Editing Aslan Maskhadov (section)

===Early life===
On 21 September 1951, Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was born in [[Karaganda Region]] of the [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic]] (SSR) of the [[Soviet Union]], in the small village of Shakai, during the [[Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush|mass deportation of the Chechen people]] ordered in 1944 by [[Joseph Stalin]]. His family was from the Alaroy [[teip]] (of the Alkhan nek'e branch). In 1957, his family returned to [[Chechnya]], where they settled in [[Zebir-Yurt]], [[Nadterechny District]].

Maskhadov joined the [[Soviet Army]], trained in the neighbouring [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic|Georgian SSR]] and graduated from the [[Tbilisi]] Artillery School in 1972. He then graduated with honours from the [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] Kalinin Higher Artillery in 1981.<ref name="memo">[http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/persontext/engperson/id/560900.html Maskhadov, Aslan (Khalid) Alievich] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080211095815/http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/persontext/engperson/id/560900.html |date=11 February 2008 }}</ref> He was posted to [[Hungary]] with a [[self-propelled artillery]] regiment until 1986 and then from 1986 in the [[Baltic Military District]]. He served from 1990 as the [[chief of staff]] of Soviet missile and artillery forces in [[Vilnius]], capital of the [[Lithuanian SSR]]. In January 1991, Maskhadov participated in the [[January Events]], the seizure of the television tower by Soviet troops (which he regretted later{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}}), but didn't participate in the assault itself.<ref name="memo"/> During his service in the Soviet Army, he was presented with two [[Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR|Orders For Service to Homeland]]. Maskhadov retired from the Soviet Army in 1992 with the rank of a [[colonel]] and returned to his native land. He was at the head of ChRI [[civil defence]] from late 1992 to November 1993.

After the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], in the summer of 1993, Maskhadov took part in raids on the armed opposition against the government of [[Dzhokhar Dudayev]] in the [[Urus-Martan]], Nadterechny, and [[Gudermes]] districts. An unsuccessful anti-Dudayev [[mutiny]] in November 1993 resulted in the dismissal of Viskhan Shakhabov as chief of staff of the [[Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria|Chechen armed forces]], Maskhadov was appointed as the acting chief of staff and, in March 1994, as the chief of staff.