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1994-95 First Battle of Grozny
Part of First Chechen War
A Chechen militia fighter takes cover behind a burned-out Russian BMP-2 armoured vehicle. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev
Date December 31, 1994 - February 8, 1995 (small-scale fighting to March 6, 1995) Location Grozny, Chechnya Result Pyrrhic Russian victory
Belligerents
Russia	Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Commanders and leaders
Pavel Grachev Ivan Babichev Anatoly Kvashnin Vadim Orlov Lev Rokhlin Vladimir Shamanov Nikolay Staskov Viktor Vorobyov †	Aslan Maskhadov Turpal-Ali Atgeriev Shamil Basayev Ruslan Gelayev Salman Raduyev Akhmed Zakayev
Strength
60,000 (est.) December 31: 38,000 men total (6,000-10,000 entering Grozny)	2,300 to 12,000 December 31: Officially up to 1,000 (5,000 according to Western estimates)
Casualties and losses
1,784 killed and missing	4000+ killed
Thousands of civilians killed

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The First Battle of Grozny was the Russian Army's invasion and subsequent conquest of the Chechen capital, Grozny, during the early months of the First Chechen War. The attack lasted from December 1994 to March 1995, resulted in the military occupation of the city by the Russian Army and rallied most of the Chechen nation around the separatist government of Dzhokhar Dudayev.

The initial assault resulted in very high Russian Army casualties and an almost complete breakdown of morale in the Russian forces. It took them another two months of heavy fighting, and a change in their tactics, before they were able to capture Grozny. The battle caused enormous destruction and casualties amongst the civilian population and saw the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the end of World War II. Chechen separatist forces recaptured the city in August 1996, ending the war.

Tactics

The Chechen fighters had an advantage in that they were better motivated and were familiar with the terrain. Most of them spoke Russian and had served in the Soviet armed forces, and many (like the Russians) had Soviet uniforms; they were divided into combat groups consisting of 15 to 20 personnel, subdivided into three or four-man fire teams. A fire team consisted of an anti-tank gunner, usually armed with Russian-made RPG-7s or RPG-18s, as well as a machine gunner and a sniper; they would be supported by ammunition runners and assistant gunners. To destroy Russian armoured vehicles in Grozny, five or six hunter-killer fire teams deployed at ground level, in second and third stories, and in basements. The snipers and machine gunners would pin down the supporting infantry while the antitank gunners would engage the armoured vehicle aiming at the top, rear and sides of vehicles.

Most of the Chechen fighters, however, were either undisciplined militiamen with no authority or answering only to orders coming only from their immediate field commander (often just a warlord), which made effective battle co-ordination extremely difficult for Grozny's Chief of Staff, Colonel Aslan Maskhadov. The Chechen forces (which included a number of foreign volunteers, among them a group of Ukrainians) had a limited number of heavy weapons, including a handful of T-62 and T-72 tanks. Most of the heavy weapons were at disposal of the regular forces.

Initially the Russians were taken by surprise, and their armoured columns – which were supposed to take the city without difficulty, as Soviet forces had taken Budapest in 1956 – were decimated in fighting more reminiscent of the Battle of Budapest in late 1944. As a short-term measure, the Russians deployed self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (ZSU-23-4 and 9M311 Tunguska) to engage the Chechen combat groups, as the main gun of the tanks they used could not elevate and depress enough to engage the fire teams, and the armoured vehicle's machine gun could not suppress the fire of several different fire teams simultaneously.

In the long term, the Russians brought in more infantry and began a systematic advance through the city, house by house and block by block with dismounted Russian infantry moving in support of armour. In proactive moves, the Russians started to set up ambush points of their own and then move armour towards them to lure the Chechen combat groups into ambushes. As with the Soviet tank crews in the Battle in Berlin in 1945, who attached bedsprings to the outside of their turrets to reduce the damage done by German Panzerfausts, some of the Russian armour was fitted quickly with a cage of wire mesh mounted some 25-30 centimetres away from the hull armor to defeat the shaped charges of the Chechen RPGs.

