The Infamous General Lebed
That is a great pic! If you don't mind, I may use it later in this TL
Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire
- Thread starter Pellegrino
- Start date
That is a great pic! If you don't mind, I may use it later in this TL
You're just churning out one post after another. I love it
LOL, well I want to make a big impression with the all the Turtledove voters
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
So basically the US military is giving out what appears to be a not-so-useful anti-tank weapons to the Chechens. Also, what is the indication that Chechnya's war would be so tragic?
The thing about the M47 is it wasn't very effective for the US military, but it really is the perfect anti-tank guerilla weapon. It is small, mobile, and doesn't require more than one person to operate. It had a high potential casualty rate for the person using it (which is why it was unpopular with the Americans) but compared to what the Chechens had in OTL to combat tanks, its casualty rate is an improvment.
And as for the problems with the Chechen war, we will see in the next post how that conflict proves disasterous for the Russians and the UIS. We can tell in the first post on page one that the Russians are still fighting the war in 1997 (almost 4 years later), although we don't know if there will be a cease fire like we saw in OTL. Still, 1994-1996 was the low point of the Russian military in modern times, and I think TTL will see a lot of the same problems we saw in OTL in that regards. Although morale may be a bit higher, with ordianry Russians wanting to go into Chechnya (which was not as much the case in OTL) there are still many problems that the military was dealing with that will explode in TTL in 1994.
Last edited:
What we do see is that by 2000, the UIS has recovered a greast deal, just as in OTL. After the First Chechen War the emphasis on a better trained military went into effect, and that was a big reason why the Georgian conflict and the Second Chechen War went the way they did. The great irony is that in OTL, General Lebed was sounding the warning bells over the Russian military in 1994, and was one of the men who championed a restructured Russian military shortly thereafter. His success in Moldova was a sharp contrast to what was going on in Chechnya. Here he is seen as letting hubris couple with being backed into a corner let him into the Chechen fight unprepared (or perhaps Zhirinovsky forces his hand?). If the UIS withdraws troops from Bosnia to send to Chechnya, it fits with the goal of the the Powell Docrtrine (which we can see is starting to bear fruit). To be forced to leave Croatia in such a way would leave Russia with a black eye. It would be seen as a sign of weakness that Russia is no longer a global player since they can't even take care of things in their own back yard. Plus, whose to say that once they leave Yugoslavia the Croats or Bosniaks won't attack the Serb troops that remianed? The UIS has to maintain these numerous operations, and Lebed is like a man holding the wheel to a car that is spinning out of control on black ice.
But, with that being said many of the steps he championed to modernize the Russia army will be implimented as a result of the problems with Chechnya. But this is going to be a tough, ugly fight in the Caucasus.
Last edited:
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
How can the UIS recover with the sanctions in place? Also, does Zhirinovsky leave Mongolia alone or does he have something in mind with them?
The UIS will struggle for much of the decade, and in many regards the country will continue to resemble the old USSR in the 1980s. But to answer you question, two things help the UIS recover:
First is the Article 8 loophole in the sanctions. Remember Kazakstan is considered exempt from the sanctions and through this loophole the UIS is able to keep afloat when coupled with Trade from China. This is hardly enough to cover the difference of western sanctions, but it does help the UIS build up its military...at great cost to many other sectors in the country.
Second, is that there is strong evidence in earlier posts that points to a date in which all of the sanctions end suddenly. a moment that changes everything for the UIS economically and even militarily speaking. That date is September 11, 2001.
And I think Zhirinovsky has his hands full right now. I doubt Mongolia is on the agenda.
Thank you!
As for the Powell Doctrine, we don't see the flaws in the plan at first, but they do start to emerge as time goes on. Remember, the Americans are backing central governments in places like Pakistan that are aiming to restore central authority over "rebel held territory". The UIS is just trying to destabilize American allies. It is much easier, and cheaper, to destabilize a country than to prop it up, which creates problems for the west.
Second, by flooding places like Chechnya (and perhaps Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) with weapons there always emerges the strong likelihood that these weapons fall into the wrong hands as time goes by...
I don't want to give away too much here, but we learned in the update "Night of the Tigers" that paramilitary groups operate all over the UIS by the time Lebed takes power. You can imagine how an "Arkan-esque" paramilitary group of Russians from Chechnya would operate...
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
So I guess by the time the Chechen Wars of TTL will be over, there's going to be a huge refugee crisis.
That's a somewhat reasonable assumption to make, judging by the tone of the updates from later years (i.e. everything post-2000 in TTL).
I'm wondering what would happen to arms embargo against China in this scenario? Ending that might help Europeans and Americans to get considerably better relationship with the Chinese as Russians are seen much more a threat now.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
Hard to believe that guy (Lebed) who looks scary could have become the Vice President and then President of the UIS.
PART FORTY SIX: FROM THE ASHES OF AFGHANISTAN
PART FORTY SIX: FROM THE ASHES OF AFGHANISTAN
PART FORTY SIX: FROM THE ASHES OF AFGHANISTAN
Well, we now see how bad this invasion of Chechnya is, and how badly it will rattle the Russian psyche. We also see that it triggers a series of chain events that create a new set of problems for the Russians, most notably in Georgia.
Some new names in this update…
Town of Znemenskoye, Chechnya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamenskoye,_Chechen_Republic
Georgian Politician Zviad Gamsakhurdia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zviad_Gamsakhurdia
Chechen military commander Aslan Maskhadov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslan_Maskhadov
And just a note. Remember back in 1991 when the Russians created a unified Ossetian Oblast? That is about to come into play in the coming posts.
Transcript from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, January 22, 1995
Monologue courtesy of NBC
Leno: Did you hear about that giraffe in Moscow? Yeah, yeah, apparently Sasha the giraffe escaped from her pen at the Moscow Zoo and was seen running through the streets of Moscow yesterday morning disrupting traffic and causing quite a commotion. Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky sent over fifteen hundred Russian troops to assist zookeepers and help them recapture Sasha and bring her home.
In related news, fifteen hundred Russian troops were routed in a battle in downtown Moscow yesterday by a runaway giraffe.
