Chechnya
Chechnya is an independent republic located in the middle of the Caucasus Mountains. This land has always belonged to the Shemite people, decedents of the Shem. The neighboring republics all around them are very similar ethnically.
The people that live in the Caucasus Mountains are not the same as the Russian people. In 1864, Chechens surrendered to Russia. During Russia's quest for national expansion, Russia desired the lands in the Caucasus region and fought against and conquered the people in the mountainous area. These people fought back for their independence and freedom. Unfortunately, mother Russia was too strong, and she conquered and controlled these people. During World War II, the Chechens and other peoples in neighboring territories collaborated with the invading German army against the Russians. They did this not because they
liked the Germans, so much as they hated the Russians and wanted to be free of Russian dominion.
As a consequence, Joseph Stalin dissolved the republic and sent the Chechens and people from neighboring republics to exile in deep Siberia, which is forced labor camps, where many were inhumanely killed. As time passes, eventually during the mid-50s, Russia restores these people back to their homelands. So great is the hatred and memories of what the Russians had done to the Chechens that when Russia and Communism finally collapsed the people of Chechnya like many other
Republics joyfully declared their independence from ethnic Russia.
In December 1994, Russian forces invaded the rebellious province of Chechnya. They aimed to unseat General Dzhokar Dudayev, who had proclaimed Chechnya's independence from Russia.
The invasion culminated a series of failed coups against Dudayev that had been orchestrated by the office of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. However, this invasion has quickly degenerated into a military-political quagmire. Generals, soldiers, and even Deputy Defense Ministers have attacked the invasion, and tactical, operational, and military incompetence has been rife.
Civilian control over the military has broken down, and the armed forces' poor cohesion and limited reliability have become clear to everyone. Furthermore, the government's reporting has been exposed as official lying by the media with the result of mounting public disaffection.
In the beginning of this book of the history of the Russian people, we find that most Russian’s had no real identity of who they were or from where they descended. (P.11) They were just a people simply trying to make a living for their families not really caring where they came from or most important where the government wanted them to go. Sure they would, like most of us, like to have known where they descended from or who their ancestors were, if they were great or of noble decent, for some kind of recognition to their identity.
To better understand the current situation, it is important to understand the relationship between Chechnya and Russia. Prior to 1994, Chechnya was a secular Muslim “state” within the former USSR and the Russian Federations. As the Russian Federation began to assume its standing in the place of the USSR, the former member states of the USSR pushed for various recognitions of independence within the proposed federative treaty. In March 1992, the Republic of Chechnya refused to sign the treaty and formally declared its independence from Moscow. Chechnya was the only entity to make this declaration and attempt at secession among Russia’s 89 republics and region. (6) In 1994, under the direction of then Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Chechnya’s independence aspirations were quashed when Russian forces attacked and effectively leveled Grozny, Chechnya’s capital city. The result was a truce, lasting from 1996-1999. During this timeframe, Chechen separatists began bombing various pro-Russian government and ...
The Slavophile and westernizer conflict is an inherent cultural question that Russians must answer about their country. Russian thinkers have long been fragmented between the Westernizer and the Slavophile viewpoint. Both disagreed about the true nature of the country as well as its relation with the West. It is a problem that has plagued Russia for centuries, and continues to do so to this day. Adopting the mindset of recognizing this conflict is essential to better understanding Russian history as well as the motives and thought processes of Russian leaders today.
forced to live in a part of Russia known as The Pale (which is now in
When Russians talk about the war of 1812 they do not mean the war in which Washington was burned by the British, but the war in which, apparently, the Russians burned Moscow. This war between the French republican empire and the Russian Tsarist Empire was as remarkable a high - spot in the history of the latter as it was a low - spot in the history of Napoleon. For Russia, it was one of those rare moments in history when almost all people, serfs and lords, merchants and bureaucrats, put aside their enmities and realized that they were all Russians. Russia, sometimes called ‘a state without a people’, seemed to become, for a few precious months, one people, and never quite forgot the experience.
I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent, along with economic hardships, caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution, as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards.
Kulaks were wealthy peasants, who resisted the agriculture policies. This led to the killing of them all. Estimates reveal the number of deaths to 5-10 million. According to document 4, the need to eliminate the kulaks was expressed. Using the power of speech, Stalin persuaded the people to eliminate the kulaks as a class and replace their productions with the productions of the collective and state farms. According to document 6, the famine was part of Stalin’s plan to increase agricultural outputs and to crush the opposition. Government officials confiscated all of the grains from kulaks and peasants who resisted, even though harvests were declining. Furthermore, the forced famine is claimed to be a genocide in Ukraine. It was a political strategy to maintain control. According to document 7, the kulaks did everything they could to wreck the policies. They murdered government officials; they destroyed animals and farm machinery. This document was told in the perspective of Soviet Russia, which means the information was wayed. The government had total control over the media, so this was another attempt to justify their actions using incomplete and/or false
The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union signified an end to Russia’s control over its Middle Eastern Empire. Many of its states seceded and founded new nations and Russia lost significant power over the region. The new Russian Federation, in an effort to reestablish Soviet supremacy, has launched a neo-imperialistic campaign to once again have political, economic and security control over the area today known as the Caucasus. Principally, Russia wants to have political control over the area consisting of the lands of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Georgia and Chechnya as well as the Caspian Sea. Furthermore, it is an objective to reap profit from this resource-rich area to stabilize Russia’s economy. Additionally, Russia wants to ensure the security of its power in the Middle East. In order to achieve these motives the Russian Government has used various strategies involving political legerdemain, economic exaction and military operations.
The Chechen-Russian Wars were, and continue to be, a period of intense fighting within the state of Russia. Though the struggle is between Russia and Chechnya, only Russia is internationally recognized as a state. The wars themselves are historically divided into two periods, 1994-1996 and 1999 to present day. Yet, this has only been one war, one that lasted over a decade, where the only thing that changed is the ideologies of fighting.
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
About land mass, Russia is the biggest country in the world. Within the largest country, over 140 million people reside within its borders. Terrain includes hills, mountains, and valleys. Summers tend to be warm and favorable with humidity; winters, on the other hand, are extremely freezing with large amounts of snow. Due to the land being extremely icy and dry in summer and winter, the soil is not ideal for agriculture. The primary language spoken is Russian, for most English is the secondary language. Religion plays a significant role in society where the majority attends the Russian Orthodox Church. With religion playing a part in the majority of the country, families are intertwined with the church.
Wilk, Andrzej. "The Military Consequences of the Annexation of Crimea | OSW." Www.OSW.waw.pl. N.p., 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. .
The Ukrainian crisis was a result of social upheaval against the former president, Mr. Yanukovich, who decided to pull out of the association with the European Union (BBC News, 2014). The upheaval that lasted for about two months resulted in more than 100 people killed (NY Times, 2014). In February 22 Mr. Yanukovich disappears and the opposition takes control over the government in Ukraine (BBC News, 2014). Upon learning that Mr. Yanukovich is currently residing in Kazakhstan, the new government of Ukraine requests from Kazakhstan the extradition of the overthrown president, who is accused of crime against the Ukrainian citizenry.