Editing First Chechen War (section)

==Internal conflict in Chechnya and the Grozny–Moscow tensions==
[[File:Evstafiev-chechnya-iternal-praying.jpg|thumb|[[Dzhokhar Dudayev|Dudayev]]'s supporters pray in front of the [[Presidential Palace, Grozny|Presidential Palace in Grozny]], 1994.]]
The economy of Chechnya collapsed as Dudayev severed economic links with Russia while black market trading, arms trafficking and counterfeiting grew.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Kempton |editor1-first=Daniel R. |title=Unity Or Separation Center-periphery Relations in the Former Soviet Union |date=2002 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-0-275-97011-6 |pages=120–121}}</ref> Violence and social disruption increased and the marginal social groups, such as unemployed young men from the countryside, became armed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tishkov |first1=Valery |title=Chechnya Life in a War-Torn Society |date=2004 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-23888-6 |page=65}}</ref> Ethnic Russians and other non-Chechens faced constant harassment as they fell outside the vendetta system which protected the Chechens to a certain extent.<ref name="mountains"/> From 1991 to 1994, tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity left the [[republic]].<ref name="mountains">''Allah's Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus'' By [[Sebastian Smith (writer)|Sebastian Smith]] p. 134</ref>

During the undeclared Chechen [[civil war]], factions both sympathetic and opposed to [[Dzhokhar Dudayev]] fought for power, sometimes in pitched battles with the use of heavy weapons. In March 1993, the opposition attempted a [[coup d'état]], but their attempt was crushed by force. A month later, Dudayev introduced direct presidential rule, and in June 1993 dissolved the Chechen parliament to avoid a referendum on a [[vote of non-confidence]]. In late October 1992, Russian forces dispatched to the zone of the [[Ossetian-Ingush conflict]] were ordered to move to the Chechen border; Dudayev, who perceived this as "an act of aggression against the Chechen Republic", declared a [[state of emergency]] and threatened general [[mobilization]] if the Russian troops did not withdraw from the Chechen border. To prevent the invasion of Chechnya, he did not provoke the Russian troops.

After staging another ''[[coup d'état]]'' attempt in December 1993, the opposition organized themselves into the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic as a potential alternative government for Chechnya, calling on Moscow for assistance. In August 1994, the coalition of the opposition factions based in north Chechnya launched a large-scale armed campaign to remove Dudayev's government.

However, the issue of contention was not independence from Russia: even the opposition stated there was no alternative to an international boundary separating Chechnya from Russia. In 1992, Russian newspaper ''Moscow News'' noted that, just like most of the other seceding republics, other than [[Tatarstan]], ethnic Chechens universally supported the establishment of an independent Chechen state<ref>''Moscow News''. November 22–29, 1992</ref> and, in 1995, during the heat of the First Chechen War, Khalid Delmayev, a Dudayev opponent belonging to an Ichkerian liberal coalition, stated that "Chechnya's statehood may be postponed... but cannot be avoided".<ref>''Moscow News''. September 1–7, 1995</ref> 

[[Moscow]] covertly supplied opposition forces with finances, military equipment and [[mercenaries]]. Russia also suspended all civilian flights to [[Grozny]] while the aviation and border troops established a military [[blockade]] of the republic, and eventually unmarked Russian aircraft began combat operations over [[Chechnya]]. The opposition forces, who were joined by Russian troops, launched a poorly organized assault on Grozny in mid-October 1994, followed by a [[Battle of Grozny (November 1994)|second, larger attack]] on 26–27 November 1994.<ref>Efim Sandler, ''Battle for Grozny, Volume 1: Prelude and the Way to the City: First Chechen War 1994'' (Helion Europe @ War No. 31), Warwick, 2023, pp.34-40.</ref> Despite Russian support, both attempts were unsuccessful. Chechen separatists succeeded in capturing some 20 [[Russian Ground Forces]] [[Regular Army|regulars]] and about 50 other Russian citizens who were covertly hired by the Russian [[FSK (Russia)|FSK]] state security organization (which was later converted to the [[FSB (Russia)|FSB]]) to fight for the Provisional Council forces.<ref>[http://www.bdcol.ee/fileadmin/docs/bdreview/07bdr299.pdf The battle(s) of Grozny] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927074010/http://www.bdcol.ee/fileadmin/docs/bdreview/07bdr299.pdf |date=September 27, 2011 }}</ref> On 29 November, President [[Boris Yeltsin]] issued an ultimatum to all warring factions in Chechnya, ordering them to disarm and surrender. When the government in Grozny refused, Yeltsin ordered the Russian army to invade the region. Both the Russian government and military command never referred to the conflict as a war but instead a 'disarmament of illegal gangs' or a 'restoration of the constitutional order'.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Cherkasov|first1=Alexander|last2=Golubev|first2=Ostav|last3=Malykhin|first3=Vladimir|date=24 February 2023|title=A chain of wars, a chain of crimes, a chain of impunity: Russian wars in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine|url=https://ruswars.org/report/Report_Memorial.pdf|website=Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre|pages=17–18|access-date=28 May 2023|archive-date=6 September 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240906142631/https://ruswars.org/report/Report_Memorial.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Beginning on 1 December, Russian forces openly carried out heavy [[strategic bombing|aerial bombardments]] of Chechnya. On 11 December 1994, five days after Dudayev and Russian Minister of Defense Gen. [[Pavel Grachev]] of Russia had agreed to "avoid the further use of force", Russian forces entered the republic in order to "establish constitutional order in Chechnya and to preserve the territorial integrity of Russia." Grachev boasted he could topple Dudayev in a couple of hours with a single airborne regiment, and proclaimed that it will be "a bloodless [[blitzkrieg]], that would not last any longer than 20 December."