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• SIRENA YACHTS 48

SIRENA YACHTS 48 (2024) for sale in ADRIATIC COAST, Croatia

£757,870 GBP Listed price €900,000 EUR Tax Not paid / Excluded Get a foreign exchange quote

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The Sirena Yachts 48, located on the Adriatic Coast in Croatia, is a 2024 model with an overall length of 16.04 metres and a beam of 5.00 metres. This yacht excels in offering luxury and choice within its size range, providing expansive deck space and creatively utilising hull volume to ensure guest comfort during both day cruises and extended voyages. Its versatile hull design allows for a range of speeds, from brisk cruises to secluded coves to efficient long-distance travel. Like its larger sisters, the Sirena 68 and Sirena 78, the Sirena 48 was nominated for the Motor Boat Awards upon launch.

About this SIRENA YACHTS 48

The Sirena 48 takes the luxury of choice to a new level for a yacht in this size range. The design offers deck space and creative use of its hull volume to offer comfort for a large group of guests for a day cruise, while the accommodations can readily welcome family and friends for an extended cruise.

The hull design creates the same luxury of choice, with available speeds offering a bracing cruise to a secluded cove for exploring and a swim, and a prompt return to port, while an efficient slow cruise makes longer voyaging across blue water a welcome respite from the concerns of daily life. As her sisters, Sirena 68 and Sirena 78, also a Sirena 48 was, when lunched, nominated for MOTOR BOAT AWARDS.

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Sirena Yachts USA

Sirena 48 Hybrid

A BRIGHTER COURSE FORWARD

ABOUT SIRENA 48 HYBRID

Never resting on past successes, Sirena Yachts has turned its creative powers to the idea of creating an efficient cruiser using hybrid propulsion to drive the hull at a variety of speeds.

The time to adapt serial hybrid propulsion to cruising yachts is upon us, since we all need to strive to reduce our carbon emissions, and lighter electric motors and batteries are creating greater range opportunities for yachts equipped with hybrid systems. But a groundbreaking propulsion system does not mean this new model will be any less of a Sirena Yacht. Experienced Sirena Yachts enthusiasts appreciate the company’s foundation in efficient cruising, exceptional interior and exterior design, high-quality materials, and a rich boatbuilding tradition. This blend respects history while embracing innovation and technology for industry leadership.

Sirena has stayed true to its well-found yacht-building tenets, and delivers a distinctive design in a hardtop version of the Sirena 48 launched last year. The hardtop profile creates less windage and offers a lower center of gravity than the flybridge version, but still has an exceedingly comfortable interior, offering inviting shared spaces and a three-stateroom layout. Meanwhile, the yacht has spacious outdoor areas both on the foredeck and aft cockpit, which can be reached by transiting wide side decks. Check back with Sirena Yachts for updates and developments on this exciting project.

TECHNICAL SPECS

DISCOVER THE SIRENA 48 HYBRID

Speak With Our Team

Sirena Yachts USA is ready to assist you in crafting your Sirena 48 Hybrid. From bow to stern, our team will guide you through customizing your dream vessel and exploring all available options. Please call the number above or reach out to us via the form below to embark on your Sirena Yachts journey.

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Sirena 48: The brand-new 16m yacht for young owners

Unlike most yacht builders, Turkish yard Sirena Yachts hasn’t just been focussing on building bigger. In fact, the yard has just revealed its smallest yacht yet, the 15.96-metre Sirena 48. This brand-new pocket yacht means that the yard can satisfy the demands for a multi-design entry-level product.

With the majority of demand for this yacht size and style originating from the US market, the Sirena team have already secured 10 orders for the Sirena 48 before the official launch. “So far it’s going good, and we are expecting many more orders,” confirms Çağın Genç, who will see the first Sirena 48 officially launched at the Cannes Yachting Festival 2023. “Despite our first wave of orders going to US waters, we offer the customer many different options and usage experiences,” he adds.

By creating a flexible two-deck layout and ensuring the Sirena 48 is easy-to-handle, Sirena is hoping its in-house design appeals to the next generation of boaters and yacht enthusiasts. “The Sirena 48 is a model that can be used without crew,” says Ali Onger, CCO at Sirena Yachts. “She can easily accommodate six guests and is a B-category yacht with many innovative warm-water features.”