(Audience laughter)
Russian forces invade breakaway province of Chechnya; encounter fierce resistance! Instability across the region as Georgian president ousted in military coup!
The Scotsman
November 01, 1993
Russian Troops stationed in the UIS Republic of Georgia en route to the breakaway Chechen Republic inside of Russia
Russian troops launched a three pronged attack against the breakaway Republic of Chechnya yesterday morning, seeking to oust Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev and reassert Moscow’s control over the self proclaimed “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria”.
Invading from the west, the north-west, and the north-east, Russia troops encountered fierce, and immediate, resistance from the rag-tag rebel army. In the east nearly 5,000 Russian troops previously stationed in Tskhinvali (in the UIS Republic of Georgia) were bogged down outside of the village of Novy Sharoy after Chechen rebels attacked the convoy, reportedly destroying six tanks and two armored personnel carriers.
In the north-east, Russian troops met little resistance in the town of Borozdinskay, one of the few cities in the Republic with a non-Chechen majority. But reports from Dubovskay, (a town less than 5,000 meters further inland from Borozdinskay) indicate that the Russian military was engaged in fierce, door to door fighting in the center of town. Perhaps most troubling for the Russian military however are reports from the north-west, where nearly a thousand troops from the 81st Motor Rifle Regime were thoroughly routed yesterday afternoon and now are believed to be surrounded by rebels in the small town of Znamenskoye, just 10 kilometers from the border with Russia. The remaining Russian forces in the north east have reportedly withdrawn to the Russian province of Stavropol Krai in an attempt to regroup.
“This has to be seen as deeply troubling for the Russians,” commented Allen Benn, a senior British military advisor to the Prime Minister, “keep in mind that the bulk of the actual Chechen army is located in and around the capital city of Grozny. If they are encountering this much resistance in the north, where the geography favors the Russians, then there must be serious concerns in Moscow right now on how they plan to capture Grozny or the southern mountainous areas of Chechnya.”
Although Russian television painted a much rosier picture of the invasion, reporting that the military had “encountered minimal resistance from terrorist operatives,” there are already reports that the poor start to what was supposed to be little more than a police action has set off alarm bells in Moscow. UIS President Anatoly Lukyanov has already begun pointing fingers, blaming the troubling start to this police action on the Russian Duma, which granted Russian president Vladimir Zhirinovsky sweeping new authority over the military after terrorist attacks devastated Moscow on September 15. He has called on the UIS to take over the operation and reassert control over Russian troops.
Marshal of the Union of Independent States, General Alexander Lebed, is reportedly considering President Lukyanov’s request, and reports from Moscow indicate that he may retake control of Russian troops involved in the operation and order them to withdraw from Chechnya to give negotiations “one more chance”.
Coup in Georgia
Adding to Moscow’s troubles, there have been unconfirmed reports that pro-UIS president Eduard Shevardnadze has been ousted in a coup this morning by anti-Moscow factions of the Georgian military. Georgian television has reported that Shevardnadze’s plane, which was returning from Moscow after an emergency meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the UIS, was denied clearance to land, and ordered to return to Russia. A former aid to the deposed nationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Colonel Akaki Eliava, has proclaimed himself “Commander-in-chief of the Georgian Army” and “Chairman of the Government Junta of the Independent Republic of Georgia.” Colonel Eliava has promised to hold democratic elections within six-months. The Colonel also indicated that he would not run, but rather plans to support the candidacy of former president Gamsakhurdia, who Shevardnadze ousted in a Moscow-backed coup in 1991.
“All Georgians are Zviadists,” he told viewers on Georgian television, “and we will all stand with our President in this election, just as we had done in 1990.”
“Azerbaijan and Chechnya- “Profiles on the Russian "War on Terror”
(Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies) – by John Miller
Routledge Press, (2007)
CHAPTER TWENTY
For Aslan Maskhadov, First Deputy Chairman of the Chechen State Defense Council, the arrivals of the M-47 Dragons were a God-send. Worried about his small military force, (numbering less than 9,000) he knew he would be outnumbered by the Russians, even though he was receiving reports that the Russians were only able to mobilize around 15,000 troops. He also was faced with another unusual problem that complicated matters.
“Chechens are tremendous warriors,” commented an aid to Maskhadov, “but at times they can be poor soldiers. They didn’t want to sit still, they wanted to go out and find the enemy and fight. So he was having so many difficulties with discipline.”
The arrival of the Dragons changed how he dealt with the numerous “militias” that were responsible for the defense of the outlying towns.
“Maskhadov realized that the towns in the north would have to be sacrificed,” the aid said, “The land was flat and open, perfect territory for the Russian tanks. His plan was to pull as many troops into Grozny and try and cut the Russian supply line once they closed in on the capital. And if Grozny were to fall, then to withdraw into the mountains in the south and wage a guerilla war.”
However, many of the troops under his command wanted to engage the Russians immediately and were not interested in a tactical retreat.
“Many of these boys were from towns like Znamenskoye and Kargalinskay,” added the aid, “they didn’t want to give up their hometown to the Russians. So they refused to go to Grozny.”
The addition of the Dragons, however, allowed Mashkadov to radically alter his plans much to the delight of his troops.
“Mashkadov knew that he could only accomplish so much,” the aid added, “but ultimately every Chechen is a general and will follow orders only from himself. They are brave, but they are stubborn. So rather than fight that, he decided to send many of the Dragons to those Chechen militias near the borders.”
Mashkadov anticipated that word of a Russian invasion would prompt many of the militias to disregard his orders and actually move away from Grozny in an attempt to challenge the Russians as they entered the country. He decided to give them the tools to do maximum damage to these Russians. However, even the meticulous tactician Mashkadov was shocked at how effective the plan worked.
“The Russians invaded with over 300 T-72 and T-80 tanks,” the aid recalled, “they thought that the Chechens would see this and just run away in fear. But after what the Russians did to the residents in Baku, there was not a Chechen who was not prepared to die to keep the Russians from capturing the airport outside of Grozny.”
