzhkov was reported to have asserted that Lebed's state, legal, and diplomatic experience was "absolutely insufficient for holding these talks on Russia's behalf." Further concerns were expressed by Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, who declared the application of special measures of economic influence and administrative control by the federal authorities to be justified in Chechnya due to the threat of terrorism. The Interior Minister also stated that the future status of Chechnya should be defined "by a duly organized nation-wide public vote."

10/9/96 The Russian press reported that the Russian government was contemplating the creation of a system to supply the Russian republic of Dagestan with energy that would bypass Chechnya. First Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Bolshakov asserted that Chechnya still remained a Russian region and would be supplied with electricity "equally" with other regions. However, on October 9, the Russian government also decided to accelerate the construction of a railway line in the North Caucasus that would circumvent Chechnya--suggesting that Chechnya's separation from Russia was being seriously considered.

10/10/96 After a closed debate on the situation in Chechnya, the Federation Council passed a special resolution, confirming the constitutional status of the Chechen republic as an inseparable part of the Russian Federation.

10/14/96 At its October 14 session, the Chechen Defense Committee scheduled local elections for January 1997. The session also approved the general composition of a coalition government, and named Chechen representatives to the Russian-Chechen Joint Commission for a Settlement in Chechnya, set up by the Khasavyurt accord. First Deputy Prime Minister Hasan Biybulatov, who was responsible for financial and economic issues in the coalition government was appointed as Chechen co-Chair of the Joint Commission.

10/15/96 On October 15, the Russian State Duma launched hearings on Chechnya behind closed doors. Reporters were barred both from the session hall, and from the floor where the hall was located. According to information from an unnamed Duma member, reported by Interfax, at the hearings Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed placed most of the blame for the August surrender of the Chechen capital, Grozny, to the separatists on five people: Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, Moscow-backed Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev, head of Zavgaev's cabinet Nikolai Koshman, acting commander of the federal forces in Chechnya General Konstantin Pulikovsky, and then chief of the Interior Ministry's coordinating center for Chechnya General Pavel Golubets During a subsequent meeting in the editorial offices of Trud newspaper, Lebed claimed that Duma deputies had "tried to educate" him on Chechnya. "It unexpectedly became clear, that few people are satisfied with the establishment of peace in Chechnya," Lebed said.

10/16/96 Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen Chief of Staff, was appointed Prime Minister of the coalition government. He will also retain his post of defense minister. Valentin Vlasov was appointed the Russian co-chairman of the Russian-Chechen Joint Commission for a settlement in Chechnya.

10/16/96 At a press conference, Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov asserted that Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed had planned a "mutiny in the country," and had formed a "Russian legion" of about 50,000 men. According to Kulikov, the task of this legion would be to localize political and military confrontations and destroy the leaders of political, separatist and other organizations that threatened national security. Kulikov also claimed that Lebed had secured himself the support of 1,500 Chechen separatists. Kulikov submitted documents related to the "creeping coup" allegedly undertaken by Lebed to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, to be reported to President Boris Yeltsin. On October 17, Alexander Lebed was dismissed as Security Council Secretary and Presidential National Security Adviser. Boris Yeltsin said on TV that evening that Lebed had committed a number of "inadmissible errors to the detriment of Russia." Yeltsin noted, that "a preelection atmosphere [was] now being created," although the next presidential elections were to be held only in the year 2000, and that "such a situation can no longer be tolerated."

10/17/96 On October 17, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin told Interfax that the federal government would still actively pursue the peace process in Chechnya, and praised Lebed's efforts in the Chechen settlement. "Peace in Chechnya and the lives of our citizens cannot be a small stake in the political game or depend on clannish decisions," he said. Meanwhile, Acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev expressed his readiness to work with Lebed's successor as National Security Council Secretary, Ivan Rybkin--the former Speaker of the Russian Duma.