By making the yacht so simple to use, it is predicted that future Sirena 48 owners will drive themselves from the intuitive flybridge. An alternative would be to convert the aft-deck storage area to accommodate a single crew member.

As revealed during the boot Düsseldorf show, the Sirena 48 will offer alternative layouts for the spacious aft cockpit – a rare feature for a yacht of this size. These designs include an open-style cockpit and additional storage. “We offer a number of layout options that can be tailored all the way to the bathing platform,” explains Sirena Yachts CEO Çağın Genç. “Our customers can choose open exterior designs, or something more traditional, all with a contemporary interior to match.”

The layout available for the flybridge includes a spacious entertaining area, al fresco dining and large forward-facing sun pads. To the aft of the yacht, an owner can opt for a large door or a seating area that forms from the transom. Here, a large swimming platform is able to carry any toy the owner desires, including a tender or a Jet Ski.

“The Sirena 48 is around 30 per cent bigger than her competitors and has one of the largest interiors – in terms of square meterage – in her category,” says Tanıl Sürmeli, Sirena’s product development manager. “The owner’s cabin is full beam and one of three guest cabins, which is unique to this size of yacht.”

Any Sirena model is delivered to be efficient, both in cost and performance. “A Sirena yacht is of world-class quality with an immaculate finish and our brand’s bold and distinctive design which has been entirely designed in-house,” says Sürmeli. Designed by the yard’s long-term partner German Frers, the Sirena 48’s semi-displacement hull is efficient in displacement mode yet permits fast planing performance. Depending on whether the standard or upgraded performance package is chosen, she can reach a top speed of 23.5 or 26 knots respectively.

The Sirena 48 joins the yard’s four existing models, Sirena 58, 68, 78, and 88, and the recently announced Sirena Superyachts range. “We have a wide product range with four models between 58 and 88ft, and this expansion into the 40-foot sector will complete our line-up in the most competitive area of the market,” adds Ali Onger, CCO at Sirena Yachts. “We expect the Sirena 48 to continue to prove especially popular.”

More stories

“I will revenge this world with love”

This project is about love and obstacles in its path. The dress serves as the screen for wedding rituals, love’s romantic and dramatic moments taken from Parajanov’s films. The projection is accompanied by the audio mix made of film music and dialogue pieces.

Audio-visual installation

This project is based on the tragic story of Sergei Parajanov’s love to Nigyar, his first wife, who became a victim of traditions. Nigyar, a Muslim girl, born in the family of Moldovan Tatars, was killed by her own family soon after the wedding, because of the religious differences. Parajanov was too poor to ‘buy out’ Nigyar’s life. Such ‘honor killings’ are still widespread among many nations today.

Nigyar’s image stayed with Parajanov forever – as his tragedy, pain, inspiration and shadow. In his films, he repeatedly pictured wedding rituals of various ethnicities, as well as obstacles set by traditional families for beloved ones (‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors’, ‘Ashik-Kerib’).

Bride’s white dress is the core element of the installation – a symbol of Parajanov’s love to Nigyar, of the first love in general as well as a ritual element of a girl’s initiation – her symbolic ‘death’ as virgin bride and rebirth as wife.

The dress serves as the screen for wedding rituals, love’s romantic and dramatic moments taken from Parajanov’s films. The projection is accompanied by the audio mix made of film music and dialogue pieces.

Volha Salakheyeva (b. 1984 in Gudermes, Chechnya) – video-artist/VJ, curator, media specialist based in Minsk, Belarus.

Pavel Niakhayeu (b.1978 in Orsha, Belarus) – electronic musician, curator, researcher based in Minsk, Belarus. Lecturer at EHU, Vilnius, Lithuania

More about us: ( VJ Solar Olga & Pavel Ambiont )

Supported by:

This project was created during the art residency “Shadow of Freedom” at the International Parajanov Festival in Levandivka (Ukraine) organized by Lviv City Council’s Department of Culture in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw, The Ernst Schering Foundation Program and MitOst Association.