Although Russians encountered no resistance in Borozdinovsky, a predominantly Dagestani town in the north east, resistance in the other border towns was deadly and determined. In the west, nearly 5,000 Russian troops that had been stationed in the “Autonomous United Ossetian Oblast” (an area that was made up of the former Russian Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and the former Georgian Autonomous Oblast of South Ossetia) came under heavy fire as they entered the first Chechen town they came across: Novy Sharoy.
“Those troops from Georgia were better trained than most of the troops involved in the initial invasion,” the former aid to Mashkadov added, “but they were still unprepared for the resistance they faced. The Russians were absolutely convinced that the whole operation would be over in 72-hours. And they figured if they did encounter resistance, it would be in Grozny.”
With nearly five hundred Dragons having been dispersed in the town of Novy Sharoy alone, and with the Chechen population more than willing to engage an enemy at any cost, the Russian column was immobilized just five kilometers from the border with Ingushetia.
“As soon as the last APC crossed into Chechnya at least fifty mujahedeen attacked,” the aid recalled, “They took out the head vehicle and the APC at the rear and then began attacking every vehicle in the middle. It happened so suddenly that the Russians in the tanks didn’t realize they were sitting ducks!”
The seasoned Russian troops quickly recovered and abandoned the armored vehicles and proceeded to move by foot towards the town of Novy Sharoy.
“They had more advantages without the tanks,” the aid said, “Most of the Chechens had AKMs, while the Russians had AK-74s. We didn’t have enough ammunition and we couldn’t snatch rounds from any Russian who was killed since they had 5.45 mm rounds, while we were shooting 7.62mm. Although the Americans sent some M-16s we didn’t like them as much. Most of us had grown up with the AK-47 and were more familiar with that weapon.”
Despite being badly outgunned, the Chechens gave the Russians a tremendous fight before Novy Sharoy fell on November 2nd. Although Chechen casualties were high, it proved to be a tremendous boost to the morale of the Chechen rebels, as well as a tremendous blow to Russian military.
“We were joking as we left Ossetia about how the country was only 120 kilometers across at its widest point,” one Russian soldier recounted, “we laughed that we would have to drive in second gear otherwise we might pass through the whole country and end up in Dagestan. Well, once we hit Chechnya that joke took on a new, and darker, meaning. During the entire battle of Novy Sharoy we could see Ingushetia behind us! We could see Russia! We had gotten little more two kilometers into the country when the fighting started and by the time we took that town we were still only ten kilometers from the border. At that point after every engagement we would always tell each other ‘one more kilometer down, only a hundred and ten to go.’”
However, the biggest disaster for the Russians came in the north east, where poorly trained recruits crossed the border from Stavropol Krai into Chechnya. The Russians who made up the 81st Motor Rifle Regime were not only poorly trained and badly-guided, but they also suffered from poor leadership.
“Unlike the Russian troops who came in from Ossetia, they had no experience dealing with the volatile Caucasus region,” the Russian soldier added, “we had been sent to Azerbaijan in 1991 and remembered how the Georgians came out in full force in Tbilisi to oppose us. As a result we were better trained and prepared for what was about to come. Our officers always drilled us, knowing that there was always the chance we would have to go back to Tbilisi. But those kids from the 81st had nothing!”
After the disastrous intervention in Romania the previous year, UIS Marshall Alexander Lebed purged many of the officers in the military, and reassigned hundreds to desk jobs. But by October of 1993, with UIS officers in short supply due to numerous commitments in Yugoslavia and Kazakhstan, he was forced to reinstate dozens of them. The result would be officers who had little familiarity with both the region and the men they commanded. It was the poor leadership of one of these officers, Major Kenzhegaliev, which led to the disaster that was the Battle of Znamenskoye.
“Major Kenzhegaliev was apparently a known drunkard who was taken out of service despite his impressive field record in Afghanistan,” the Russian solider recounted, “but he promised he sobered up and so the 16-man committee took a gamble on him and gave him a second chance.”
Crossing the border from Stavropol Krai to much fanfare, the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen assumed that there would be little resistance despite reports coming in from the south that their fellow troops were bogged down near Novy Sharoy.
“I think there was some hubris on Major Kenzhegaliev’s part,” the soldier recounted, “unlike with the other units moving into Chechnya, he was coming into the country from Russia itself and not Ingushetia or Dagestan. As they neared the border, Russian women were lined up along side Highway 262 throwing flowers. You even had veterans of the Great Patriotic War saluting the men as they drove by.”
However, as was the case throughout the country, the Russians met with stiff resistance once they crossed the border. As they neared the small town of Ishcherskaya (just four kilometers from the border with Stavropol Krai and Russia) Chechen mujahedeen took out tanks at each end of the convoy. And unlike the better trained soldiers near Novy Sharoy, the mostly teenage Russian troops were paralyzed by the attack.
“Major Kenzhegaliev should have recognized that the Chechens were destroying the tanks one at a time,” a veteran of the battle of Znamenskoye recalled, “but he kept telling his met to hold ground and not abandon the vehicles.”
By the time the Russians were able to repel the attack, ten T-72 tanks had been damaged or destroyed and a dozen APCs were damaged or destroyed. Still, the Russian had reason to believe that the worst was behind them.
“We saw dead Chechens everywhere,” recounted the veteran, “it must have been at least two or three hundred of them killed in the battle. We figured they threw everything they had at us in the beginning and that we would now be ready to move on south towards Grozny knowing that the worst was behind us.”
However, it was this miscalculation that proved disastrous for the Russians. Deciding to split his forces up, Major Kenzhegaliev took nearly 1,000 troops from the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen south to capture the town of Znamenskoye, two kilometers south of the town of Ishcherskaya.”
“Ishcherskaya was right at a major intersection between Highway 262 and Highway 307,” the veteran recounted, “and the Major was fearful that if he would move on Ishcherskaya that there was a possibility for the men to be flanked from the south by rebels hiding out in Znamenskoye. So he elected to split his forces up and send half his troops into Ishcherskaya and the other half into Znamenskoye. But even though he took this precaution, he still assumed that more likely than not any rebels that had been in the area had been killed. We all did. But thanks to those goddamn Dragons every Chechen in every town was now a rebel.”