10/24/96 During a session of the Russian State Duma's Geopolitics Committee, Ruslan Kutaev, Deputy Prime Minister of the newly created Chechen coalition government, stated that the Chechen coalition government favored a complete withdrawal of Russian federal troops from Chechnya, as it feared provocations in areas where Russian troops were located (under the Nazran agreement, two Russian brigades of the Defense and Interior Ministries were to be permanently stationed in the republic).

NOVEMBER 1996

11/2/96 Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Boris Berezovsky, who was put in charge of the settling of Chechen conflict in October, flew to Nazran on November 2 to meet with Chechen government officials. He conferred with Akhmed Zakaev and Movladi Udugov on the reconstruction of Chechnya and the preparation for talks between Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Chechen Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov.

11/4/96 Chernomyrdin chaired a session of the Security Council, in which he endorsed Chechen parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled for January 27, on condition that 300,000 refugees were permitted to vote. Chernomyrdin further stated that Chechnya should receive special economic status, but that "a special approach" was needed to formulate this status (OMRI 11/5/96).

11/12/96 According to a poll conducted by VTsIOM, as reported in Interfax, 26% of 1,600 Russians polled said that Moscow should agree to Chechnya's independence, if a referendum supported it. Another 24% backed a complete withdrawal of Russian troops, and 23% supported the idea of closing of the Russian-Chechen border. Of those polled, 22% favored the idea of retaining Chechnya within Russia.

11/12/96 The Russian-Chechen Joint Commission held a session in Grozny to discuss the issues raised at the talks in Moscow and Nazran. According to Russian Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin, the main task of the Commission in the next few months would be to restore Chechnya's social sphere. After the session, talks on a further political settlement of the conflict took place in Nazran. Among the participants were representatives from Russia and Chechnya, and leaders from Dagestan, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Stavropol. Participants prepared a temporary agreement defining relations between Russia and Chechnya pending the parliamentary and presidential elections on January 27. The agreement reportedly focused on two points: the first concerning the terms of the withdrawal of the two military brigades which, by earlier agreement, were to stay in Chechnya on a permanent basis; the second one concerning the extent of independence for Chechnya.

11/16/96 On November 16, Doku Zavgaev issued a decree on the resignation of the Moscow-backed Chechen government headed by Nikolai Koshman. Ivan Rybkin, the Russian Security Council Secretary, described the resignation as a sign of good will in the name of national reconciliation and accord in Chechnya.

11/18/96 Ivan Rybkin announced on November 18 that an interim draft agreement on relations between Russia and Chechnya was ready to be signed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Chechen Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov. However, questions remained regarding Russia's relations with Chechnya during the interim period. Chechen parliament spokesman, Akhyad Idigov, argued that the two Russian brigades still stationed in Chechnya were the most powerful factor for instability in the republic, and should be withdrawn before the elections. He suggested that the sides should hold talks on the possible deployment of Russian troops in Chechnya after the elections. Movladi Udugov, Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government, made a similar argument, stating that "any procrastination in decision-making on the withdrawal creates uncertainty about the elections" (Interfax, 11/18/96). Meanwhile, Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov insisted that Russia should keep up to 5,000 troops in Chechnya permanently, and that the complete withdrawal of Russian troops would spell Russia's loss of Chechnya.

11/23/96 On November 23, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree "On measures to ensure a further peaceful settlement in the Chechen republic." The decree called for the withdrawal from Chechnya of the Interior Ministry's 101st Brigade and the Defense Ministry's 205th Brigade, whose presence in the republic remained an obstacle to the signing of an interim agreement. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Russian Presidential Press Secretary, insisted that this decree would not affect the issue of Chechnya's status. On the same day, Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Chechen Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov signed the provisional agreement on Russian-Chechen relations in Moscow. According to Interfax, this agreement stipulated that Russian legislation would stay in effect on Chechen territory until the elections on January 27. It also provided for the restoration of transport links with Chechnya and the resolution of social and humanitarian problems. A new agreement on economic relations between Russia and Chechnya was scheduled to be signed after the January elections.

