First Chechen War

First Chechen War
	Part of the Chechen–Russian conflict, the Wars in the Caucasus and post-Soviet conflicts
	; A Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter brought down by Chechen fighters near the Chechen capital of Grozny in 1994.
Date	11 December 1994 – 31 August 1996 (1 year, 8 months, 2 weeks and 6 days)
Location	Chechnya and parts of Ingushetia, Stavropol Krai and Dagestan
Result	Chechen victory; see Aftermath
Belligerents
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria; Chechen Mujahideen;	Russia Loyalist opposition;
Commanders and leaders
Dzhokhar Dudayev X; Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev; Aslan Maskhadov; Ruslan Gelayev; Shamil Basayev; Ibn Al-Khattab;	Boris Yeltsin; Pavel Grachev; Anatoly Kulikov; Anatoly Romanov; Konstantin Pulikovsky; Viktor Vorobyov †;
Units involved
Chechen Armed Forces	Russian Armed Forces
Strength
5,000–6,000 (late 1995)	40,000 (late-1994 offensive); 70,000+ (1995)
Casualties and losses
Data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs: ; (As of November 1995); 10,000-15,000 killed; Data Chechen Republic of Ichkeria:; About 3,000 dead ; Evaluation of independent sources:; 3,000-10,000 dead	Official data:; 5,732 dead; 17,892 wounded.; Data from the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers:; 14,000 dead and missing. ; 52,000 wounded
	Civilian losses 30,000 -120,000 killed

The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a conflict between the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Russian Federation from 1994 to 1996. The conflict ended in a peace treaty that saw Russian forces withdraw from the territory only for them to invade again three years later sparking the Second Chechen War of 1999–2009.

During the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, Chechnya came under the control of a secessionist regime led by Dzhokhar Dudayev. Russian president Boris Yeltsin supported anti-Dudayev militias until 1994, when he launched a military operation to "establish constitutional order in Chechnya". Thousands of Chechen civilians were killed in aerial bombings and urban warfare before Grozny was captured in March 1995, but a Russian victory was denied as efforts to establish control over the remaining lowlands and mountainous regions of Chechnya were met with fierce resistance and frequent surprise raids by Chechen guerrillas. Despite the killing of Dudayev in a Russian airstrike in April 1996, the recapture of Grozny by separatists in August brought about the Khasavyurt Accord ceasefire and Russia–Chechnya Peace Treaty in 1997.

The official Russian estimate of Russian military deaths was 5,500, though independent estimates range from 5,000 to as high as 14,000. According to Aslan Maskhadov, approximately 2,800 Chechen fighters were killed, while independent sources estimate the number to be between 3,000 and 10,000. On the other hand, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, by the end of 1995 alone, the losses of the Chechen militants amounted to 10,000 to 15,000 killed. The number of Chechen civilian deaths was between 30,000 and 100,000. Over 200,000 Chechen civilians may have been injured, more than 500,000 people were displaced, and cities and towns were reduced to rubble across the republic.