Battle

The New Year's Eve assault

The city was awoken at 5 A.M. 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. The Russian Defense Minister, General Pavel Grachev, had infamously boasted earlier that month that he could seize Grozny in two hours with just one airborne regiment. Before the battle, Grachev said:

It is not a question of an assault in the classic sense of the word. What does an assault on a city mean? It means the use of all the forces and weapons in the country's arsenal. It primarily means heavy rocket preparation lasting several hours. It means heavy bombing raids on the whole city with the aim of disabling 60% of the defenders and demoralizing the rest.

Russian advance

The Russian armored columns that moved on Grozny on December 31, 1994 were a combined task force hurriedly amalgamated from different army units, including many badly trained conscripted soldiers. 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. The Russian forces enjoyed total air superiority, and the advancing troops were supported by Mi-24 attack helicopters and Su-25 close air support aircraft (the group East was reportedly hit by a Russian air strike, losing five vehicles). The Russian Air Force at this time also began bombing the nearby villages, even those who were anti-Dudayev and potentially pro-Russian. (At the same time, Moscow claimed that Chechens had blown up buildings in Grozny to simulate bomb damage by Russian warplanes.) From the ground, the attackers were supported by the hundreds of artillery pieces positioned near Grozny, including rocket artillery batteries.

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. However, the 19th Motorized Rifle Regiment (MRR) was late on arrival to the group West, commanded by Major General Ivan Babichev, and the column barely moved at all. In the east, units of Major General Vadim Orlov's 104th Airborne Division did not join the 129th MRR from the Leningrad Military District when it moved in on Grozny; subsequently, the 129th regiment was defeated and retreated the next day, without accomplishing its mission. Only Lieutenant General Lev Rokhlin's forces of the 8th Corps from the city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) moved deeper into the city, attacking from the northern direction.

As a result, the Chechen command was able to concentrate almost all its forces against the Russian Main Assault Force commanded by Lieutenant General Anatoly Kvashin. The MAF comprised the 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade (MRB) and the 81st MRR from the city of Samara. The 131st brigade's job was to move into the city from the north at dawn and move towards the train station. On the brigade's left flank, the 81st regiment drove down Pervomaiskaya Street.

Pervomaiskaya Ulitsa

Two large armored convoys of the 81st regiment drove down Pervomaiskaya Street, stretching out along the road for a mile. When the first vehicles reached the Presidential Palace, the leading column was ambushed and came under heavy fire from Chechen small arms and rockets, directed from the roofs and basements along the street. The Chechen ambush would typically funnel the Russian armored columns into "killing fields", and then the RPG gunners would knock out the first and last vehicles in the line, thereby trapping the rest of both battalions in the middle. Almost useless in urban combat, Russian tanks were unable to elevate their tank barrels high enough to engage the top floors of many buildings, or low enough to fire into the basements.

The brigade's deputy commander for educational work, Colonel Stankevich, took command of the largest group of the regiment's survivors, as the bulk of the unit's armor was destroyed in the street; joined by some paratroopers, they eventually fought their way back to Russian lines. Having obliterated most of the 81st, the Chechen fighters then moved in search of more tanks, after plundering what was not on fire for weapons and ammunition. By the evening, they gathered in the center of Grozny, regrouping around the city's main marketplace and moving towards the main train station.

Central Railway Station

By mid-afternoon, the first battalion of the 131st MRB occupied the train station, unaware of the 81st MRR's situation and separated from the second battalion which reached the freight station further to the west, and from the third battalion on the outskirts of the city. The unit parked its tanks and armored personnel carriers around the station and awaited further orders. Somewhere within that period of time, a Russian communications officer heard the words, "Welcome to Hell," on his headset. 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 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; they fought each other for six hours (there were more such incidents reported, some of them actually prepared by the Chechens). 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 40 wounded soldiers on board, the APC moved in the wrong direction (toward the center of the city). It turned around and was ambushed by Chechen anti-tank gunners; only 13 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 and Savin was killed. By January 3, the 131st Brigade had lost nearly 189 men killed (further 75 were captured, and only 160 reached safety), including almost all of its officers. In addition, 20 of 26 tanks and 102 of 120 other armored vehicles were lost as well.