11/25/96 Deputies from the Communist Party, the People's Power faction, and Agrarian factions of the Russian State Duma called an extraordinary Duma session for November 29, to discuss the Presidential decree on the final withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and the agreement signed by Viktor Chernomyrdin and Aslan Maskhadov. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told journalists at a briefing that the agreement "does not reflect the real state of affairs and was actually organized by Chubais, Berezovsky and Rybkin without consultations with the Security Council [and] without participation of the defense and interior ministries," and that this document will lead to the "territorial breakup of the Russian Federation, which will only aggravate the situation in the North Caucasus and in the rest of Russia." Sergei Belyaev, leader of the pro-government Our Home is Russia faction in the Russian Duma, criticized the opposition's initiative, calling it "a hysterical reaction" to constructive moves for the settlement of the Chechen conflict undertaken by the government. The reformist Yabloko faction also criticized the decision of the State Duma's Council, saying that "the pro-Communist forces in the Duma are destabilizing the situation" (Interfax, 11/25/96).

11/29/96 Speaking before the Russian State Duma session on November 29, Russian Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev said that the latest measures taken by the Russian President and government in Chechnya were fully compliant with the constitution and existing legislation. Prime Minister Chernomyrdin addressed a similar point in a letter to the State Duma. Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin also sent a letter to the State Duma, which insisted that the Presidential decree on the withdrawal of the two remaining Russian brigades from Chechnya and the provisional agreement between Russia and Chechnya did not jeopardize the Russian Federation's territorial integrity.

11/29/96 The Russian State Duma drafted a resolution on "Ensuring Russia's Territorial Integrity and Security in the Context of the Measures Taken by the President and the Government with Regard to the Situation in Chechnya." The document states that the interim agreement between Russia and Chechnya and the Presidential decree concerning the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya "do not correspond with constitutional requirements on Russia's territorial integrity, defense and security" and "contribute to a further strengthening of separatism in Chechnya and its secession from Russia" (Interfax, 11/29/96). The main points of this draft were approved by the State Duma on December 4.

DECEMBER 1996

12/3/96 After a meeting with Sergei Kovalev, the former Russian human rights commissioner, Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev agreed that it was necessary to postpone the Chechen elections scheduled for January 27, as there was too little time for preparation. Mumadi Saidaev, chairman of Chechnya's Central Electoral Commission, also supported postponing the elections, unless all Russian troops were withdrawn from Chechen territory by January 27. However, Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov stated that he wanted the elections to be held on time. Maskhadov announced his candidacy for President on December 3, raising the number of candidates to six. The other candidates included: Acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev; field commander Shamil Basaev; former Chechen Parliament Chairman Yusup Soslambekov; commander of the northwestern front Vakha Arsanov, who was put forward by the National Independence Party of Chechnya; and First Deputy Prime Minister of the coalition government Movladi Udugov (Interfax, 12/3/96).

12/5/96 On December 5, the Russian-Chechen Joint Commission for a Settlement in Chechnya agreed to open polling stations for the January 27 elections in several towns outside Chechnya, allowing 350,000 Chechens who had fled to Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan during the military conflict to vote. Refugees numbering 120,000 were reported to now reside in Dagestan, while 80,000 were in Ingushetia and 80,000 in Stavropol. Polling stations were also planned for Moscow, Odessa, Stavropol, Volgograd, Khasavyurt, Nazran, and one Crimean city. Observers from international organizations, including the OSCE and Council of Europe, announced that they would monitor the Chechen elections. The Joint Commission also decided to channel 40 billion rubles to Chechnya for pensions and 22 billion for benefits to the handicapped and orphans by December 15 (Interfax, 12/5/96).

