Editing First Chechen War (section)

==Aftermath==

===Casualties and material damage===
[[File:Рисунок Жеребцовой Полины, 1995 год (автору 10 лет).jpg|thumb|Drawing by 10 year old [[Polina Zherebtsova]] from her [[Polina Zherebtsova's Journal|diary]] showing the battle of Grozny.]]
[[File:Evstafiev-chechnya-killed-in-truck.jpg|thumb|Dead bodies on a truck in Grozny.]]
According to the [[General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation|General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces]], 3,826 troops were killed, 17,892 troops were wounded, and 1,906 troops are [[missing in action]].<ref name="The War in Chechnya"/> According to Krivosheev, the authoritative Russian military historian, 5,042 Russian soldiers died during the war and 510 missing, 16,098 Russian soldiers were wounded and 35,289 became diseased.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Кривошеев |editor1-first=Г. Ф. |title=Россия и СССР в войнах XX века. Потери вооруженных сил |date=2001 |publisher=Олма-Пресс |isbn=5-224-01515-4 |pages=582-584 |language=ru}}</ref> Later, independent researcher Pavel Milyukov estimated the losses at 5,391 dead.{{sfn|Norin|2025|p=309}} According to the independent [[Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre|Memorial]] agency, the Russians lost 4,379 dead in Chechnya, 703 missing and 705 deserters.<ref name=Memorial23/> However, the [[Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia]] estimated that the total number of Russian military deaths was 14,000,<ref name="jamestown">[http://www.cdi.org/russia/245-14.cfm Casualty Figures] Jamestown Foundation {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814003203/http://www.cdi.org/russia/245-14.cfm |date=August 14, 2014 }}</ref> based on information which it collected from wounded troops and soldiers' relatives (only counting regular troops, i.e. not the ''kontraktniki'' (contract soldiers, not conscripts) and members of the special service forces).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hrvc.net/htmls/references.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021228053504/http://www.hrvc.net/htmls/references.htm |archive-date=2002-12-28 |title=hrvc.net }}</ref> In 2009, the official number of Russian troops who fought in the two wars and were still missing in Chechnya and presumed dead was some 700, while about 400 remains of the missing servicemen were said to have been recovered up to that point.<ref>{{cite web |title=700 Russian servicemen missing in Chechnya – officer |website=[[Interfax]] |url=https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/chechnya-sl/conversations/topics/56847 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20150410094647/https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/chechnya-sl/conversations/topics/56847 |archive-date=April 10, 2015}}</ref> The Russian military was notorious for hiding casualties.
{{Blockquote|text=Let me tell you about one specific case. I knew for sure that on this day – it was the end of February or the beginning of March 1995 – forty servicemen of the Joint Group were killed. And they bring me information about fifteen. I ask: "Why don't you take into account the rest?" They hesitated: "Well, you see, 40 is a lot. We'd better spread those losses over a few days." Of course, I was outraged by these manipulations.|author=[[Anatoly Kulikov]]<ref>{{Cite web|date=3 March 2022|title=So 500 people or 9 thousand? We tell you how many people Russia lost in past wars and what numbers they called|url=https://news.zerkalo.io/cellar/10754.html|access-date=6 June 2022|website=Zerkalo|language=ru|archive-date=27 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220527193444/https://news.zerkalo.io/cellar/10754.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}} It is impossible to determine the exact losses of the militants, the first figure was given by [[Aslan Maskhadov]], who claimed the death of 2,800 Chechen fighters.{{sfn|Norin|2025|p=309}} Subsequently, this figure migrated to the work of Grigory Krivosheev, his data was accepted as the official Russian side.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Кривошеев |editor1-first=Г. Ф. |title=Россия и СССР в войнах XX века. Потери вооруженных сил |date=2001 |publisher=Олма-Пресс |isbn=5-224-01515-4 |page=584|language=ru}}</ref>The Russian military has privately claimed the deaths of 4,000–4,500 Chechens.{{sfn|Norin|2025|p=309}} Evgeny Norin notes, these figures are clearly inaccurate. He also suggested that it was impossible to determine the losses of the Chechen side, but expressed the theory that they were hardly much less than those of the Russians.{{sfn|Norin|2025|p=310}} 