At the same time, Gen. Grachev announced that "the entire city centre and several districts of the city and its outskirts are under complete control of Russian forces".

Summary

The end results of the New Year's Eve battle were devastating for the Russian side, which lost an estimated 105 of 120 tanks sent into the city. The entire first battalion of the Maikop Brigade, more than 50% of the 81st Regiment, and hundreds of men from the remaining units had been killed. A high-ranking Russian General Staff officer later said "On January 2nd, we lost contact with our forward units." According to Maskhadov, some 400 Russian tanks and APCs in all were destroyed.

Most of the Spetsnaz detachment troops surrendered to the Chechens, "after wandering about hopelessly for three days without food, let alone any clear idea of what they were supposed to do." A Russian Lieutenant Colonel was quoted when he returned from Chechen captivity as saying, "the only order was to go forward, without explanations as to what they should do, where they should go, and whom they should capture." Meanwhile, highly mobile Chechens attacked even the Russian second-echelon forces outside the city, raiding an artillery battalion.

Russian soldiers who were taken prisoner did not even know where and why they were; some had been told that their mission would be to "protect roads," while others asked the reporters "who is fighting whom". 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 the prisoners were released on the promise they would never fight the Chechens again.

Already during New Year's battle Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev had moved his headquarters to Shali, 25 kilometres south of Grozny. The Russian forces pulled back, leaving isolated 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 Russian generals and commanders were sacked for their poor performance in conducting the attack.

Northern and central Grozny

In the first days of January, Chechen forces not dealing with the remnants of the destroyed Russian units counterattacked against General Rokhlin's army group of some 5,000 men (now hastily entrenched in the north as the only organized Russian forces in Grozny at the time), unsuccessfully trying to drive it from the city.

On 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 the villages 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. White phosphorus rounds and fuel-air explosive Shmel rockets were used by the Russian forces. They would then send in small groups of men sometimes spearheaded by special forces, making effective use of sniper teams. Two long weeks of costly bitter fighting ensued as the Russians moved to take the Presidential Palace.

Presidential Palace

On January 7, Orthodox Christmas, the Russians concentrated their assault on the Chechen Presidential Palace, a large, concrete structure built in Soviet times as the local Communist Party of the Soviet Union headquarters, including a blast shelter underneath. It was defended by 350 Chechen full-time fighters and an estimated 150 part-time militiamen.

The Russians launched heavy volleys 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 and managed to position three tanks around the building, firing at point blank range. Towards the middle of January, there was heavy fighting within 100-200 meters of the palace. As the Chechen resistance fell low on ammunition, food, and water, resistance proved ever more difficult for them.

On January 18, Russian forces launched a massive air and artillery attack; by Chechen estimation, a rocket was hitting the palace at a rate of one per second. Sukhoi Su-25 fighter aircraft dropped two bunker busters into the Palace. The bombs fell through all 11 floors and fell into the reinforced bunker below the building; one landed 20 meters from the HQ of General Maskhadov, miraculously not exploding. 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 with no effect. According to elements of the Chechen command, Russian snipers had Chechens in full sight but were too exhausted to continue fighting.

Southern Grozny

For the next two days, the Russians lulled their bombardment to collect the dead and wounded in the streets. Russian President Boris Yeltsin prematurely declared that the "military stage of the operation" was over. Gen. Rokhlin, the commander of the unit that seized the palace was offered to be decorated with the order of the Hero of the Russian Federation, but he refused saying he saw nothing glorious in "fighting a war on my own land."

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. For a time being there was no close combat, with the Chechen using mainly sniper rifles. After blowing up most of the bridges the Chechens used the Sunzha River as a newly established front line as all but the southern part of Grozny was now in the Russian control. The city, however, was not completely sealed off until February 22, 1995, and the Chechens routinely resupplied their forces through the corridor from Shali.

Eventually, Russians advanced within 200 meters of Maskhadov's HQ. Though he threw all his available forces against them, including the remaining three tanks, he could not manage to stop the offensive. It was at this point that they decided to move to abandon the positions along the Sunzha and retreat to the third line of defense along the mountain ridges that skirt Grozny.