12/14/96 On December 14, a detachment under renegade Chechen commander Salman Raduev's leadership attacked a Russian control post on the border between Chechnya and Dagestan, and took 22 Russian Interior Ministry soldiers hostage after they refused to let him enter Dagestan territory. Raduev released the hostages four days later, after a long and difficult negotiation process and under pressure from both the Russian and Chechen sides.

12/16/96 On December 16, six International Red Cross medics--nationals of Norway, Denmark, Canada, Spain and New Zealand--were killed by unidentified gunmen in Novie Atagi. The Chechen leadership published a statement denouncing the terrorist attacks, claiming that they were a political action, designed to render democratic elections impossible. The statement read: "This series of terrorist attacks is designed to deprive the republic of support from the international and Russian public and turn it into a criminal cesspool" (Interfax 12/20/96). As a result of the killings, international humanitarian aid groups began to leave Chechnya until conditions improved. Subsequent killings of journalists and two Russian priests in early January, as well as the killing of some Russian civilians, were also denounced by the Chechen leadership as further examples to undermine elections and the peace process.

JANUARY 1997

1/1/97 Aslan Maskhadov resigned as Chechen Prime Minister on January 1 in order to run in the Chechen presidential elections. On January 3, 16 presidential candidates were sworn in by Mufti Akhmed-Khodzha Kadyrov, Chechnya's religious leader, and were required to accept the results of the elections. Deputy Interim Prime Minister Ruslan Kutaev said that the new Chechen President would not take up his seat in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, although the position was automatically granted to him by the Russian constitution (OMRI, 1/6/97).

1/16/97 During a meeting on January 16, the OSCE decided to send 60-70 observers to monitor the Chechen elections. For this purpose, the OSCE had raised $500,00 in funding. Russian officials expressed concerns, however, that the OSCE role in the elections would bolster Chechen claims to independence. On January 23, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov declared that the OSCE had not received permission to grant financial aid to the Chechen Electoral Commission. He claimed that the OSCE was interfering in Russia's internal affairs and violating Russian law, which did not permit foreign funding of elections. However, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Russia did support OSCE financing for the international election observers and technical aid such as ballot boxes (OMRI, 1/23-24/97).

1/27/97. Voting for the new Chechen President and parliament began at 7:00 a.m. local time on January 27. A total of 435 polling stations were opened in 63 districts. 766 candidates competed for 63 seats in the parliament. The top 5 of the 16 presidential candidates were Acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, former interim Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov, former First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov, field commander Shamil Basaev, and Presidential National Security Advisor Akhmed Zakaev. According to the Chechen Electoral Commission, 400,000 voters were registered for the polls, and registration would continue during the elections. Monitoring the elections were 72 representatives from the OSCE. Polling stations for Chechen refugees were established only in Ingushetia; refugees from other regions were instructed to return to Chechnya to vote. In order to prevent multiple voting, a special substance, which would not wash off for 24 hours, was sprayed on the hand of each voter. All equipment and technical support was provided by OSCE mission in Grozny (OMRI, Interfax, 1/27/97).

1/29/97 On January 29, the Chechen Electoral Commission spokesman announced that Aslan Maskhadov, former Prime Minister and Chief of Staff, had won the presidential elections. With votes counted in 56 of 63 districts, Maskhadov had earned 64.8% of the votes, Shamil Basaev 27.7%, and acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev 10.2%. Reactions to the preliminary results of the election were generally positive in both Russia and Chechnya. Russian Presidential Spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky announced that Boris Yeltsin was satisfied with the results of Chechen elections. Former Security Council Secretary, Alexander Lebed, welcomed Maskhadov's victory, calling him an honest and responsible man. Movladi Udugov, another major candidate, pledged his support for Maskhadov. Former field commander Shamil Basaev said that his future support for Maskhadov would be contingent on the policies adopted by the new president (OMRI, 1/30/97).

