Battle of Grozny (1994-1995)

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1994-95 First Battle of Grozny

Part of First Chechen War

Chechen militia fighters take cover behind a burned Russian infantry fighting vehicle. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Date	December 31, 1994 - March 6, 1995
Location	Grozny, Chechnya
Result	Russian Phyrric victory

Combatants

Russian Federation

Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Commanders

Pavel Grachev

Aslan Maskhadov

Strength

60,000 in all (est.)

December 31:
38,000 men total (6,000 inside Grozny)
230 battle tanks
454 APCs and IFVs
388 artillery pieces

12,000 in all (est.)

December 31:
900 regulars
15 armoured vehicles
30 artillery pieces
Several thousand militia

Casualties

Official losses:
1,376 killed
408 missing

Unknown

The First Battle of Grozny was the Russian army's invasion and subsequent conquest of the Chechen capital, Grozny, during the First Chechen War. It lasted from December 1994 to March 1995 and led to the military occupation of the city by the Russian Army. The battle caused enormous destruction and casualties amongst the civilian population.

The initial assault resulted in very high federal casualties and an almost complete breakdown of morale in the Russian forces. It took them another two months of heavy fighting, and changing their tactics, before they were able to capture Grozny.

1 The battle
- 1.1 New Year's Eve assault
  - 1.1.1 Pervomaiskaya Ulitsa
  - 1.1.2 Central Railway Station
- 1.2 After January 2
  - 1.2.1 Presidential Palace
  - 1.2.2 Southern Grozny
2 Casualties
- 2.1 Civilian Losses
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The battle

The Russian armored columns that moved on Grozny on December 11, 1994, were a combined task force hurriedly amalgamated from different army units. The force formed into large columns and aimed to provide blunt fire power and also to intimidate the Chechens through the sheer scale of the armored operation. However, armored and mechanized units often were understaffed and undertrained, and there were cases of paratroopers refusing to obey orders^{[citation needed]}.

The Chechen fighters had an advantage in that they were better motivated and were familiar with the terrain; most of them spoke Russian, had served in the Soviet armed forces, and many had Soviet uniforms. However, mobile detachments transporting supplies, weapons, and personnel were composed mostly of civilian vehicles. Also, most of the Chechen fighters answered only to orders coming only from their immediate field commander (often a tribal warlord), which made battle co-ordination difficult for the Chechen Chief of Staff, Colonel Aslan Maskhadov.

[edit] New Year's Eve assault

The city was awoken at 5 a.m. on on New Year's Eve from a Russian bombardment. Bombs and shells hit oil tanks on the western side of the city, creating black smoke that spread around the city. The Oil Institute, in the center of the city, was also set ablaze after coming under fire, which created more smoke. Pamphlets urging the Chechens to surrender were distributed; these proved unsuccessful.

Four Russian armored columns were originally meant to move in a sudden and co-ordinated attack and, having defeated any hostile forces, were to meet at the Presidential Palace in the center of the city. The key to the plan was that all four columns would reach the center of the city simultaneously.

The main assault force comprised the 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade, the 81st Motorized Rifle Brigade, General Petruk’s 19th Motorized Rifle Regiment, and General Lev Rokhlin's 8th Corps from Volgograd, among others. The 131st's job was to move into the city from the north at dawn and move towards the train station. On the 131st's left flank, the 81st regiment drove down Pervomaiskaya Street. The 8th Corps formed army group north^[clarify].

However, the 19th regiment was late on arrival to the army group west^[clarify], while the east and west groups barely moved at all. As a result, Chechen command was able to concentrate almost all its forces against the main Russian assault force, which was driven back.

[edit] Pervomaiskaya Ulitsa

In the east, Major General Vadim Orlov's 104th Airborne Division did not join the 129th Motorized Rifle Regiment from the Leningrad military district when it moved in on Grozny. Subsequently, the 129th was defeated and retreated the next day, without accomplishing its mission.

As the 81st regiment drove down Pervomaiskaya Street, it stretched out along the road for a mile. When the first vehicles reached the Presidential Palace, the column was ambushed and came under heavy fire from Chechen small arms and rockets, directed from the roofs and basements along the street. Having obliterated the convoy, the Chechen fighters then moved in search of more tanks, plundering what was not on fire for weapons and ammunition. By evening, they gathered in the center of the city, regrouping around the marketplace and moving towards the train station.

[edit] Central Railway Station

By mid-afternoon, the 131st brigade occupied the train station, unaware of the 81st regiment’s situation. The 131st parked its tanks and armored personnel carriers around the building and awaited further orders. Somewhere within that period of time, a communications officer heard the words, “Welcome to Hell,” on his headset^{[citation needed]}. Shortly after, Chechen fighters, hiding in the depot buildings, the post office, and the five-story building surrounding the station, opened devastating automatic and anti-tank weapons fire. The surviving Russian soldiers took cover inside the station, which the Chechens soon set ablaze. Russian commanding officer, Colonel Ivan Savin, radioed for help and artillery fire, which never came.

Most distress calls from the 131st went unanswered, as other army groups were either unprepared or, strangely, celebrating the New Year. The second and third battalions of the brigade on the outskirts of the city responded to the call for help, but were blasted at close quarters before even reaching the station. Both battalions were ordered to stay away from the Presidential Palace; this only added more to the trouble as the armored columns tried cutting down alleyways, only to be further cut down. When a small element of the 503rd Motor Rifle Division finally received their orders to move in during the early hours of the day, they immediately came under friendly fire from the other Russian forces already bogged down under heavy fire; after an hour and a half of fighting each other, five Russian soldiers were killed in a common case of fratricide. The 8th Corps reached the city center from the north but was unable to save the units that had fallen into the trap because of stiff resistance. No reinforcements ever reached the railway station.

