Russia’s 1994 Invasion of Chechnya -- a Crime without Limitation Chechens, Russians and the World Must Never Forget or Forgive

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 11 – Twenty-five years ago today, Moscow sent in its military to crush Chechnya’s efforts to realize its right to national self-determination. That action killed thousands of Chechens and worse changed that republic from one committed to democracy on the Baltic model to the most authoritarian and Islamist republic in Russia.

            But at the same time, it transformed Russia from a country that was making halting steps toward recovering from the communist system into one that viewed force as the ultima ratio for all things, censorship and repression as again normal, and rulers in office for life rather than subject to elections and the balance of powers.

            And as a result, it changed Russia’s relationship with the rest of the world from one of optimism that Russia could make the transition many had hoped for into deep pessimism that Russia had not changed and perhaps could not change, an attitude that Russian leaders exploited to justify both repression at home and aggression abroad.

            That Chechens committed to freedom should view Russia’s actions as a crime not to be forgotten or forgiven is no surprise. What was done to them was an act of supreme brutality by a government committed to ruling an empire by force and one that having failed in its first attempt to suppress freedom, used even more duplicity and violence to succeed in a second round.

            And on this anniversary as on so many others, the pain and suffering of the Chechen people as a result of the December 1994 invasion is the focus of most discussions.  But as horrific as things have been for the Chechens, it is at least arguable that Russians and people of good will elsewhere have equally compelling reasons not to forget or forgive what Moscow did.

            That is because Putin regime’s suppression of freedom in that country, indeed, Putin’s own career as the head of that regime, is rooted in Moscow’s war against Chechnya and because Russia’s relations with the West are a product of that war as well as there is a direct line between the shelling of Grozny and the invasion of Ukraine and the Anschluss Crimea.

            Of course, the invasion of Chechnya had antecedents. What Yeltsin did against Chechnya was in some ways the product of his suppression of the Supreme Soviet a year earlier, an action that most Russians and many in the West tolerated as a lesser evil even though it was accompanied by a vicious Kremlin campaign against “persons of Caucasus nationality.”

That made the attack on Chechnya easier for him and harder for many in Russia and the West to oppose -- but it also meant that Russian actions against the Chechens would be far more vicious and the consequences of that viciousness on Russia itself and on Russia’s relations with others would be all the greater.

            In thinking about the events of 25 years ago which still cast a dark shadow in Chechnya, in Russia and in the world, at least three things need to be said because they are so often ignored. First, many still refer to 1994 the beginning of “the first Chechen war.” In fact, Russia had been fighting the Chechens for more than a century.  1994 was a “first” only for post-Soviet Russia.

            Second, Dzhokhar Dudayev and those who led the drive for Chechen independence were not Islamists but viewed the Baltic countries as their model for the future. Dudayev as a Soviet general had served in Estonia, and he believed that Chechens had every bit as much right to be free as Estonians did. He even helped block Moscow from acting in Tallinn as it had in Vilnius.

            And third, the Chechen national movement was not Islamist at the outset. Part of it became Islamist because Moscow’s policies meant only Muslim countries were prepared to support Chechnya actively, but most of it, including those Chechens who oppose Ramzan Kadyrov to this day are not the Islamists the Kremlin wants people to believe.

            Indeed, Putin’s henchman in Chechnya, Kadyrov, has made Chechnya more Islamist than the former Soviet general Dudayev who was a hero in Moscow’s air campaign in Afghanistan would ever have tolerated much less promoted.   

            The Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1994 has had so many horrific consequences it is hard to ever look past them. But there could be one positive aspect: at some point, people of good will among the Chechens, the Russians and the West will recognize they have all been victims of that action and will come together to denounce and work together to reverse it.