According to the [[World Peace Foundation]] at [[Tufts University]], 
<blockquote>Estimates of the number of civilians killed range widely from 20,000 to 100,000, with the latter figure commonly referenced by Chechen sources. Most scholars and human rights organizations generally estimate the number of civilian casualties to be 40,000; this figure is attributed to the research and scholarship of Chechnya expert [[John B. Dunlop|John Dunlop]], who estimates that the total number of civilian casualties is at least 35,000. This range is also consistent with post-war publications by the Russian statistics office estimating 30,000 to 40,000 civilians killed. The Moscow-based human rights organization, [[Memorial (society)|Memorial]], which actively documented human rights abuses throughout the war, estimates the number of civilian casualties to be a slightly higher at 50,000.<ref name="sites.tufts.edu 2015">{{cite web | title=Russia: Chechen war – Mass Atrocity Endings | website=sites.tufts.edu | date=2015-08-07 | url=https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/russia-1st-chechen-war/#Fatalities | access-date=2020-09-08 | archive-date=2020-09-08 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200908013220/https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/russia-1st-chechen-war/#Fatalities | url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>
Russian Interior Minister [[Anatoly Kulikov]] claimed that fewer than 20,000 civilians were killed.<ref name="casualties" /> [[Médecins Sans Frontières]] estimated a death toll of 50,000 people out of a population of 1,000,000.<ref>{{cite book|last=Binet|year=2014|first=Laurence|title=War crimes and politics of terror in Chechnya 1994–2004|publisher=[[Médecins Sans Frontières]]|url=https://www.msf.org/sites/msf.org/files/pdf_inter_tchetchenie_va.pdf|page=83|access-date=2019-01-02|archive-date=2015-04-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150406215338/https://www.msf.org/sites/msf.org/files/pdf_inter_tchetchenie_va.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Sergey Kovalyov]]'s team could offer their conservative, documented estimate of more than 50,000 civilian deaths. [[Alexander Lebed]] asserted that 80,000 to 100,000 had been killed and 240,000 had been injured. The number given by the ChRI authorities was about 100,000 killed.<ref name="casualties" />

According to claims made by [[Sergey Govorukhin]] which were published in the Russian newspaper ''[[Gazeta.ru|Gazeta]]'', approximately 35,000 ethnic Russian civilians were killed by Russian forces which operated in Chechnya, most of them were killed during the bombardment of Grozny.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://jamestown.org/chechnya_weekly/article.php?articleid=2371378 |title=Do Ethnic Russians Support Putin's War in Chechnya? |publisher=[[The Jamestown Foundation]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080303175832/http://jamestown.org/chechnya_weekly/article.php?articleid=2371378 |last=Dunlop |first=John B.|date=January 26, 2005 |archive-date=March 3, 2008}}</ref>

According to various estimates, the number of Chechens who are dead or missing is between 50,000 and 100,000.<ref name="casualties">{{cite web |url=http://www.hrvc.net/htmls/references.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021228053504/http://www.hrvc.net/htmls/references.htm |archive-date=December 28, 2002 |title=Civil and military casualties of the wars in Chechnya |access-date=June 1, 2016 }} [[Russian-Chechen Friendship Society]]</ref>

Approximately 40,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed by July 1996.{{sfn|Cottam|Mastors|Preston|2022|p=392}}