Destroyed Russian T-72 Tanks near the town of Ishcherskaya (November 01,1993)
The first battle of the ‘War on Terror’
A Former Russian police officer recalls the disastrous 1994 invasion of Chechnya
By James Miller
Foxnews.com
November 5th, 2002
(ZNAMENSKOYE, UIS)- Yuri Saltykov smiles and waves at the boy saluting him as he drives by.
“Thanks to the Russian television stations, nobody knows the real story,” Saltykov said with a chuckle, “they think I’m some sort of hero because I didn’t flee during the night of November 2nd. But I probably would have run if I though I could have made it to Stavropol Krai!”
Saltykov remembered the night clearly, and the change not only in the town that he had grown to love over the years, but in the people he had grown to call ‘neighbors’.
I guess I was naïve,” Saltykov said with a smile, “in hindsight I am almost ashamed to admit how naïve I was. But I assumed that we all got along. That somehow I was going to singlehandedly keep Znamenskoye out of the war.”
Saltykov, a veteran of the War in Afghanistan, returned to his home in the Russian city of Kurskaya in 1987 and soon earned a reputation as a police officer. Although he moved rapidly up the ranks, it was a chance promotion that took him to Chechnya.
“I was asked if I would be willing to take over as chief of police in the village of Znamenskoye in 1989,” Saltykov recounted, “back there was a very large Russian minority in the town, and it really was quiet and peaceful. I didn’t really think I was taking on a dangerous assignment at the time.”
However, as soon as he arrived, he noticed a change almost immediately as ethnic Russians from across Chechnya began to flee the growing lawlessness in the country. Although Znamenskoye remained quiet, even Saltykov noticed the slow trickle of ethnic Russians out of the village. By the time the USSR fell, over a thousand Russians had relocated. Still, Saltykov assumed relations between him and the local Chechen population would not suffer.
“I was very fair, and was probably the only police chief in Chechnya, Russian or Chechen, who didn’t beat people,” Saltykov added, “as a result the locals seemed to like me. Or so I thought.”
When the Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev declared independence for the ‘Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’ in 1991, Saltykov assumed his time as chief was over, and openly made plans to return to Russia. But several officers under his command begged him to stay longer.
“I tried not to play politics at all,” Saltykov said, “I told the Chechens in town that I didn’t question the fact that Chechnya would become independent and I didn’t challenge it. The only issue in my mind was when and how, and that I hoped that the Russians would admit Chechnya as a full Republic in the UIS.”
Still, the declaration of independence heightened tensions in the town, and Saltykov noticed the rapid deterioration of relations between the Russian minority and the Chechens.
“Znamenskoye was one of the few towns in Chechnya that seemed to still be under the control of Moscow,” Saltykov said, “the Russian National Police moved in and out without any problems and most of the community leaders were ethnic Russians. In hindsight I should have seen the resentment in the local population, but we were all trying to work with the Chechens to show them that we were not like the Russians in Estonia or Latvia. We wanted to help them and for them to help us. I honestly thought we would be a shining example for the rest of the country of how Russians and other ethnic groups could interact and live together in peace.”
The dream ended on November 2, 1993 when the 81st Motor Rifle Regime moved south into town just hours after suffering appalling casualties in a battle with Chechen mujahidin rebel forces. As soon as they pulled into town, Saltykov knew nothing would ever be the same.
“The second they reached the town I heard the call for prayer go off,” Saltykov recalled, “and all over the town I heard cries, bone chilling screams, of Allah-Akbar.”
The local mosque had warned the civilians of the arrival of the Russians, and almost immediately over five hundred Chechen mujahidin stormed out of their homes, armed with American made anti-tank missile systems, looking to take on the Russians.
“The most terrifying thing was the chants of ‘marg, marg, marg bar Shurawi!’” Saltykov recalled, “To some of the kids in the 81st, well, they didn’t recognize it. But it terrified the officers. You see, the chant wasn’t Chechen, it was Pashto. It means ‘death, death, death to the Soviets!’ and it was a common battle cry of the barbaric Muslim mujahidin that we fought in Afghanistan. They were telling the Russians, telling us, that they had just walked into another Afghanistan and they would suffer, just like they did in Afghanistan.”
Saltykov was stunned as he watched the Chechen rebels push back the Russian troops from his office window. He became even more frightened when it became clear that every Chechen nearby was now converging on the small town of Znamenskoye.
“I would later discover that the Russian commander split his troops up, assuming that they would easily take Znamenskoye and the nearby town of Ishcherskaya just north of us. But the Russian troops who tried to enter Ishcherskaya found fierce resistance and soon the badly demoralized Russian troops broke rank and fled across the border back to Stavropol Krai.”
The victory electrified Chechen mujahidin rebels in Ishcherskaya, who soon moved south to attack the 81st Motor Rifle Regiment from the north. Before long other Chechens from across the country began to abandon their positions to take part in the battle that was going on in Znamenskoye.
“By four in the morning the Russian troops were surrounded,” Saltykov recalled, “and as for me and my family, we were hiding in the basement of the police station. There were six other officers down there with their families and we all had our guns loaded. We were ready to kill our families and ourselves because we could hear what they were doing to those boys outside. If the Chechens came down here we knew we would receive no mercy.”
Over the course of the night screams of young Russian boys filled the night, many begging for their lives before a strange silence followed and then a scream of ‘Allah Akbar!’
“We heard gunfire, but we could tell they were not shooting the Russians they captured, “Saltykov recalled, “In the morning I found out what happened to them. The lucky ones had their throats cut or were decapitated. But others were clearly tortured to death. One poor boy had his stomach cut open and they pulled his intestines out and stomped them with their boots. It was horrible.”
Saltykov even tried to contact a fellow officer that night, a man whom he considered a friend despite the fact that he was a Chechen.
“I asked him, begged him to help me get my family out of town,” Saltykov said angrily, “I told him that he would never see me or my family again if he just let us go. But he refused. He told me he was sorry, and that he really wished that I had left when I had the chance before the war started.”