Video report from the Parajanov’s Festival 2017 :

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• Aug 7, 2022
• 10 min read

The First Chechen War: A Blueprint for Destruction

The First Chechen War was a remarkably bloody and brutal conflict from December 1994 – August 1996, sparked by attempts to crush the Chechen independence movement in post-Soviet Russia. The war ended in a humiliating defeat for the Russian Armed Forces, whilst simultaneously devastating Chechnya (Hodgson, 2003). In this small Republic of around 1.05 million people, some 40,000-80,000 were estimated to have been killed, a further 200,000 wounded, with hundreds of thousands more emigrants and refugees (Kramer, 2005). By the war’s end, Chechnya’s population had been reduced to around 700,000 people; its cities, towns and villages had been obliterated, the traumatised civilian population had been subjected to widespread atrocities by both Russian forces and Chechen rebels, and competing armed factions were left to fill the void created by the complete breakdown of social and governmental order (Kramer, 2005).

This article summarises the events of the war, focusing on the Russian use of systematic heavy bombardment and destruction of Chechen settlements. In doing so, it will show how post-Soviet Russian military doctrine incorporated the acceptance of wide-scale indiscriminate destruction and massive civilian casualties in pursuit of Russian objectives. These methods have been further utilised in subsequent Russian military campaigns in the Second Chechen War, the Syrian War and today in Ukraine, across multiple Presidents, and differing levels of democratic accountability and international engagement. This shows that the destruction of Chechnya, far from being the exception, is a regular feature of direct Russian military intervention.

The First Chechen War: A Campaign of Destruction

The Chechen War took place against the backdrop of instability following the collapse of the USSR, in which some of Federal Russia’s ethnic republics, where ethnic Russians were a minority, began to agitate for independence (Malek, 2009). In Chechnya, where lingering resentments remained over the mass deportation of Chechens to Central Asia by the USSR in 1943 and 1944, former Soviet Air Force general Dzhokhar Dudayev seized power and declared the independent Republic of Chechnya in 1991 (Menon & Fuller, 2000). Several years of instability followed, as pro and anti-Dudayev forces fought, many non-ethnic Chechens fled, and Russia launched several limited and unsuccessful attempts to seize back power (Malek, 2009). The Chechen government’s refusal to abide by Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s 29th November 1994 ultimatum, which demanded that all warring factions in Chechnya lay down arms and surrender, led to the order for the Russian military to take back Chechnya by force (Malek, 2009). The First Chechen War began in earnest with an intensive Russian aerial bombing campaign starting on the 1st of December, which quickly eliminated the Chechen Air Force and struck towns and cities across the region (Malek, 2009).

The First Phase of the war saw a Russian force of 25,000 launch a three-pronged invasion of Chechnya on 11th December 1994, with Russian forces expecting to be in the capital Grozny within three days to mark a quick and decisive victory (Malek, 2009). Instead, as the Russian military moved into the unfamiliar mountainous and wooded terrain, it encountered intensive ambushes and tactical retreats by experienced and determined Chechen forces (Seely, 2001). It took until 25th December to reach Grozny, by which time almost 300 Russian armoured vehicles had been lost along with 10% of their deployed helicopters (Quentin, 2003). Most of Grozny’s Chechen population had fled to the countryside where they had family ties, leaving primarily ethnic Russians in the city with nowhere to go (Akhmadov & Lanskoy, 2010). The Russians, still underestimating Chechen forces, proceeded with a disastrous New Year’s Eve offensive on Grozny. This saw confused and disorientated Russian conscripts decimated as they entered the city, with 2000 killed or wounded within the space of only 60 hours and one armoured column losing 105 out of 120 of its vehicles, and some Russian units abandoned in the retreat (Hodgson, 2003). The morale of the shocked Russian forces hit rock bottom (Hodgson, 2003).