===Prisoners and missing persons===
In the [[Khasavyurt Accord]], both sides agreed to an "all for all" exchange of prisoners to be carried out at the end of the war. However, despite this commitment, many persons remained forcibly detained. A partial analysis of the list of 1,432 reported missing found that, as of 30 October 1996, at least 139 Chechens were still being forcibly detained by the Russian side; it was entirely unclear how many of these men were alive.<ref name="missing">{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/russia2/Russia-03.htm|title=RUSSIA / CHECHNYA|website=hrw.org|access-date=2016-12-04|archive-date=2024-09-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906143755/https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/russia2/Russia-03.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> As of mid-January 1997, the Chechens still held between 700 and 1,000 Russian soldiers and officers as prisoners of war, according to [[Human Rights Watch]].<ref name="missing" /> According to [[Amnesty International]] that same month, 1,058 Russian soldiers and officers were being detained by Chechen fighters who were willing to release them in exchange for members of Chechen armed groups.<ref>[https://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar98/eur46.htm AI Report 1998: Russian Federation] [[Amnesty International]] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114133042/http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar98/eur46.htm |date=November 14, 2007 }}</ref> American [[freelance journalist]] [[Andrew Shumack]] has been missing from the Chechen [[Capital (political)|capital]], [[Grozny]] since July 1995 and is presumed dead.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.refworld.org/docid/4b29fd4d2.html|title=Journalists Missing 1982–2009|last=United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees|work=Refworld|access-date=2017-06-12|language=en|archive-date=2024-09-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906143715/https://www.refworld.org/reference/themreport/cpj/2009/en/71346|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{anchor|izmailov}}<!---redirects target this anchor--->
Major Vyacheslav Izmailov, who had rescued at least 174 people from captivity on both sides in the war, was later involved in the search for missing persons. He was honoured as the human rights hero in the [[Stalker (film festival)|Stalker Human Rights Film Festival]] after he featured in Anna Artemyeva's film ''Don't Shoot at the Bald Man!'', which won the jury prize for Best Documentary at the festival in Moscow.<ref name=247bulletin/> He later worked as military correspondent for ''[[Novaya Gazeta]]'', was part of the team of journalists investigating the [[Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya|murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya]] in 2006 <ref>{{cite journal | title=Vyacheslav Izmailov: we know who ordered Anna Politkovskaya's murder | via=The [[Jamestown Foundation]]|journal= [[North Caucasus Weekly]]| volume= 8| issue= 22| date=31 May 2007 | url=https://jamestown.org/program/vyacheslav-izmailov-we-know-who-ordered-anna-politkovskayas-murder/ | access-date=4 September 2022}}</ref> He also helped families to find their sons who had gone missing in the Chechen war.<ref name="missingiz"/>

===Moscow peace treaty===
[[File:Grozny2.jpg|thumb|Street of the ruined capital Grozny after war.]]
The [[Khasavyurt Accord]] paved the way for the signing of two further agreements between Russia and Chechnya. In mid-November 1996, Yeltsin and Maskhadov signed an agreement on economic relations and [[Reparation (legal)|reparations]] to Chechens who had been affected by the 1994–96 war. In February 1997, Russia also approved an [[amnesty]] for Russian soldiers and Chechen fighters alike who committed illegal acts in connection with the War in Chechnya between December 1994 and September 1996.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/showthread.php?t=1965|title=Account Suspended|website=worldaffairsboard.com|date=7 May 2004|access-date=14 November 2008|archive-date=6 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206093506/http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/showthread.php?t=1965|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Interwar Crisis in Chechnya 1997-1999.png|thumb|Situation in Chechnya in the period between the end of the First Chechen War and the beginning of the Second Chechen War: In red the territory under the control of the [[Russian Federation]] in green the territory under the control of the [[Chechen Republic of Ichkeria]] and in grey the areas under the control of the [[islamists]]{{cn|date=August 2024}}.]]

Six months after the Khasavyurt Accord, on 12 May 1997, Chechen-elected president Aslan Maskhadov traveled to Moscow where he and Yeltsin signed a formal treaty "on peace and the principles of Russian-Chechen relations" that Maskhadov predicted would demolish "any basis to create ill-feelings between Moscow and Grozny."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.friends-partners.org/friends/news/omri/1997/05/970512I.html(opt,mozilla,unix,english,,new)|title=F&P RFE/RL Archive|website=friends-partners.org|access-date=2006-12-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206093451/http://www.friends-partners.org/friends/news/omri/1997/05/970512I.html(opt,mozilla,unix,english,,new)|archive-date=2017-12-06}}</ref> Maskhadov's optimism, however, proved misplaced. Little more than two years later, some of Maskhadov's former comrades-in-arms, led by field commanders [[Shamil Basayev]] and [[Ibn al-Khattab]], launched an [[Invasion of Dagestan (1999)|invasion of Dagestan]] in the summer of 1999&nbsp;– and soon Russia's forces entered Chechnya again, marking the beginning of the [[Second Chechen War]].