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Excerpts from RFE/RL Daily Report No. 239, 20 December 1994
RFE/RL Research Institute is a division of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc.
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CHECHNYA: MILITARY SITUATION. Having initially claimed that the
intervention in Chechnya was meant to defend the welfare of
Chechens caught in an "inter-Chechen" conflict and also to protect
local Russians, Moscow escalated military operations against
Chechnya on 19 and 20 December by subjecting the capital city
Grozny with its mixed Chechen-Russian population to air and
missile bombardment. Russian and Western media reports from the
field featured interviews with local ethnic Russians who observed
that it was Russia's military intervention that was placing them
in danger. Industrial plants, bridges, municipal utilities and
residential quarters were hit, along with a few military targets.
One Russian combined-arms column inched toward the northern
approaches to the city, shelling Chechen and Russian-inhabited
villages in its way. Weapons used included Uragan artillery
installations, Sukhoi-27 fighter-bombers, and helicopter gunships.
Although regularly stressing in other contexts that Chechnya's
residents were Russian Federation citizens entitled to full
protection under its laws, the Russian authorities avoided all
mention of casualties. Meanwhile, the other two Russian columns
were still 40 to 50 kilometers away, having allowed their progress
to be thwarted by protesting villagers in Ingushetia, Dagestan,
and Chechnya itself. Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.
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