But for Saltykov, the realization that this would be a truly horrific war came right before dawn, when he heard several strange voices in the night.
“I heard Arabic,” Satlykov said, “I recognized the language from my time in Afghanistan. Prior to that moment I had heard about some radical terrorist organization that emerged from the ashes of Afghanistan. About how this group was led by this rich Saudi millionaire who dreamed of killing infidels. But I never expected that I would be sitting in the basement of my office…in Russia…wondering if I was going to be killed by an Arab jihadist. I never thought that I would live to see the day where my own hometown was overrun by Al-Qaeda.”
Although Russian casualties at the battle of Znamenskoye were appalling, with estimates of a 50% casualty rate, Saltykov still regards the battle as a proud moment in modern Russian history.
“The Russians were regrouping in the north,” Satlykov recalled, “I heard that after the officer in charge of the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen returned to the Russian border he was soon met by a General from the 16-man Committee for State Security and Defense. This four-star general flew down from Moscow to personally fire him.”
A rescue operation was quickly put together, and on the morning of November 4th, nearly twenty-nine hours after the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen first entered the town of Znamenskoye, Russian troops were able to break the siege just long enough to allow the survivors, and Saltykov, to escape. Having lost the battle, the Russians were determined to make an example of the town.
“They bombarded it,” Saltykov recalled, “by the time we reentered the city two weeks later there was not a building left standing, or a single person left in the town.”
Saltykov admits that the newly rebuilt Znamenskoye bears little resemblance to the small town he lived in from 1988-1993. Completely rebuilt after the war, it also bears a much different ethnic makeup than before.
“We have a lot less people living here now,” Saltykov said, “about 3,000. But they are all Slavs. Not one Chechen remains. Not one. Thank God.”
Despite the fact that the war has been over for over five years, Saltykov still considers the conflict an ongoing one.
“It was in this town that the first battle of the War on Terror took place,” Saltykov said, “And we lost that battle! On October 30th, 1993 I would never have imagined that my home…my city…could have ever been overrun by terrorists. But it was! The Americans need to realize that as well. We are all on the same team now, but if they continue to interfere with our actions in Afghanistan they too will wake up one day and look out their window to see that Al-Qaeda has taken over their towns and their homes! This is all part of the global War on Terror, and until we do to the terrorists in Afghanistan what we did to the terrorists in Chechnya, we will run the risk of losing this war.”
PART FORTY SIX: FROM THE ASHES OF AFGHANISTAN
Well, we now see how bad this invasion of Chechnya is, and how badly it will rattle the Russian psyche. We also see that it triggers a series of chain events that create a new set of problems for the Russians, most notably in Georgia.
Some new names in this update…
Town of Znemenskoye, Chechnya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamenskoye,_Chechen_Republic
Georgian Politician Zviad Gamsakhurdia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zviad_Gamsakhurdia
Chechen military commander Aslan Maskhadov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslan_Maskhadov
And just a note. Remember back in 1991 when the Russians created a unified Ossetian Oblast? That is about to come into play in the coming posts.
Transcript from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, January 22, 1995
Monologue courtesy of NBC
Leno: Did you hear about that giraffe in Moscow? Yeah, yeah, apparently Sasha the giraffe escaped from her pen at the Moscow Zoo and was seen running through the streets of Moscow yesterday morning disrupting traffic and causing quite a commotion. Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky sent over fifteen hundred Russian troops to assist zookeepers and help them recapture Sasha and bring her home.
In related news, fifteen hundred Russian troops were routed in a battle in downtown Moscow yesterday by a runaway giraffe.
(Audience laughter)
Russian forces invade breakaway province of Chechnya; encounter fierce resistance! Instability across the region as Georgian president ousted in military coup!
The Scotsman
November 01, 1993
Russian Troops stationed in the UIS Republic of Georgia en route to the breakaway Chechen Republic inside of Russia
Russian troops launched a three pronged attack against the breakaway Republic of Chechnya yesterday morning, seeking to oust Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev and reassert Moscow’s control over the self proclaimed “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria”.
Invading from the west, the north-west, and the north-east, Russia troops encountered fierce, and immediate, resistance from the rag-tag rebel army. In the east nearly 5,000 Russian troops previously stationed in Tskhinvali (in the UIS Republic of Georgia) were bogged down outside of the village of Novy Sharoy after Chechen rebels attacked the convoy, reportedly destroying six tanks and two armored personnel carriers.
In the north-east, Russian troops met little resistance in the town of Borozdinskay, one of the few cities in the Republic with a non-Chechen majority. But reports from Dubovskay, (a town less than 5,000 meters further inland from Borozdinskay) indicate that the Russian military was engaged in fierce, door to door fighting in the center of town. Perhaps most troubling for the Russian military however are reports from the north-west, where nearly a thousand troops from the 81st Motor Rifle Regime were thoroughly routed yesterday afternoon and now are believed to be surrounded by rebels in the small town of Znamenskoye, just 10 kilometers from the border with Russia. The remaining Russian forces in the north east have reportedly withdrawn to the Russian province of Stavropol Krai in an attempt to regroup.
“This has to be seen as deeply troubling for the Russians,” commented Allen Benn, a senior British military advisor to the Prime Minister, “keep in mind that the bulk of the actual Chechen army is located in and around the capital city of Grozny. If they are encountering this much resistance in the north, where the geography favors the Russians, then there must be serious concerns in Moscow right now on how they plan to capture Grozny or the southern mountainous areas of Chechnya.”
Although Russian television painted a much rosier picture of the invasion, reporting that the military had “encountered minimal resistance from terrorist operatives,” there are already reports that the poor start to what was supposed to be little more than a police action has set off alarm bells in Moscow. UIS President Anatoly Lukyanov has already begun pointing fingers, blaming the troubling start to this police action on the Russian Duma, which granted Russian president Vladimir Zhirinovsky sweeping new authority over the military after terrorist attacks devastated Moscow on September 15. He has called on the UIS to take over the operation and reassert control over Russian troops.