At nightfall, Colonel Savin decided to evacuate the wounded via the only working armored personnel carrier available. After loading forty wounded soldiers on board, the carrier moved toward the center of the city in the wrong direction^[clarify]. It turned around and was ambushed by Chechen grenadiers. Only thirteen soldiers survived to be taken prisoner. On January 2, Colonel Savin and his remaining officers abandoned the railway station. They found some abandoned armored personnel carriers and attempted to escape the area, but were attacked by Chechen fighters. Savin died next to the personnel carrier. Recorded radio conversations were distributed amongst survivors of the 131st Brigade in memoriam. By January 3, the brigade had lost nearly 800 men, 20 of 26 tanks, and 102 of 120 armored vehicles.

The end results of the New Year's Eve battle were devastating. The entire first battalion of the Maikop Brigade, most of the 81st Regiment, and hundreds of men from the remaining units had been killed. Seventy-five service members were captured as well. A high-ranking Russian General Staff officer later said "On January 2nd, we lost contact with our forward units."

[edit] After January 2

The Russians pulled back, leaving pockets of men behind in the process to resist on their own. Morale dropped so fast that units of the Interior Ministry and OMON forces outside town packed up and left without orders. Several generals and commanders were fired for their poor performance in conducting the attack.

Russian soldiers who were taken prisoner did not even know where they were; some had been told that their mission would be to "protect roads," while others asked the reporters, "Can you please tell me who is fighting whom?"[1] When more captured Russian soldiers were shown on TV, the mothers of some went to Grozny to negotiate release their sons. Those negotiations took place in the center of the city without Russian government assistance and while under Russian artillery bombardment. Some of these prisoners were released on the promise they would never fight the Chechens again.

In the first days of January, Chechen forces counterattacked against General Rokhlin's army group of some 5,000 men, trying to drive it from the city. On the January 4 and January 5, the Chechens began retreating to villages south of Grozny with whatever combat vehicles they had at their disposal. These convoys were bombed by Russian air attacks. Though the Chechens were on the retreat, they still controlled much of the center of the city. Reinforcements from both sides arrived, including Chechen volunteers from outside of Grozny and Russian Naval Infantry.

The Russians proceeded to bombard Grozny with artillery, tank, and rocket fire as the rest of the battle centered on new tactics in which the Russians proceeded to destroy the city block by block. They would send in small groups of men spearheaded by Special Forces, making effective use of sniper teams. Three long weeks of costly bitter fighting ensued as the Russians moved to take the Presidential Palace.

[edit] Presidential Palace

A Chechen separatist near the Presidential Palace in Grozny, January 1995.

On January 7, Orthodox Christmas, the Russians concentrated their assault on the Presidential Palace, a large, concrete structure built in Soviet times. The palace had a blast shelter underneath. The Russians launched heavy vollies of artillery and Grad rockets, setting buildings and the oil refinery ablaze. The Chechens held the Russians back, though the upper floors of the building caught fire. Russia's Major General Viktor Vorobyov was killed by a mortar shell on the same day, becoming the first on a long list of Russian generals to be killed in Chechnya.

On January 9, the Russians declared a ceasefire, which proved to be a hoax. Two hours after the ceasefire started, on January 10, the Russians launched a heavy bombardment of the Presidential Palace. By this time, the Russians managed to position three tanks around the Palace. They fired at very close range. As the Chechen resistance fell low on ammunition, food, and water, resistance proved ever more difficult for them.

On January 18, Russian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter aircraft dropped two bunker busters into the Palace. The bombs fell through all nine floors and fell into the reinforced bunker below the building; one landed next to General Maskhadov, miraclously not exploding.[2] Before midnight, the Chechen command left the Palace in three groups, Maskhadov being among the last to leave. These groups retreated to a hospital on the south side of the Sunzha River, while Russian helicopters flew over the city calling on Chechens to surrender. This had no effect. According to elements of the Chechen command, Russian snipers had Chechens in full sight but were too exhausted to continue fighting.

[edit] Southern Grozny

For the next two days, the Russians lulled their bombardment to collect the dead and wounded in the streets. After losing so many men when taking the northern part of Grozny, the Russians concentrated their artillery heavily on the southern half, firing over 30,000 shells each day. They used the Sunzha River as a newly established front line now that all but the southern end of Grozny was in their control. Throughout February, the Russians focused the remainder of their attack on that part of the city.

On January 25, the Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev said that no more Russian prisoners of war would be released until a ceasefire was signed.[3]

On February 8, a truce was announced and most of the remaining Chechen forces withdrew from the devastated city. They moved their headquarters to the town of Novogroznensk, the first of several temporary capitals to follow. As late February approached, Shamil Basayev and his men were reduced to using hit and run tactics until they too finally pulled out on February 23.

On March 7, the Russians finally declared victory in Grozny.

[edit] Casualties

Military casualties are unknown, but are estimated to run into the thousands on both sides. The officially released Russian losses were 1,376 killed and 408 missing, yet the actual figure could very well be higher.

[edit] Civilian Losses

Sergey Kovalev, the Russian Duma’s commissioner for human rights, and Russian President Boris Yeltsin's adviser on human rights, who had been in Grozny during part of the fighting, estimated 27,000, many of them ethnic Russians, died in five weeks of fighting. [4] International monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe described the scenes as nothing short of an "unimaginable catastrophe," while German Chancellor Helmut Kohl described the events as "sheer madness." [5]