FEBRUARY 1997

2/2/97 On February 2, the Chechen Electoral Commission released the final results of the presidential elections. Aslan Maskhadov won with 59.3% of the vote, followed by Shamil Basaev with 23.5%, and Zelimkhan Yandarbiev with 10.1%. Election turnout was 79.4%, with 407,699 of 513,585 registered voters participating in the elections. Two days later, the Electoral Commission announced that a second round of parliamentary elections would take place in 58 of 63 districts in Chechnya on February 15.

2/4/97 Tim Guldiman, the head of the OSCE mission in Chechnya, was expelled from Chechnya on February 4 by Yandarbiev because of public statements to the effect that Chechnya remained part of the Russian Federation. Russian Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin criticized this decision, saying it was too soon to close the mission.

2/12/97 On February 12, Aslan Maskhadov took the oath of office. Among those present were Alexander Lebed, Tim Guldiman, Shamil Basaev and Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. On February 16, Maskhadov dissolved the government but asked the ministers to perform their duties until a new cabinet was formed. Maskhadov himself was to hold the post of Prime Minister and Commander in Chief of Chechen Armed forces, in addition to that of President. There was to be no defense minister.

2/12/97 Coincident with Maskhadov's inauguration, Russian Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev was reported in Interfax as suggesting that Chechnya had already achieved political independence, that the problem of the sovereignty of the Chechen republic could be resolved and that there was "nothing wrong" with Chechnya's demand to be recognized as a subject of international law. Kovalev seemed to be suggesting that Moscow should recognize Chechnya's de jure as well as its de facto independence. He went on to propose that a mechanism should be worked out for the components of the Russian Federation to withdraw from it in a civilized manner, by the parliament adopting a constitutional law changing the constitutional and legal status of subjects of the Federation. Kovalev's statements indicated that the Russian leadership was seriously rethinking its policy on Chechnya. This view was further supported by a statement by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, cited in Interfax and Moskovskaya Pravda on February 8, in which the Mayor asserted that Chechnya should be allowed to seceded and further announced that Moscow would provide transport, construction materials, medicine and food to the Chechen capital.

2/15/97 Second round voting for the 58 seats (out of 63) not filled in the first round of the Chechen parliamentary elections took place on February 15. Twenty-six deputies were elected. However, voter turnout was less than 30% in most districts. As the Electoral Law requires a minimum turnout of 50%, the vote was in danger of being declared invalid. There was to be a third round of elections in two months.

2/17/97 On February 17, Russian President Yeltsin created a commission, to be headed by Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin, tasked with drafting a power-sharing treaty with Chechnya. However, Chechen Vice President Vakha Arsanov rejected the idea of such a treaty and asserted that Russian-Chechen relations should be based on international law, OMRI reported. Subsequently, Chechen President Maskhadov formed a commission under acting First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov to negotiate "inter-state" relations with Russia on the basis of the Khasavyurt accord.

MARCH 1997

3/97 Chechnya's internal political situation showed signs of tension as 300 members of former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev's armed presidential guard gathered in Grozny on February 16 to protest Maskhadov's decision to combine the posts of President and Prime Minister. Thereafter, on March 3, 3,000 people attended a parade and rally in Grozny at which former Chechen President Yandarbiev and renegade Chechen field commander Salman Raduev spoke. Acting Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov called the rally a "challenge to the current authorities." As OMRI reported, at the rally, Raduev threatened an attack on Russian cities, while Yandarbiev called on the Chechen people to calmly join forces to build an independent state.

3/6/97 First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov banished all foreign journalists from Chechnya until the negotiations between Russia and Chechnya were completed and announced that entry into Chechnya would now be only possible through an officially organized visit and with the permission of the Interior Minister, Kazbek Makhashev. Udugov claimed that recent kidnappings of Russian journalists had had a negative impact on the negotiations and the move would both protect journalists and allow the negotiations to proceed smoothly (ITAR-TASS).