Southern outskirts and mopping-up

On January 25, 1995, the Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev said that no more Russian prisoners of war would be released until a ceasefire was signed. On February 8, a truce was announced and most of the remaining Chechen forces, including all heavy equipment, withdrew from the devastated city. They moved their headquarters to the town of Novogroznensk, the first of several temporary capitals to follow.

On February 13, 1995, Russian and Chechen forces reached another ceasefire agreement limiting the use of heavy weapons, covering the use of aviation, artillery and mortars (however, the Russians returned to the large-scale artillery and aviation attacks in Chechnya a week later on February 21). As late February approached, Shamil Basayev and his men were reduced to using small-scale hit and run tactics until they too finally pulled out.

Casualties

Military casualties are unknown, but are estimated to run into the thousands of killed and wounded on both sides. The officially released figures on the Russian losses were 1,376 killed in action and 408 missing in action, yet the actual figure could be higher. According to Dudayev, 4,000 Russian soldiers died in the New Year's Eve attack alone (1,500 according to the Russian human rights defenders).

As of the civilian casualties, Sergei Kovalev, the Russian Duma's commissioner for human rights, and Russian President Boris Yeltsin's aide on human rights, who had been in Grozny during part of the fighting, estimated 27,000 people, many of them ethnic Russians, died in five weeks of fighting. Anatol Lieven, who was also in Grozny during the battle, in his book Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power put his estimates lower at about 5,000 killed civilians, with some 500 more killed by the Russian air raids prior to the battle.

International monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe described the scenes as "unimaginable catastrophe," while German Chancellor Helmut Kohl described the events as "sheer madness."

See also

• Battle of Grozny (November 1994)
• Battle of Grozny (August 1996)
• Battle of Grozny (1999–2000)

References

• Chechnya: Calamity In The Causasus, by Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, New York University Press, 1998
• My War Gone By...I Miss It So, by Anthony Loyd, Penguin Group, 1999
• The Battle of Grozny: Deadly Classroom for Urban Combat by Timothy L. Thomas from Parameters, Summer 1999

1. ^ The Chechen War: Part II
2. Dalkhan Khozhaev
3. Russian Urban Tactics: Lessons from the Battle for Grozny
4. David Versus Goliath:
5. Williams, Bryan Glyn (2001). The Russo-Chechen War: A Threat to Stability in the Middle East and Eurasia?. Middle East Policy 8.1.
6. ^ Grau,Lester W. Russian-Manufactured Armored Vehicle Vulnerability in Urban Combat: The Chechnya Experience, Red Thrust Star, January 1997, See section "Chechen Anti-armor Techniques"
7. Radical Ukrainian Nationalism and the War in Chechnya
8. Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              0-670-88695-5      end_of_the_skype_highlighting pp.316-319
9. ^ The New Year's Attack on Grozny
10. Russians `kill 250 Chechen civilians'
11. Chechen president `flees palace'
12. ^ The Chechens and Urban Operations
13. Wounded Bear: The Ongoing Russian Military Operation in Chechnya
14. Aslan Maskhadov Killed
15. Lev Rokhlin, Jewish general and critic of Yeltsin
16. Russian Artillery Pounds Chechen Rebel Holdouts
17. http://www.bdcol.ee/fileadmin/docs/bdreview/07bdr299.pdf
18. The Battle(s) of Grozny
19. The first bloody battle

External links

• FMSO: Changing Russian urban tactics: The aftermath of the battle for Grozny
• FMSO: “Soft Log” and Concrete Canyons: Russian Urban Combat Logistics in Grozny
• New Year's Eve
• The Battle(s) of Grozny
• The first bloody battle
• The New Year's Eve Attack on Grozny
• View From the Wolves' Den The Chechens and Urban Operations
• Wounded Bear: The Ongoing Russian Military Operation in Chechnya
• Why It All Went So Very Wrong

• 1994 in Russia
• 1995 in Russia
• Battles of the First Chechen War
• Grozny
• Sieges involving Russia
• Urban warfare