12:51, 12 December 2018

Anniversary of first Chechen war campaign recalls political results of Kadyrov family

Tanks and armoured fighting vehicles of the Russian army enter the village of Tolstoy-Yurt on December 11, 1994. Photo: REUTERS

The events of December 1994, when the Russian authorities announced the introduction of troops into Chechnya, are remembered by residents of the republic, but are ignored at the official level.

On December 11, 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared the goal of the military operation in Chechnya as protection of citizens "from armed extremism."

"The Russian media deliberately keep silence about the first Chechen war," said Ruslan Kutaev, the head of the international committee on Northern Caucasus problems.

In his turn, Djambulat Umarov, Minister for National Policy, External Relations, Press and Information of Chechnya, has stated that residents of Chechnya "have no desire to talk about that."

The agency "Grozny-Inform" has called the first Chechen campaign "a tragedy for the Chechen and Russian peoples."

The "Echo of the Caucasus" quotes memories of advocate Zaurbek Sadakhanov, who was then a teenager. "When people saw the mass of military equipment passing through Chechnya, they understood that soldiers were going to kill, bomb, and shoot," said Zaurbek Sadakhanov.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 12, 2018 at 00:06 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.