Marshal of the Union of Independent States, General Alexander Lebed, is reportedly considering President Lukyanov’s request, and reports from Moscow indicate that he may retake control of Russian troops involved in the operation and order them to withdraw from Chechnya to give negotiations “one more chance”.
Coup in Georgia
Adding to Moscow’s troubles, there have been unconfirmed reports that pro-UIS president Eduard Shevardnadze has been ousted in a coup this morning by anti-Moscow factions of the Georgian military. Georgian television has reported that Shevardnadze’s plane, which was returning from Moscow after an emergency meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the UIS, was denied clearance to land, and ordered to return to Russia. A former aid to the deposed nationalist president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Colonel Akaki Eliava, has proclaimed himself “Commander-in-chief of the Georgian Army” and “Chairman of the Government Junta of the Independent Republic of Georgia.” Colonel Eliava has promised to hold democratic elections within six-months. The Colonel also indicated that he would not run, but rather plans to support the candidacy of former president Gamsakhurdia, who Shevardnadze ousted in a Moscow-backed coup in 1991.
“All Georgians are Zviadists,” he told viewers on Georgian television, “and we will all stand with our President in this election, just as we had done in 1990.”
“Azerbaijan and Chechnya- “Profiles on the Russian "War on Terror”
(Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies) – by John Miller
Routledge Press, (2007)
CHAPTER TWENTY
For Aslan Maskhadov, First Deputy Chairman of the Chechen State Defense Council, the arrivals of the M-47 Dragons were a God-send. Worried about his small military force, (numbering less than 9,000) he knew he would be outnumbered by the Russians, even though he was receiving reports that the Russians were only able to mobilize around 15,000 troops. He also was faced with another unusual problem that complicated matters.
“Chechens are tremendous warriors,” commented an aid to Maskhadov, “but at times they can be poor soldiers. They didn’t want to sit still, they wanted to go out and find the enemy and fight. So he was having so many difficulties with discipline.”
The arrival of the Dragons changed how he dealt with the numerous “militias” that were responsible for the defense of the outlying towns.
“Maskhadov realized that the towns in the north would have to be sacrificed,” the aid said, “The land was flat and open, perfect territory for the Russian tanks. His plan was to pull as many troops into Grozny and try and cut the Russian supply line once they closed in on the capital. And if Grozny were to fall, then to withdraw into the mountains in the south and wage a guerilla war.”
However, many of the troops under his command wanted to engage the Russians immediately and were not interested in a tactical retreat.
“Many of these boys were from towns like Znamenskoye and Kargalinskay,” added the aid, “they didn’t want to give up their hometown to the Russians. So they refused to go to Grozny.”
The addition of the Dragons, however, allowed Mashkadov to radically alter his plans much to the delight of his troops.
“Mashkadov knew that he could only accomplish so much,” the aid added, “but ultimately every Chechen is a general and will follow orders only from himself. They are brave, but they are stubborn. So rather than fight that, he decided to send many of the Dragons to those Chechen militias near the borders.”
Mashkadov anticipated that word of a Russian invasion would prompt many of the militias to disregard his orders and actually move away from Grozny in an attempt to challenge the Russians as they entered the country. He decided to give them the tools to do maximum damage to these Russians. However, even the meticulous tactician Mashkadov was shocked at how effective the plan worked.
“The Russians invaded with over 300 T-72 and T-80 tanks,” the aid recalled, “they thought that the Chechens would see this and just run away in fear. But after what the Russians did to the residents in Baku, there was not a Chechen who was not prepared to die to keep the Russians from capturing the airport outside of Grozny.”
Although Russians encountered no resistance in Borozdinovsky, a predominantly Dagestani town in the north east, resistance in the other border towns was deadly and determined. In the west, nearly 5,000 Russian troops that had been stationed in the “Autonomous United Ossetian Oblast” (an area that was made up of the former Russian Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and the former Georgian Autonomous Oblast of South Ossetia) came under heavy fire as they entered the first Chechen town they came across: Novy Sharoy.
“Those troops from Georgia were better trained than most of the troops involved in the initial invasion,” the former aid to Mashkadov added, “but they were still unprepared for the resistance they faced. The Russians were absolutely convinced that the whole operation would be over in 72-hours. And they figured if they did encounter resistance, it would be in Grozny.”
With nearly five hundred Dragons having been dispersed in the town of Novy Sharoy alone, and with the Chechen population more than willing to engage an enemy at any cost, the Russian column was immobilized just five kilometers from the border with Ingushetia.
“As soon as the last APC crossed into Chechnya at least fifty mujahedeen attacked,” the aid recalled, “They took out the head vehicle and the APC at the rear and then began attacking every vehicle in the middle. It happened so suddenly that the Russians in the tanks didn’t realize they were sitting ducks!”
The seasoned Russian troops quickly recovered and abandoned the armored vehicles and proceeded to move by foot towards the town of Novy Sharoy.
“They had more advantages without the tanks,” the aid said, “Most of the Chechens had AKMs, while the Russians had AK-74s. We didn’t have enough ammunition and we couldn’t snatch rounds from any Russian who was killed since they had 5.45 mm rounds, while we were shooting 7.62mm. Although the Americans sent some M-16s we didn’t like them as much. Most of us had grown up with the AK-47 and were more familiar with that weapon.”
Despite being badly outgunned, the Chechens gave the Russians a tremendous fight before Novy Sharoy fell on November 2nd. Although Chechen casualties were high, it proved to be a tremendous boost to the morale of the Chechen rebels, as well as a tremendous blow to Russian military.
“We were joking as we left Ossetia about how the country was only 120 kilometers across at its widest point,” one Russian soldier recounted, “we laughed that we would have to drive in second gear otherwise we might pass through the whole country and end up in Dagestan. Well, once we hit Chechnya that joke took on a new, and darker, meaning. During the entire battle of Novy Sharoy we could see Ingushetia behind us! We could see Russia! We had gotten little more two kilometers into the country when the fighting started and by the time we took that town we were still only ten kilometers from the border. At that point after every engagement we would always tell each other ‘one more kilometer down, only a hundred and ten to go.’”
