First Chechen War

Stavropol Krai is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Stavropol. Population: 2,786,281 . Stavropol Krai... encompasses the central part of the Fore-Caucasus and most of the northern slopes of Caucasus Major. It borders on Rostov Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, the Republic of Kalmykia, the Republic of Dagestan, the Chechen Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, and the Karachay–Cherkess Republic. Stavropol is traversed by the northeasterly lines of equal latitude and longitude. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the krai is 2,786,281; up from 2,735,139 recorded in the 2002 Census and further up from 2,410,379 recorded in the 1989 Census. The population of the krai is concentrated in the Kuban River and the Kuma River drainage basin, which used to be traditional Cossack land . The Kuban Cossacks are now generally considered to be ethnic Russians, even though they are still an important minority in their own right in this area.
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The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala,... located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea. Population: 2,910,249 . Dagestan is ethnically very diverse, with several dozen ethnic groups and subgroups inhabiting the republic, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russians form only a small proportion of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca among the ethnic groups. Dagestan has been a scene of low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism since the 1990s. According to International Crisis Group, the militant Islamist organization Shariat Jamaat is responsible for much of the violence.
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The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of Russia , located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the... republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It was established on June 4, 1992 after the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was split in two. The republic is home to the indigenous Ingush, a people of Vainakh ancestry. Population: 412,529 . The name "Ingushetia" is derived from an ancient village of Ongusht and the Georgian ending -eti, all together meaning " where the Ingush live". Ingushetia is one of Russia's poorest and most restive regions.
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In the August 1996 Battle of Grozny Chechen rebels conducted a rapid assault on the Chechnya capital Grozny. This led to the final ceasefire in the... First Chechen War. The Russians had occupied the capital since February 1995 and had garrisoned 10,000 Russian Ministry of the Interior troops there, but the rebels managed to either rout or split the Russian forces in the city into dozens of small pockets of resistance, and over the next five days to beat back and decimate several Russian Army units that were sent to eject them from the city. The battle effectively ended the 1994-1996 war. In July 1996, the Russian leadership abandoned the peace process and decided to continue military operations. Between July 9 and July 16, 1996, Russian armed forces carried out a series of major operations in the foothills and settlements of mountainous southern Chechnya where the separatists had their bases. On July 20, 1996, federal forces launched a large-scale operation in the south of the Chechen Republic, moving most of their combat troops there. On August 6, 1996, at 5:50 AM local time, Chechen forces raided Grozny in a surprise attack.
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The Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis, known in Russia as the terrorist act in Kizlyar was a guerrilla raid conducted by Chechen separatists in... January 1996 during the First Chechen War. It soon turned into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians. The crisis culminated in a days-long battle for the Dagestani border village of Pervomayskoye, resulting in the village , being completely destroyed by the Russian bombardment, with none of the residents killed. The rebels escaped with some of their hostages including captured servicemen. 41 civilians of Kizlyar, 37 Russian servicemen, and 90 Chechen fighters died during the crisis. On January 9, 1996, a "Lone Wolf" unit led by the Chechen fighter Salman Raduyev, allegedly acting on Dzhokhar Dudayev's orders, launched a raid in the style of the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis against the helicopter airfield and later a civilian hospital in the city of Kizlyar in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan.
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November 1994 Battle of Grozny was an abortive coup d'état attempt by the Chechen opposition forces, sponsored and aided by the government of... the Russian Federation, to seize the Chechen capital of Grozny and overthrow the Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev. The attack was conducted by armed formations of the Chechen opposition council with a clandestine support of Russian federal armor and aircraft on November 26, 1994. The fighting subdued after the first 10 hours, but some clashes continued until the following day. What was supposed to be a quick black operation of regime change against the separatist government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria ended in a spectacular fiasco, prompting the government in Moscow to carry out a large-scale military invasion of the republic that began in December 1994. In the summer of 1994 the FSK began an active co-operation with leaders of the Chechen internal opposition against Dudayev, uniting them in a body named the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic.
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The Battle of Dolinskoye , which took place 25 kilometers northwest of the Chechen capital of Grozny, was the first major ground engagement of the... First Chechen War. The battle began on December 12, 1994, when six officers and 13 enlisted men of the Russian Airborne Troops died in a surprise 9K51 Grad multiple rocket launcher attack on an advancing column of armored vehicles of the 106th Airborne Division and 56th Airborne Brigade. The Russian side immediately retaliated with a helicopter gunship and ground attack aircraft airstrikes on the Chechen positions. By December 22, 1994, Dolinskoye continued to hold out against Russian fire. According to the Chechen commander Hussein Ikshanov, in 1995 Russians admitted losing up to 200 men in the battle.
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