With plans for a quick and easy victory frustrated, Russia poured in reinforcements in January 1995, bringing its forces to 40,000 for a renewed assault on Grozny (Seely, 2001). Noting the inferiority of their troops, Russian commanders sought to employ a new strategy of systematically destroying Grozny block-by-block with air and artillery (Seely, 2001). This method hoped to kill as many defenders as possible, whilst destroying urban cover for any demoralised survivors, theoretically allowing Russian infantry and mechanised forces to advance in mopping up operations with minimal casualties. However, after the start of the bombardment on the 4th of January, Russian progress remained slow. The Chechen rebels employed effective urban guerrilla tactics, with small units emerging from their shelters to ambush Russian forces before retreating, with it taking until February 8th for the final Chechen fighters to be driven from the city (Seely, 2001). The civilian cost was appalling, with some estimates that up to 27,000 civilians were killed in Grozny alone during the five-week battle, representing 6% of the entire city’s population (Hodgson, 2003).

Nevertheless, according to Russian commanders, this was a success. The Russians suffered the same number of casualties in the one-month operation as had been suffered in only 60 hours in the initial New Year’s Eve assault, with the capture of Grozny being a significant morale boost for Russian forces (Hodgson, 2003). Consequently, this method was repeated across Chechnya’s towns and villages which were systemically obliterated to root out Chechen defenders as Russian forces advanced, with some 90% of the Chechen territory under Russian control by April 1995 (Pain, 2001). In territory that had been conquered, Russian Interior Ministry MVD forces would then engage in cleansing operations of villages holding suspected rebels or rebel sympathisers, often engaging in atrocities, including the massacre of over 100 civilians in the village of Samashki in April (Malek, 2009). Furthermore, filtration camps were established in which the civilian population was subjected to mass detention, alongside widespread abuses, to uncover suspected rebels (Malek, 2009).

In June 1995, hoping to take the pressure off the invasion, a Chechen terrorist cell seized a hospital in neighbouring Budyonnovsk taking around 1,500 hostages, to demand a ceasefire. Multiple failed Russian attempts to storm the hospital resulted in 150 hostages being killed before a negotiated ceasefire was agreed upon to bring the Conventional First Phase of the war to an end (Seely, 2001). This allowed the Chechens to regroup, as their fighters reinfiltrated areas taken by the Russians, with their numbers boosted by thousands of foreign volunteers. The Chechen insurgency soon ended the ceasefire in October 1995 to begin the Second Insurgency Phase of the war. Such action inflicted increasingly heavy and demoralising losses on the Russian forces, which were now spread thin across the country where they were vulnerable to hit-and-run raids by Chechen guerrillas, with most Russian casualties occurring in this phase (Pain, 2001). Due to Russian forces being on the defensive, they were less able to make frequent use of the heavy bombardment strategies that had succeeded in the conventional phase. Nevertheless, the utilisation of filtration camps and cleansing operations continued (Malek, 2009). As losses mounted, the Russian media utilised its newfound post-Soviet freedoms to put out grim footage of the conflict, rapidly turning the initially supportive Russian public opinion against the war (Hodgson, 2003). Despite Chechen leader Dudayev being killed by a guided missile strike on 22nd April 1996, the Chechens continued to make gains (Hodgson, 2003).

This paved the way for the Third and final phase, marked by an audacious Chechen assault on Grozny on 6th August 1996, in which 1,500 Chechen fighters infiltrated the city and launched a surprise attack on the 12,000 Russian defenders (Hodgson, 2003). Russian units were forced into isolated groups by the attackers, with Chechen numbers quickly boosted by reinforcements who set up effective defensive positions. After repeated Russian counterattacks were fought off, the Russians surrounded the city and on 19th August General Pulikovsky reverted to the familiar tactic of giving the Chechens an ultimatum of 48 hours to leave the city before an all-out bombardment, this time to include ballistic missiles and strategic bombers (Akhmadov & Lanskoy, 2010). This sparked mass panic amongst the 300,000 civilians still left trapped. As the deadline approached, 50,000 to 70,000 civilians remained inside the city, with all males over 11 considered suspected militants and not allowed through Russian lines. The bombardment began, hitting numerous fleeing columns of civilians, before the arrival of Russian national security advisor General Lebed to the city on 20th August. Lebed was highly critical of General Pulikovsky’s ultimatum and ordered the end of the bombardment and a ceasefire (Pain, 2001). Russian forces were ordered to withdraw from Chechnya on 22nd August 1996, marking a stinging defeat (Akhmadov & Lanskoy, 2010). By 31st August, the Khasav-Yurt Accord was signed formalising the Russian withdrawal and conferring Chechnya de facto independence (Pain, 2001).