However, the biggest disaster for the Russians came in the north east, where poorly trained recruits crossed the border from Stavropol Krai into Chechnya. The Russians who made up the 81st Motor Rifle Regime were not only poorly trained and badly-guided, but they also suffered from poor leadership.
“Unlike the Russian troops who came in from Ossetia, they had no experience dealing with the volatile Caucasus region,” the Russian soldier added, “we had been sent to Azerbaijan in 1991 and remembered how the Georgians came out in full force in Tbilisi to oppose us. As a result we were better trained and prepared for what was about to come. Our officers always drilled us, knowing that there was always the chance we would have to go back to Tbilisi. But those kids from the 81st had nothing!”
After the disastrous intervention in Romania the previous year, UIS Marshall Alexander Lebed purged many of the officers in the military, and reassigned hundreds to desk jobs. But by October of 1993, with UIS officers in short supply due to numerous commitments in Yugoslavia and Kazakhstan, he was forced to reinstate dozens of them. The result would be officers who had little familiarity with both the region and the men they commanded. It was the poor leadership of one of these officers, Major Kenzhegaliev, which led to the disaster that was the Battle of Znamenskoye.
“Major Kenzhegaliev was apparently a known drunkard who was taken out of service despite his impressive field record in Afghanistan,” the Russian solider recounted, “but he promised he sobered up and so the 16-man committee took a gamble on him and gave him a second chance.”
Crossing the border from Stavropol Krai to much fanfare, the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen assumed that there would be little resistance despite reports coming in from the south that their fellow troops were bogged down near Novy Sharoy.
“I think there was some hubris on Major Kenzhegaliev’s part,” the soldier recounted, “unlike with the other units moving into Chechnya, he was coming into the country from Russia itself and not Ingushetia or Dagestan. As they neared the border, Russian women were lined up along side Highway 262 throwing flowers. You even had veterans of the Great Patriotic War saluting the men as they drove by.”
However, as was the case throughout the country, the Russians met with stiff resistance once they crossed the border. As they neared the small town of Ishcherskaya (just four kilometers from the border with Stavropol Krai and Russia) Chechen mujahedeen took out tanks at each end of the convoy. And unlike the better trained soldiers near Novy Sharoy, the mostly teenage Russian troops were paralyzed by the attack.
“Major Kenzhegaliev should have recognized that the Chechens were destroying the tanks one at a time,” a veteran of the battle of Znamenskoye recalled, “but he kept telling his met to hold ground and not abandon the vehicles.”
By the time the Russians were able to repel the attack, ten T-72 tanks had been damaged or destroyed and a dozen APCs were damaged or destroyed. Still, the Russian had reason to believe that the worst was behind them.
“We saw dead Chechens everywhere,” recounted the veteran, “it must have been at least two or three hundred of them killed in the battle. We figured they threw everything they had at us in the beginning and that we would now be ready to move on south towards Grozny knowing that the worst was behind us.”
However, it was this miscalculation that proved disastrous for the Russians. Deciding to split his forces up, Major Kenzhegaliev took nearly 1,000 troops from the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen south to capture the town of Znamenskoye, two kilometers south of the town of Ishcherskaya.”
“Ishcherskaya was right at a major intersection between Highway 262 and Highway 307,” the veteran recounted, “and the Major was fearful that if he would move on Ishcherskaya that there was a possibility for the men to be flanked from the south by rebels hiding out in Znamenskoye. So he elected to split his forces up and send half his troops into Ishcherskaya and the other half into Znamenskoye. But even though he took this precaution, he still assumed that more likely than not any rebels that had been in the area had been killed. We all did. But thanks to those goddamn Dragons every Chechen in every town was now a rebel.”
Destroyed Russian T-72 Tanks near the town of Ishcherskaya (November 01,1993)
The first battle of the ‘War on Terror’
A Former Russian police officer recalls the disastrous 1994 invasion of Chechnya
By James Miller
Foxnews.com
November 5th, 2002
(ZNAMENSKOYE, UIS)- Yuri Saltykov smiles and waves at the boy saluting him as he drives by.
“Thanks to the Russian television stations, nobody knows the real story,” Saltykov said with a chuckle, “they think I’m some sort of hero because I didn’t flee during the night of November 2nd. But I probably would have run if I though I could have made it to Stavropol Krai!”
Saltykov remembered the night clearly, and the change not only in the town that he had grown to love over the years, but in the people he had grown to call ‘neighbors’.
I guess I was naïve,” Saltykov said with a smile, “in hindsight I am almost ashamed to admit how naïve I was. But I assumed that we all got along. That somehow I was going to singlehandedly keep Znamenskoye out of the war.”
Saltykov, a veteran of the War in Afghanistan, returned to his home in the Russian city of Kurskaya in 1987 and soon earned a reputation as a police officer. Although he moved rapidly up the ranks, it was a chance promotion that took him to Chechnya.
“I was asked if I would be willing to take over as chief of police in the village of Znamenskoye in 1989,” Saltykov recounted, “back there was a very large Russian minority in the town, and it really was quiet and peaceful. I didn’t really think I was taking on a dangerous assignment at the time.”
However, as soon as he arrived, he noticed a change almost immediately as ethnic Russians from across Chechnya began to flee the growing lawlessness in the country. Although Znamenskoye remained quiet, even Saltykov noticed the slow trickle of ethnic Russians out of the village. By the time the USSR fell, over a thousand Russians had relocated. Still, Saltykov assumed relations between him and the local Chechen population would not suffer.
“I was very fair, and was probably the only police chief in Chechnya, Russian or Chechen, who didn’t beat people,” Saltykov added, “as a result the locals seemed to like me. Or so I thought.”
When the Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev declared independence for the ‘Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’ in 1991, Saltykov assumed his time as chief was over, and openly made plans to return to Russia. But several officers under his command begged him to stay longer.
“I tried not to play politics at all,” Saltykov said, “I told the Chechens in town that I didn’t question the fact that Chechnya would become independent and I didn’t challenge it. The only issue in my mind was when and how, and that I hoped that the Russians would admit Chechnya as a full Republic in the UIS.”
