Why Did The Chechen War Start

One of the reasons of why some believe the Chechen war started in the first place was the struggle over oil. There is a claim that from 1991 to 1994 that Dudaev’s government sold some twenty million tons of oil, which his government in return made millions of dollars (Hughes, 64). However, Dudaev had a ongoing “oil affair”, which cost his state budget losses. The Russian side of the conflict not only saw the conflict with Dudaev’s government as a struggle against “criminality”, but also of an “Islamic factor”. Yeltsin believed that Dudaev wanted to secede from the Russian Federation and that Dudaev wanted to create an “Islamic republic” (Hughes, 68). However, Dudaev believed that his state building was secular. Meanwhile, there was a steady

It caused the destruction of Grozny (Chechnya’s capital city) and damages to other towns as well. A man named John Dunlop estimates that 11,500 Russian and Chechen combatants died, while 25,000 to 29,000 civilians died of the bombing of Grozny (Hughes, 82). Overall, it is estimated that the total death of the conflict was about 46,500. What is interesting is how well supplied the Chechens were during the war with the type of weaponry they possessed. However Chechens lacked trained officers. In the first Russian-Chechen war battle, 200 out of 350 armored vehicles were destroyed or captured (Hughes, 84). In this battle, it is declared that 500 soldiers were killed. Despite having a good outcome for the Chechens, their President did not have a great outcome. In April 1996, Dudaev was killed by a Russian air strike of which he possibly revealed his location to the Russians by the Russians promising to negotiate with him. Removing Dudaev allowed the Russians to remove a major obstacle of negotiating. After the war, Presidential and legislative elections occurred in Chechnya. A man named Maskhadov soon became the leader of Chechnya after winning an election of 60% of votes. Soon, a peace treaty was signed with Chechnya and Russia. The treaty saw the new Chechen President as a respected statesman, but this treaty would later on