3/7/97 The Russian Duma voted by a large majority (235-39 votes) to grant amnesty to those accused of committing "socially dangerous acts" during the war in Chechnya. The measure was proposed by a number of opposition-led committees and was intended to expedite the release of Russian POWs by exchanging them for Chechens in detention. The wording of the amnesty was left deliberately vague to allow virtually all Chechens to be pardoned. However, it was unclear whether Shamil Basaev, leader of the raid on Budennovsk, and Salman Raduev, leader of the raid on Kizlyar, would be included in the amnesty or would be subject to criminal procedure. The amnesty did not cover war veterans accused of terrorism, premeditated murder, rape assault and kidnapping; or people accused of stealing weapons, money or materials intended for Chechnya's post-war reconstruction.

3/10/97 Russian and Chechen leaders continued to work to conclude the specifics of an agreement on Russian-Chechen relations. On March 2, Russian Secretary of the Security Council Ivan Rybkin and Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov announced that they were close to signing an agreement, which provided, among other undisclosed details, for Chechnya to remain in the ruble zone. However, on March 7, Chechen National Security Advisor Akhmed Zakaev stated that Rybkin had submitted an amended version of the agreement to the Chechens, which would cause the signing of the agreement to be postponed.

3/10/97 According to the Jamestown Foundation's Monitor (3/10/97), Movladi Udugov announced that a proposed meeting between President Shaimiev of Tatarstan and President Maskhadov in Kazan on March 20, which was intended for the discussion of an economic cooperation treaty between Tatarstan and Chechnya, would be postponed. Udugov claimed that Shaimiev was too close to the Russians. He later also declared that talks between Russia and Chechnya had stalemated, stating that Chechnya was no longer willing to accept the "Tatarstan model" (Monitor 3/11/97). In spite of these claims, an exchange of Russian and Chechen prisoners of war did take place.

3/10/97 Chechen field commander and former presidential candidate Shamil Basaev escaped an assassination attempt after a remote-control landmine exploded under a convoy of vehicles in which he was traveling through the Chechen capital.

3/12/97 Russian Interior Ministry General Anatoly Shkirko informed the Russian press that the number of Russian border troops between Chechnya and the rest of Russia was being increased in order to prevent criminals and fighters from Chechnya from entering other regions (OMRI, 3/12/97). Kidnapping also remained a problem in the Chechnya, as four Russian journalists were kidnapped in the previous week. Previously, on February 28, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov had made kidnapping punishable by death.

3/14/97 At a meeting with the editors of major Russian newspapers, President Yeltsin confirmed that there will be "a long and painstaking negotiation process with Chechnya aimed at a comprehensive treaty."

3/17/97 Having been silent since the Chechen elections, former pro-Moscow Chechen leader Doku Zavgaev was reported to have called on all Chechens to support President Maskhadov in a press conference in Moscow. On the same day it was also reported that Maskhadov had secured a commitment from all Chechen field commanders, including Shamil Basaev, Salman Raduev, and Ruslan Gilaev on the creation of a national army. This agreement was reported to have resulted in the abolition of the various "fronts" established during the war and to have laid the foundations for the formation of a 2,000-strong contract army supervised by a Supreme Council including all prominent field-commanders. The Supreme Council would take the place of a Defense Ministry.

3/19/97 On March 19, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov announced the formation of Chechnya's new government. As OMRI reported, several officials would retain their posts, including two members of the government appointed by pro-Moscow former President Doku Zavgaev. Movladi Udugov would continue to serve as First Deputy Prime Minister, Khozhakhmed Yarikhanov would continue as head of Chechnya's southern oil company, "Yunko," and Akhmed Zakaev would remain National Security Advisor. Zakaev was also appointed to serve simultaneously as Minister of Culture. In addition, former field commander Isa Astamirov was appointed Minister of the Economy. On March 21, ITAR-TASS suggested that two close allies of Shamil Basaev, Aslanbek Ismailov and Aslanbek Abdulkhadzhiev, would also be appointed to cabinet posts.