Still, the declaration of independence heightened tensions in the town, and Saltykov noticed the rapid deterioration of relations between the Russian minority and the Chechens.
“Znamenskoye was one of the few towns in Chechnya that seemed to still be under the control of Moscow,” Saltykov said, “the Russian National Police moved in and out without any problems and most of the community leaders were ethnic Russians. In hindsight I should have seen the resentment in the local population, but we were all trying to work with the Chechens to show them that we were not like the Russians in Estonia or Latvia. We wanted to help them and for them to help us. I honestly thought we would be a shining example for the rest of the country of how Russians and other ethnic groups could interact and live together in peace.”
The dream ended on November 2, 1993 when the 81st Motor Rifle Regime moved south into town just hours after suffering appalling casualties in a battle with Chechen mujahidin rebel forces. As soon as they pulled into town, Saltykov knew nothing would ever be the same.
“The second they reached the town I heard the call for prayer go off,” Saltykov recalled, “and all over the town I heard cries, bone chilling screams, of Allah-Akbar.”
The local mosque had warned the civilians of the arrival of the Russians, and almost immediately over five hundred Chechen mujahidin stormed out of their homes, armed with American made anti-tank missile systems, looking to take on the Russians.
“The most terrifying thing was the chants of ‘marg, marg, marg bar Shurawi!’” Saltykov recalled, “To some of the kids in the 81st, well, they didn’t recognize it. But it terrified the officers. You see, the chant wasn’t Chechen, it was Pashto. It means ‘death, death, death to the Soviets!’ and it was a common battle cry of the barbaric Muslim mujahidin that we fought in Afghanistan. They were telling the Russians, telling us, that they had just walked into another Afghanistan and they would suffer, just like they did in Afghanistan.”
Saltykov was stunned as he watched the Chechen rebels push back the Russian troops from his office window. He became even more frightened when it became clear that every Chechen nearby was now converging on the small town of Znamenskoye.
“I would later discover that the Russian commander split his troops up, assuming that they would easily take Znamenskoye and the nearby town of Ishcherskaya just north of us. But the Russian troops who tried to enter Ishcherskaya found fierce resistance and soon the badly demoralized Russian troops broke rank and fled across the border back to Stavropol Krai.”
The victory electrified Chechen mujahidin rebels in Ishcherskaya, who soon moved south to attack the 81st Motor Rifle Regiment from the north. Before long other Chechens from across the country began to abandon their positions to take part in the battle that was going on in Znamenskoye.
“By four in the morning the Russian troops were surrounded,” Saltykov recalled, “and as for me and my family, we were hiding in the basement of the police station. There were six other officers down there with their families and we all had our guns loaded. We were ready to kill our families and ourselves because we could hear what they were doing to those boys outside. If the Chechens came down here we knew we would receive no mercy.”
Over the course of the night screams of young Russian boys filled the night, many begging for their lives before a strange silence followed and then a scream of ‘Allah Akbar!’
“We heard gunfire, but we could tell they were not shooting the Russians they captured, “Saltykov recalled, “In the morning I found out what happened to them. The lucky ones had their throats cut or were decapitated. But others were clearly tortured to death. One poor boy had his stomach cut open and they pulled his intestines out and stomped them with their boots. It was horrible.”
Saltykov even tried to contact a fellow officer that night, a man whom he considered a friend despite the fact that he was a Chechen.
“I asked him, begged him to help me get my family out of town,” Saltykov said angrily, “I told him that he would never see me or my family again if he just let us go. But he refused. He told me he was sorry, and that he really wished that I had left when I had the chance before the war started.”
But for Saltykov, the realization that this would be a truly horrific war came right before dawn, when he heard several strange voices in the night.
“I heard Arabic,” Satlykov said, “I recognized the language from my time in Afghanistan. Prior to that moment I had heard about some radical terrorist organization that emerged from the ashes of Afghanistan. About how this group was led by this rich Saudi millionaire who dreamed of killing infidels. But I never expected that I would be sitting in the basement of my office…in Russia…wondering if I was going to be killed by an Arab jihadist. I never thought that I would live to see the day where my own hometown was overrun by Al-Qaeda.”
Although Russian casualties at the battle of Znamenskoye were appalling, with estimates of a 50% casualty rate, Saltykov still regards the battle as a proud moment in modern Russian history.
“The Russians were regrouping in the north,” Satlykov recalled, “I heard that after the officer in charge of the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen returned to the Russian border he was soon met by a General from the 16-man Committee for State Security and Defense. This four-star general flew down from Moscow to personally fire him.”
A rescue operation was quickly put together, and on the morning of November 4th, nearly twenty-nine hours after the 81st Motor Rifle Regimen first entered the town of Znamenskoye, Russian troops were able to break the siege just long enough to allow the survivors, and Saltykov, to escape. Having lost the battle, the Russians were determined to make an example of the town.
“They bombarded it,” Saltykov recalled, “by the time we reentered the city two weeks later there was not a building left standing, or a single person left in the town.”
Saltykov admits that the newly rebuilt Znamenskoye bears little resemblance to the small town he lived in from 1988-1993. Completely rebuilt after the war, it also bears a much different ethnic makeup than before.
“We have a lot less people living here now,” Saltykov said, “about 3,000. But they are all Slavs. Not one Chechen remains. Not one. Thank God.”
Despite the fact that the war has been over for over five years, Saltykov still considers the conflict an ongoing one.
“It was in this town that the first battle of the War on Terror took place,” Saltykov said, “And we lost that battle! On October 30th, 1993 I would never have imagined that my home…my city…could have ever been overrun by terrorists. But it was! The Americans need to realize that as well. We are all on the same team now, but if they continue to interfere with our actions in Afghanistan they too will wake up one day and look out their window to see that Al-Qaeda has taken over their towns and their homes! This is all part of the global War on Terror, and until we do to the terrorists in Afghanistan what we did to the terrorists in Chechnya, we will run the risk of losing this war.”
Last edited:
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
So would the Second Chechen War actually occur at the same time as the US War in Afghanistan? At the same time, having new recruits hear a Pashto war cry is really not a good way to experience combat first hand in the First Chechen War.