"We are the people caught in the bombing. We didn’t do anything wrong; we were just walking toward Ingushetia [Russian region of the North Caucasus, Editor's note] along the former highway, which is now all torn up by armored vehicles. Grozny is behind us. We run as a herd from the war and its battles. When the time comes, and you have hit the ground face down, then a kind of false, sticky loneliness sneaks up on you, and you start to think: “Why are you crouching? What are you trying to save? This life of yours that no one but you cares about?” " - testimony of Anna Politkosvkaya, Russian journalist for Novaya Gazeta during the second war in Chechnya.
Des combattants tchétchènes priant lors d'un raid aérien russe à proximité de Goragorsk, Tchétchénie du Nord.
Sieges are striking events in many modern wars. Although it seems archaic, this technique is still used by armies on all continents. It consists of encircling a place defended by the enemy, then cutting it off from support channels and supply lines. The isolation operations that follow aim to starve the besieged population both physically, psychologically, and nowadays, electronically, in order to hasten their surrender, often through starvation.
Cities are often the most affected by these operations and thus occupy a central place during armed conflicts.*. Indeed, these concentrate a high level of political and/or essential infrastructure for an armed group or opposition forces. Some of the most significant sieges in history are relatively recent in this respect: during the Second World War, Leningrad was besieged for 2 years and 4 months, the population having been deprived of food because of the encirclement of German forces . At the beginning of February 1942, 4,000 people were dying of hunger or cold every day on the streets of the city**. On the other hand, although the Soviet population was mostly affected and exposed to the bombardments, modern Russia does not seem to have learned from the human cost of a siege.
Perhaps she is too aware of this, since the Russian armed forces seem to have integrated the techniques – called blokada (Блока́да) – into the way they conduct their modern military operations.
Grozny is a salient point, a turning point in the way of conducting operations in urban combat. This city located in present-day Chechnya experienced two sieges, in 1996 and 1999, both decisive in the Russian-Chechen conflict that marked the military history of a newly independent Russia at the beginning of 1992.
At the dawn of the 1990s, many regions that made up the former Soviet Union began to express their separatist pretensions: Tatarstan with regard to Russia in 1992, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia upon independence in December 1991 , or even Nagorno-Karabakh with regard to Azerbaijan. If Russia has been able to take advantage of certain impulses for independence in order to destabilize internal security among its former neighbors – or "near abroad" – as it did with Abkhazia or Transnistria, the "Chechen wolf" was able to oppose Moscow, and sometimes stand up to it. In this perspective, Chechnya declared its independence in December 1991 and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was proclaimed. But unlike many other separatisms, Chechnya has a past of "eternal insubordination", both against the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and Yeltsin's Russia. In addition to the practice of Islam – the Chechens are Sunni Muslims – the latter also live according to the rules of the mountains: the harsh environment of the Caucasus has made them hostile towards Moscow and eager for independence.
Chechnya has a past of "eternal insubordination", both against the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and Yeltsin's Russia.
The first years after independence were relatively calm, with the humanitarian crisis in Russia following the arrival of a market economy – the “shock therapy” – having pushed the Chechen problem to the background. However, Boris Yeltsin, then President of the Federation, remains aware of the interests represented by Chechen independence, raising the failures of Moscow's potential control over the desire for independence and a potential "domino effect", but also fearing to lose the access to oil reserves which may be beneficial to it. Thus, after unsuccessful attempts to finance armed opposition groups, Yeltsin decides to carry out a surprise attack in Chechnya. The Russian army continues to underestimate its adversary: General Pavel Grachev even announces on television that he can “take Grozny in two hours with a parachute regiment” if he wishes.
Hostilities continue, and the Russian army begins to falter in the face of the growing Chechen insurgency. The soldiers are disorganized, many of them are young conscripts who have sometimes received less than 6 months of military service. The ranks were not full and often understaffed and the armed forces depended on different ministries – newly created FSB, Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Ministry of Defense – had many communication difficulties at that time. Soldiers do not know the reasons for their engagement in the war and the war of attrition demoralizes them. The Russian troops, then distraught, decided to take refuge around the capital in order to carry out indiscriminate bombardments. In other words, the Russian army is not organized enough to invade an area the size of Chechnya.
On New Year's Eve 1995, Russian troops surrounded Grozny from three sides and began an invasion from the north. For 20 days and nights, the bombardments cover the cries of distress in Grozny, at the rate of more than 4,000 strikes per hour, 50 times more than in Sarajevo. The bombardments practically destroyed the city. In addition, Russian forces have killed tens of thousands of civilians and destroyed villages throughout Chechnya. However, the forces never succeeded in completely isolating the city and on the contrary succeeded in concentrating new pockets of resistance.
"We must get rid of Yeltsin, this Russian leader who makes war on the Russian people. [...] These are not soldiers. They are bandits." - Irina Sadova, resident of Grozny.
Of the 400,000 inhabitants who lived there, it is estimated that some 20,000 civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands were forced to seek refuge outside Grozny during the siege. The city was eventually taken by the Russian armed forces but, in the absence of a complete isolation cordon, was recaptured by a rebel counter-offensive in August 1996, leaving a razed terrain and a city emptied of three-quarters of its inhabitants.
"We run for our lives. But how will we live? [...] Maybe we will die in the fields with the animals." - an anonymous old man fleeing the city.
The Russian armed forces were forced to flee in the face of what was seen as a major political failure for Boris Yeltsin, leaving the situation under a status quo, where positions remained unchanged until 1999, despite the fact that a peace treaty was signed.
Grozny also became the scene of the second Chechen independence conflict, which took place from 1999 to 2000, when it was besieged for five months. The Russians were determined to avenge their previous defeat. A Russian military newspaper of the time considered in this sense that in future operations, besieged areas are "suddenly, quickly and completely" sealed off. On 6 December 1999, an ultimatum was issued to all inhabitants of Grozny to leave the city or they would be considered terrorists and exterminated. General Kazantsev declared on 11 January 2000 that in Chechnya "only children under 10 years of age, men over 65 years of age and women will be considered refugees", the others being combatants. Here Russia relied heavily on air power and artillery from the outset to subdue the Chechens before sending troops into the city. The air assault killed tens of thousands of civilians and left Grozny in ruins. Russia and the Republic of Itchkeria have failed to take serious steps to allow for the safe evacuation of civilians. Many civilians fleeing the city were also killed by Russian armed forces in order to force the rebels to surrender. This strategy of complete isolation has been observed during sieges in the Donbass conflict. More recently, it has also been observed that many civilians were trapped in Mariupol and Kharkiv, unable to leave the city by the besieging forces who could not establish safe humanitarian corridors.
Grozny was the beginning of a series of sieges carried out by the Russian army since then: Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, Debal'tseve, Kharkiv, Izum and Mariupol are examples of the repeated and sometimes systematic use of siege in urban combat. While Grozny and the wars in Chechnya have much to learn from in terms of the needless suffering they inflict on their inhabitants, all besieged cities have their own history from which lessons can be learned.
*J.C. van den Boogaard, A. Vermeer, « Precautions in Attack and Urban and Siege Warfare » (2017) 20 YB Intl Human L 164, p. 167.
**Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941–1945: A History, 2e éd., New York, Skyhorse, 14 mars 2017, pp. 590-593.
Nathan Michaud
Image © - Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos