Missing in action in the Chechen war. Lost and forgotten. Budkin Alexey Evgenievich

In practical terms, they were used for two purposes: ransom or exchange. For ransom, they were often purposefully captured - they caught or lured gaping soldiers - at checkpoints, in the dispositions of troops ... Information about who and how much can pay for whom was quickly found out - Chechen diasporas are in any large Russian city. As a rule, they demanded about 2 million non-denominated rubles per head (data from 1995).

The prisoners were resold to other gangs or to Chechens whose relatives were under investigation or in custody. It was a very common and highly profitable business - the relatives of the captives sold their apartments and cars, in general, everything that was of value in order to rescue their sons. There were cases when the mothers themselves, who came to Chechnya to save captured children, were also captured.

The commercial component almost always came to the fore - if the militants knew that they could get a good deal from the prisoner's relatives for his rescue, they used it. The prisoners could be exchanged for the corpses of dead militants, especially if they were field commanders.

They say that during the First Chechen War, it happened that the command of the Russian armed forces gave the militants an ultimatum: do not release the prisoners, we will wipe the village into dust. And this threat worked - the captured servicemen were released.

Hearings were held in the Public Chamber of Russia dedicated to the search for soldiers and officers who went missing in the two Chechen wars. Colonel Andrey Taranov, Deputy Head of the Defense Ministry's Directorate for Perpetuating the Memory of Those Who Died in Defense of the Fatherland, became a sensation. According to a journalist present at the hearing, the colonel said: “Chechen authorities forbid searching for missing soldiers».

How can it be? In their own country, do officials prevent the military from returning their fallen from oblivion? What's this? Thoughtlessness, betrayal or other crime?

"SP" immediately contacted Colonel Taranov. It turned out that his words were misrepresented by the media. In fact, as the colonel himself told the editors, he said in the Public Chamber: “Unfortunately, local authorities in Chechnya interfere with the work of the search group of the Southern Military District (SMD)". The meaning is actually somewhat different. But it turns out that there are still enough problems with the authorities of the republic? What are they? Taranov noted:

- Since 1994, as a result of the measures taken, the number of military personnel whose fate remains unknown has decreased from 927 to 336 people. At the same time, as of February 1 this year, the Ministry of Defense has information about 110 alleged places of burial of military personnel. A search group of five people, which was created in the Southern Military District, is working on them.

"SP": - But what caused the difficulties you spoke about?

“The fact that sometimes it is impossible to establish in advance whether the burial of our military or Chechen fighters was discovered. Both rise and rise. And according to Islamic customs, it is forbidden to exhume the body of a Muslim. Therefore, before starting work with the burial, it is necessary to establish for sure that our soldiers are buried in it. Only then do the Chechen authorities give permission to work. Against the background of these subtleties of an ethical nature, certain difficulties sometimes arise. But they are absolutely technical in nature and are solved in working order.

"SP": - How many more soldiers fought in Chechnya, whose fate is unknown today?

- At the beginning of 2012, there were 400 of them. Over the past six months, the fate of 64 military personnel has been clarified. At the same time, 14 of them turned out to be alive: someone was in captivity, someone deserted and hid all this time, someone ended up in a mental hospital. Moreover, if the remains of a person are suddenly found in the mountains, then until the moment of establishing his identity, he is considered a missing soldier. But now this almost never happens.

The public organization "Peacekeeping mission named after General Lebed" is also engaged in the search for missing soldiers. Her leader Alexander Mukomolov details the work of search teams and their cooperation with local authorities:

“The Chechen authorities never interfere with us. And we have 15 years of experience in this region. First, the soldiers were released from captivity, then they began to search for the missing. All this time we have been cooperating very closely with the government of the Chechen Republic. Long-term solid ties have been developed. The work is sanctioned by the top leadership of Chechnya.

"SP": - How is the search conducted today?

“Recently, new scientific possibilities have appeared to establish the identity of the dead through the procedure of molecular genetic examination. Previously, the necessary equipment and materials had to be purchased abroad, which was very expensive. Therefore, the research was literally piece-by-piece. Now much is produced in Russia, which is much cheaper. Naturally, things went faster. The work has taken on a systematic character.

In order to establish who owns the discovered remains, you need to have a certain base with which the comparison will be made. Relatives of our missing soldiers have long ago handed over the necessary samples of biological materials. But among the disappeared there are many citizens of Chechnya. Not only militants, but also civilians caught in the combat zone. However, in the republic, the creation of a base for molecular genetic research is slower than it should be. Although we still take blood samples from local residents for research, whose relatives also disappeared during the war years. One such study costs 5-10 thousand rubles.

In these studies, one of the problems is the lack of a single scientific center that unites all efforts. While they are engaged in many different ministries and departments. Each has its own base. And this applies not only to molecular genetic research, but also to all search work in general.

"SP": - Are you satisfied with the way the search for the missing is being carried out?

— No, it is being conducted unsatisfactorily. Body detection rates are very low. In the Southern Military District, a group of only 5 people is engaged in searches - their efforts are simply not enough. Imagine what kind of work specialists need to do if a burial of 10-20 people is found, not to mention larger ones. People have to work with bone material. This requires anthropologists, investigators, forensic experts, etc. In the Chechen Republic, we know more than a hundred burial places, which have not yet been reached. We assume that there are unidentified remains of about 8,000 people in graves across Chechnya. There is a very large-scale work ahead, which is currently being carried out in a sluggish mode.

Novaya Gazeta estimates that at least 12,000 military personnel have died in the two Chechen wars. Civilians - at least 40,000 The first Chechen war lasted two years. The second Chechen military campaign has been going on for four years now, which...

Novaya Gazeta estimates that at least 12,000 military personnel have died in the two Chechen wars. Civilians - at least 40,000

P The first Chechen war lasted two years. For four years now, the second Chechen military campaign has been going on, which daily claims the lives of Russian soldiers, officers, and civilians. Is it known at all how many died? Who and how counts these irretrievable losses?
It turns out that dozens of state and public organizations, various law enforcement agencies are involved in counting the dead. Their list alone would take a significant place in this publication, so I will list only the main ones: the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate (GOMU) of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces; The main headquarters of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Military Medical Directorate of the FSB; special department of the rear of the Armed Forces; Commission under the President of Russia on prisoners of war, internees and missing persons; 124th Laboratory of Medical Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation; committees of soldiers' mothers; Russian Information Center; military commissariats of various levels; human rights organizations "Memorial" and "Mother's Right"; Prosecutor's Office of the Joint Group of Russian Forces in Chechnya; military insurance companies of law enforcement agencies ...
But with this diversity and multiplicity of those counting, no one can give an exact and general figure. Some - public human rights organizations - would like to do this, but are not sufficiently informed. Others, acting on behalf of the state, with rare exceptions, are passive and indifferent. And as a result, society as a whole and the authorities in particular do not know, and sometimes do not want to know the truth.
At the very beginning of the second Chechen campaign, all information about the dead in Chechnya flowed to the Rosinformtsentr, specially created by the government, which quite regularly voiced data on losses through the mouths of official state officials - as a rule, an aide to the President of Russia Yastrzhembsky or First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Manilov. Journalists and human rights activists treated this information in different ways, mostly with distrust. She really was flawed in some way. In particular, the calculation methodology was not disclosed, no analysis was carried out: losses were not divided into combat and non-combat, deaths in hospitals as a result of injuries were not taken into account. But still, it was possible to somehow build on this information, supplementing it with information from other sources.
Rosinformtsentr exists to this day, but since April 2001, after changes in the leadership of the country and the Ministry of Defense, the RIC does not provide any information about those killed in Chechnya, apparently, simply not owning it. In any case, in a telephone conversation, a representative of the center said: "We do not calculate losses in Chechnya."
Who, then, summarizes these data, bringing together lists for all law enforcement agencies? And no one. Then another question: who should do it?
Logically, the Federal Security Service and the FSB were responsible for the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya until September 1 this year for the last three years out of four and had to count the losses among all those involved in this operation. But no, it doesn't count. Moreover, she did not report on the results of her leadership activities to the Russian society. And even about the losses among the employees of his department - silence.
Well, let's calculate for ourselves - for all power structures performing certain tasks in Chechnya.

Losses of troops subordinate to the Ministry of Defense
The official figure for the total losses in Chechnya of military personnel subordinate to the Ministry of Defense was announced at the end of 2002. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that from October 1, 1999 to December 23, 2002, 2,750 servicemen of the Ministry of Defense were killed in Chechnya.
But there is a serious flaw in this information. Fighting against the gangs of Basaev and Khattab in the Botlikh and Tsumadinsky districts of Dagestan began in early August 1999. In late August - early September, clashes with Wahhabis took place in the villages of Chabanmakhi and Karamakhi, Buynaksky district of Dagestan. Then at the same time, in September 1999, the gangs of Khattab and Basayev attacked the Novolaksky district of Dagestan. For some reason, the Minister of Defense did not take into account those whom his department lost during these two months of active fighting.
The losses of units of the Ministry of Defense, internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police (and not only Dagestan policemen, but also consolidated detachments from various regions of Russia), even according to official data, in August-September 1999 exceeded 300 people. According to our data, taking into account those who died in hospitals, the dead military personnel of various law enforcement agencies in Dagestan - more than 500 people. At least half of them are soldiers and officers of the Ministry of Defense.
On July 17 of this year, while in Rostov-on-Don, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced the number of deaths of the military of his department for six months of this year: 148 dead. Taking into account those who died during the year due to injuries incompatible with life (we received this information from our own sources, and it certainly cannot be complete. - V.I.), the losses of military personnel of the Ministry of Defense during the hostilities - from August 1999 in Dagestan to September 2003 in Chechnya - exceed 3,500 people.
Let me remind readers: in the two years of the first Chechen campaign, the official figure for the losses of servicemen of the Defense Ministry units was 3,006 at the end of December 1996. Taking into account the bodies of soldiers and officers exhumed in Chechnya in later years, who died in hospitals or at home within a year after being wounded, identified in the 124th Rostov laboratory of medical forensic examination, the figure of losses for the first campaign also exceeds 3,500 people.
But all these figures cannot be considered complete and final. According to the official data of the Commission under the President of Russia on prisoners of war, internees and missing persons, announced on February 20 this year at a meeting of the expert advisory council, 832 servicemen are on the wanted list (after two Chechen campaigns). 590 of them are from units of the Ministry of Defense, 236 from units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and 6 people from other power structures.
Sad experience shows that most of these people, most likely, are not alive.
But that's not all. The unidentified remains of 266 servicemen who could not be identified by the 124th Rostov laboratory were buried at the Bogorodskoye cemetery in the city of Noginsk near Moscow. 235 of them died in the first Chechen campaign and 31 in the second.
So, to summarize: the Ministry of Defense alone lost more than 8,000 people (4,000 in each of the two Chechen wars).

Losses of military personnel of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police
In the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Internal Troops, accounting for losses in Chechnya is much better organized than in the Ministry of Defense. This is the opinion of not only the author, but also experts from the Commission under the President of Russia. The facts speak of this.
A special group at the Main Headquarters of the Internal Troops maintains a list of casualties in Chechnya. In addition, the lists of the dead soldiers and officers are published in the departmental magazine "On a combat post". Its editor-in-chief, Colonel Viktor Ulyanovsky, attaches special importance to this work. He has specially appointed two officers who deal with the Book of Memory. One of them, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Kolesnikov, has vast experience in this work since the first Chechen campaign. In order not to miss a single name, he is in constant contact not only with the command and the Main Headquarters of the Internal Troops, but also with committees of soldiers' mothers in various regions of Russia, and is in correspondence with the families of the victims. Therefore, we treat the official data on the dead servicemen of the internal troops with greater confidence.
But it is still possible to make some adjustments to them. As of the end of August, there were 1,054 names in the list of the dead servicemen of the internal troops during the second Chechen campaign. But this does not take into account the many deaths within a year after the injuries. In addition, among the 236 Interior Ministry servicemen on the wanted list, according to the presidential commission, almost half went missing in the second Chechen campaign, some of them among the 26 unidentified people buried at the Bogorodskoye cemetery. Based on all this, at least 200 people should most likely be added to the official list of the dead.
The losses of internal troops in the four years of the second Chechen campaign are actually similar to the losses in the two years of the first war. Let me remind you: according to official data, 1,238 people were killed in the internal troops in the first Chechen campaign.
If the official data on the dead servicemen of the internal troops are known by name, then the full information about the policemen who died in Chechnya was not reported. Sometimes information was given about the total number of casualties among the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - internal troops and police. Knowing the data on explosives, it is possible with a high degree of probability to determine that more than 1,100 Russian policemen died in Chechnya (including Chechen police officers).
The most difficult year for the combined police detachments sent to Chechnya from different regions of Russia was the year 2000, especially its first half, when the bandits specially ambushed the policemen. This is how the Perm, Novosibirsk, Penza consolidated detachments perished. Some police bases in Chechnya were rammed by trucks loaded with explosives driven by suicide bombers. On March 2, 2000, as a result of fatal mistakes and criminal negligence of the chiefs, an automobile convoy of Sergiev Posad riot policemen died in the area of ​​Starye Promyslov near Grozny.
By 2002, the Chechen militia was formed, and the bandits switched to it. Guided land mines, explosions of regional police departments in Grozny and regional centers with dozens of dead in each case are typical for this year.
Summing up the figures of losses of servicemen of the internal troops and the police, we can conclude that during the four years of the last campaign, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs lost at least 2,350 people in Chechnya.
Accordingly, for two wars - at least 3850 people.

Losses of other power structures
According to our calculations, at least 100 people - border guards, employees of the FSB and the prosecutor's office - have died in Chechnya over the past four years. There are no official data for these departments.
The author of these lines turned to the border guards for official information. But after the Federal Border Service was reorganized this summer and became part of the Federal Security Service as a structural unit, the press service of the border guards advised me to contact the FSB.
I called the head of the Center for Public Relations (CSP) of the FSB, Sergei Ignatchenko, and asked for data on losses among border guards and FSB officers. Sergey Nikolaevich politely informed that officially there was no such information. But then he corrected that it is not given monthly - there is only at the end of the year. He suggested looking for the figure for 2002 on the FSB.ru website. Alas, this site contains data on the losses of militants in Chechnya: the figure is announced - 1,000 people. But there is no information about the losses of FSB officers, let alone border guards.
Summing up the losses of military personnel of all power structures in Chechnya, it can be said with a high degree of certainty that during the four years of the second Chechen campaign, about 6,500 people died: about 4 thousand - MO, at least 2350 - the Ministry of Internal Affairs (police and internal troops) and at least 100 - from other law enforcement agencies.
During the two years of the first Chechen campaign - at least 5,500 dead.
True, there is an organization that gives different figures - the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers. Union co-chairman Valentina Melnikova told me that, according to their data, at least 14,000 servicemen were killed in the first Chechen campaign, and 10-12,000 in the second. She admitted that the names of the dead were not provided with a list of names (for the second campaign, there is a list of only two thousand dead).
As it turned out, these calculations are made as follows: the announced official figure of the wounded is divided by three - based on the fact, as Valentina Dmitrievna says, that according to the established methodology all over the world, there is one dead for three wounded. (That's what they thought during World War II.)
I don't think these calculations are correct. The specifics of hostilities in Chechnya and Afghanistan are different than during large-scale, all-out wars. Medicine has other possibilities now. Even if we take specific combat operations as an example, they in no way fall under the scheme of the Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees. Near Ulus-Kert at the end of February 2000, bandits destroyed 86 Pskov paratroopers from the famous sixth company - only four remained alive. This also happened in the first campaign - for example, the death of seventy-six out of more than a hundred servicemen of the 245th motorized rifle regiment, who were ambushed on April 16, 1996 between the villages of Dachu-Borzoy and Yarysh-Mardy. There are also directly opposite cases when a large-scale military operation took place almost without losses, but was accompanied by a large number of wounded.
In no case do I want to offend the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers - their attempts to find out the truth deserve the deepest respect and are quite understandable: after all, official information about the losses is either flawed or completely hidden. It is the position of the leadership of law enforcement agencies and the country as a whole that gives rise to myths, and sometimes various speculations about the losses of the Russian military in Chechnya.

About the dead and missing residents of Chechnya
There is much less clarity and truth in this issue than in the issue of dead and missing servicemen.
No one really counts the dead residents of Chechnya. According to the State Statistics Committee of Russia, in Chechnya, from 30 to 40 thousand inhabitants died during the first war (even statistics give approximate figures!). For four years of the second campaign - from 10 to 20 thousand people. According to the human rights center "Memorial", already in the spring of 2000 the number of Chechen residents who died in the second war exceeded 6 thousand people, and today - over 10 thousand. Alexander Cherkasov, one of Memorial's leading employees, told me about this. At the same time, the list of names compiled by "Memorial" according to the statements of the relatives of the victims, as of September 1 of this year, included only 1259 names.
Novaya Gazeta correspondent Mainat Abdulaeva received from Chechen Health Minister Musa Akhmadov in April of this year a different number of dead civilians - 3,500 people.
As for the missing residents of Chechnya, the information also differs.
Deputy Prime Minister of the Chechen government Movsar Khamidov said that more than 2,800 people were missing. The prosecutor's office of the Chechen Republic, based on the statements of citizens, gives a different number of missing people - 1900. The list of missing people only for the first campaign of the inhabitants of Chechnya consisted of 1523 names.

militants
Another issue that has become the subject of speculation, primarily on the part of the leaders of the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, is the number of live and killed militants.
Our security forces are talking about two to three thousand warring fighters every year. At the same time, if we proceed from the figures of the destroyed militants and bandits, voiced by them, these two or three thousand overlap many times.
One thing is certain: the losses of militants are voiced by our military much more often and more willingly than the data on their dead soldiers and officers, and they consider the losses of the enemy more confident.
The methodology for this calculation of losses remains incomprehensible to the public, and therefore does not inspire any confidence. True, several times high-ranking generals let it slip about this.
The former commander of the North Caucasian Military District, Colonel-General Gennady Troshev, when asked by journalists how the military counts the losses of militants in Chechnya, spoke about his original method: a helicopter takes off, flies around Chechen cemeteries, and the military counts fresh graves. Their number is issued for the number of destroyed militants.
At hearings in the State Duma on April 6, 2000, the then Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia, Colonel General Fedorov, justified himself in approximately the same way. He argued that the column of Sergiev Posad riot police on March 2 was ambushed not by their own colleagues, but by militants. At the same time, he said: the attacking militants were destroyed. And they counted them in the same way - according to fresh graves in the cemetery.

AND the last on the topic of losses in Chechnya. Nobody is looking for those who went missing in Chechnya between 1996 and 1999. I am writing about this at the request of the mothers of the missing Russians: the captain of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Dmitry Bobryshev, the journalist Vladimir Yatsina and the Moscow physicist Mikhail Kurnosov.
Almost every day, Nadezhda Ivanovna Yatsina, the mother of an ITAR-TASS correspondent who was kidnapped by bandits and disappeared in Chechnya, calls me at the newspaper and repeats the same phrase: “Does the fate of our children really matter to everyone?” And she herself answered for the last time: “Soon the next elections of deputies of the State Duma and the president. The authorities need us only as an electorate.”

P.S.. We propose to continue work on clarifying the number of dead and missing residents of Chechnya. If those who govern our state do not need it, then those who live in it need it. So that decades later, history teachers would not tell their students shamefully approximate figures - plus or minus so many thousands, as they say now about the Great Patriotic War: 20-30 million.

In Chechnya, Russian troops fought under the tsars, when the Caucasus region was only part of the Russian Empire. But in the nineties of the last century, a real massacre began there, the echoes of which have not subsided so far. The Chechen war in 1994-1996 and in 1999-2000 are two disasters for the Russian army.

Background of the Chechen Wars

The Caucasus has always been a very difficult region for Russia. Questions of nationality, religion, culture have always been raised very sharply and were solved by far from peaceful means.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the influence of the separatists increased in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on the basis of national and religious hostility, as a result of which the Republic of Ichkeria was self-proclaimed. She entered into a confrontation with Russia.

In November 1991, Boris Yeltsin, then President of Russia, issued a decree "On the introduction of a state of emergency on the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Republic." But this decree was not supported in the Supreme Council of Russia, due to the fact that most of the seats there were occupied by opponents of Yeltsin.

In 1992, on March 3, Dzhokhar Dudayev announced that he would only negotiate when Chechnya gained full independence. A few days later, on the twelfth, the Chechen parliament adopted a new constitution, self-proclaiming the country a secular independent state.

Almost immediately, all government buildings, all military bases, all strategically important objects were captured. The territory of Chechnya completely came under the control of the separatists. From that moment on, legitimate centralized power ceased to exist. The situation got out of control: the trade in weapons and people flourished, drug trafficking passed through the territory, bandits robbed the population (especially Slavic).

In June 1993, soldiers from Dudayev's bodyguard seized the parliament building in Grozny, and Dudayev himself proclaimed the emergence of "sovereign Ichkeria" - a state that he completely controlled.

A year later, the First Chechen War (1994-1996) will begin, which will mark the beginning of a whole series of wars and conflicts that have become, perhaps, the bloodiest and most cruel throughout the entire territory of the former Soviet Union.

First Chechen: the beginning

On December 11, 1994, Russian troops entered Chechnya in three groups. One entered from the west, through North Ossetia, another - through Mozdok, and the third group - from the territory of Dagestan. Initially, the command was entrusted to Eduard Vorobyov, but he refused and resigned, citing the complete unpreparedness of this operation. Later, the operation in Chechnya will be headed by Anatoly Kvashnin.

Of the three groups, only the "Mozdok" was able to successfully reach Grozny on December 12 - the other two were blocked in different parts of Chechnya by local residents and partisan detachments of militants. A few days later, the remaining two groups of Russian troops approached Grozny and blocked it from all sides, with the exception of the southern direction. Up to the start of the assault from this side, access to the city will be free for the militants, this later influenced the siege of Grozny by federal waxes.

Assault on Grozny

On December 31, 1994, the assault began, which claimed many lives of Russian soldiers and remained one of the most tragic episodes in Russian history. About two hundred units of armored vehicles entered Grozny from three sides, which were almost powerless in the conditions of street fighting. Communication between the companies was poorly established, which made it difficult to coordinate joint actions.

Russian troops are stuck on the streets of the city, constantly falling under the crossfire of militants. The battalion of the Maykop brigade, which advanced the farthest towards the center of the city, was surrounded and was almost completely destroyed along with its commander, Colonel Savin. The battalion of the Petrakuvsky Motorized Rifle Regiment, which went to the rescue of the "Maikopians", according to the results of two days of fighting, consisted of about thirty percent of the original composition.

By the beginning of February, the number of stormers was increased to seventy thousand people, but the assault on the city continued. Only on February 3, Grozny was blocked from the south side and taken into the ring.

On March 6, part of the last detachments of Chechen separatists were killed, the other left the city. Grozny remained under the control of Russian troops. In fact, little was left of the city - both sides actively used both artillery and armored vehicles, so Grozny practically lay in ruins.

On the rest, there were continuous local battles between Russian troops and militant groups. In addition, the militants prepared and conducted a series (June 1995), in Kizlyar (January 1996). In March 1996, the militants made an attempt to recapture Grozny, but the assault was repelled by Russian soldiers. And Dudayev was liquidated.

In August, the militants repeated their attempt to take Grozny, this time it was a success. Many important objects in the city were blocked by the separatists, Russian troops suffered very heavy losses. Together with Grozny, the militants took Gudermes and Argun. On August 31, 1996, the Khasavyurt Agreement was signed - the First Chechen War ended with huge losses for Russia.

Human losses in the First Chechen War

The data varies depending on which side is counting. Actually, this is not surprising and it has always been so. Therefore, all options are provided below.

Losses in the Chechen war (table No. 1 according to the headquarters of the Russian troops):

The two figures in each column, where the losses of Russian troops are indicated, are two headquarters investigations that were carried out with a difference of a year.

According to the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, the consequences of the Chechen war are completely different. Some of those killed there are called about fourteen thousand people.

Losses in the Chechen war (table No. 2) of militants according to Ichkeria and a human rights organization:

Among the civilian population, "Memorial" put forward a figure of 30-40 thousand people, and the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation A.I. Lebed - 80,000.

Second Chechen: main events

Even after the signing of the peace agreements, things did not become calmer in Chechnya. The militants ran everything, there was a brisk trade in drugs and weapons, people were kidnapped and killed. On the border between Dagestan and Chechnya, it was alarming.

After a series of kidnappings of major businessmen, officers, journalists, it became clear that the continuation of the conflict in a more acute phase is simply inevitable. Moreover, since April, small groups of militants began to probe the weak points in the defense of Russian troops, preparing an invasion of Dagestan. The invasion operation was led by Basayev and Khattab. The place where the militants planned to strike was in the mountainous zone of Dagestan. There, the small number of Russian troops was combined with the inconvenient location of the roads, along which you could not transfer reinforcements very quickly. On August 7, 1999, the militants crossed the border.

The main striking force of the bandits were mercenaries and Islamists from Al-Qaeda. For almost a month there were battles with varying success, but, finally, the militants were driven back to Chechnya. Along with this, the bandits carried out a series of terrorist attacks in various cities of Russia, including Moscow.

As a response, on September 23, a heavy shelling of Grozny began, and a week later, Russian troops entered Chechnya.

Casualties in the Second Chechen War among Russian servicemen

The situation had changed, and Russian troops now played a dominant role. But many mothers never waited for their sons.

Losses in the Chechen war (table No. 3):

In June 2010, the commander-in-chief of the Ministry of Internal Affairs gave the following figures: 2,984 killed and about 9,000 wounded.

Losses of militants

Losses in the Chechen war (table No. 4):

Civilian casualties

According to official data, as of February 2001, more than a thousand civilians had died. In the book by S. V. Ryazantsev “Demographic and migration portrait of the North Caucasus”, the losses of the parties in the Chechen war are five thousand people, although we are talking about 2003.

Judging by the assessment of the organization Amnesty International, which calls itself non-governmental and objective, there were about twenty-five thousand dead among the civilian population. They can count for a long time and diligently, only to the question: "How many actually died in the Chechen war?" - hardly anyone will give an intelligible answer.

Outcomes of the war: peace conditions, restoration of Chechnya

While the Chechen war was going on, the loss of equipment, enterprises, land, any resources and everything else was not even considered, because people always remain the main ones. But then the war ended, Chechnya remained part of Russia, and the need arose to restore the republic from practically ruins.

Enormous money was allocated to Grozny. After several assaults, there were almost no entire buildings left there, and at the moment it is a large and beautiful city.

The economy of the republic was also raised artificially - it was necessary to give time for the population to get used to the new realities, so that new factories and farms were rebuilt. Roads, communication lines, electricity were needed. Today we can say that the republic is almost completely out of the crisis.

Chechen wars: reflection in films, books

Dozens of films have been made based on the events that took place in Chechnya. Many books have been released. Now it is no longer possible to understand where the fiction is, and where the real horrors of war are. The Chechen war (as well as the war in Afghanistan) claimed too many lives and went through a "skating rink" for a whole generation, so it simply could not remain unnoticed. Russia's losses in the Chechen wars are colossal, and, according to some researchers, the losses are even greater than in ten years of war in Afghanistan. Below is a list of films that most deeply show us the tragic events of the Chechen campaigns.

• documentary film from five episodes "Chechen trap";
• "Purgatory";
• "Cursed and forgotten";
• "Prisoner of the Caucasus".

Many fiction and journalistic books describe the events in Chechnya. For example, the now famous writer Zakhar Prilepin, who wrote the novel "Pathology" about this war, fought as part of the Russian troops. Writer and publicist Konstantin Semyonov published a series of stories "Grozny Tales" (about the storming of the city) and the novel "The Motherland Betrayed Us". The storming of Grozny is dedicated to the novel by Vyacheslav Mironov "I was in this war."

Video recordings made in Chechnya by rock musician Yuri Shevchuk are widely known. He and his DDT group performed more than once in Chechnya in front of Russian soldiers in Grozny and at military bases.

Conclusion

The State Council of Chechnya published data showing that between 1991 and 2005 almost one hundred and sixty thousand people died - this figure includes militants, civilians, and Russian soldiers. One hundred sixty thousand.

Even if the figures are overestimated (which is quite likely), the amount of losses is still simply colossal. Russia's losses in the Chechen wars are a terrible memory of the nineties. The old wound will hurt and itch in every family that lost a man there, in the Chechen war.