Justifying Indiscriminate Destruction as a Tool of War

As evidenced by the First Conventional Phase of the war, Russian forces had the most military success when able to utilise the indiscriminate bombardment of populated settlements as part of an offensive conventional strategy. This method was enabled by the Russian forces fighting an asymmetric war, against an opponent much inferior in number and equipment, allowing the bombardment of Chechen cities, towns, and villages with impunity whilst the Chechens had little means of retort (Hodgson, 2003). This tactic was not just considered effective by Russian commanders, but necessary to make up for the deficiencies of their poorly trained and motivated conscripts (Kramer, 2005). The Second Insurgency Phase of the war saw this tactic become less relevant, as the war spread out into hit-and-run attacks and ambushes. Yet the Third Phase, after the loss of Grozny, saw the commanding Russian general attempt to revert to the first tactic as the default method of dislodging Chechen defenders. As evidenced by Grozny, the costs in civilian life were catastrophic, with one German observer in 1995 stating that Russian forces were willing to slaughter thousands of civilians if it meant killing just 10 or 15 rebels (Malek, 2009). The use of filtration camps, in which an estimated 200,000 Chechens were detained during the course of the war, and cleansing operations, furthered the often indiscriminate abuses meted out to civilians (Malek, 2009).

These appalling civilian casualties were justified by the belief of the Russian military and security hierarchy that most of the Chechen population were either actively involved in resistance, or else complicit in supporting it. General Sergei Stepashin, the head of the FSK Russian intelligence agency at the start of the war, was quoted as saying “to win this war the whole male Chechen population would have to be eradicated” (Malek, 2009, p. 92). A similar view was supported by Russian Major-General Vladimir Serebryannikov, who later estimated that between 80-90% of the Chechen population resisted the Russian occupation forces. Indeed, in 1996, Russian Deputy Defence Minister General Georgi Kondratyev further stated, “it is the entire Chechen population fighting here, not armed bandits” (Malek, 2009, p. 91). Clearly then, the view was widespread that civilians, even if not active combatants, were complicit in opposing Russian forces and were therefore acceptable collateral damage if it meant killing Chechen fighters or supporters. The fact that the bulk of civilian deaths were ethnic Russians, especially in cities like Grozny, is not considered (Malek, 2009). What is perhaps surprising here is that Russia at this point was attempting its transition to democracy, with Boris Yeltsin keen to put forth the image of a Western-style democratic President. Yet for Western observers of the war, Chechnya represented a horrifying level of indiscriminate brutality and disregard for the life of Russia’s own citizens that they might have expected from the USSR, not a Post-Cold War democratic Russia (Malek, 2009). Indeed, the reports of the Samashki Massacre cast a dark shadow over President Clinton’s attendance at Russia’s VE Day celebrations in May 1995, with several Western politicians decrying the brutal Chechen violence (Savranskaya & Evangelista, 2020).

A Blueprint for Destruction

Despite the First Chechen War ending in defeat, the tactics of the systematic destruction of populated areas have been a regular feature of Russian military interventions since then. The Second Chechen War launched by President Putin in 1999 aimed to dislodge the Islamist Militants who had seized power amidst Chechnya’s political vacuum after the First War, with Putin now reframing the conflict as a fight against terrorism (Malek, 2009). Contrary to seeking alternative strategies, the Russian Military simply doubled down on existing methods albeit with overwhelming force. Putin ordered the complete destruction of the already devastated Grozny and of several other Chechen towns in August 1999, as artillery, bombs, rockets, and guided missiles rained down for the next two months – before sending in a 100,000-strong invasion force in October (Malek, 2009). This left Grozny, according to a 2003 UN Report, as the most destroyed city on earth (Brog, 2017). Nevertheless, the capture of Grozny in January 2000 with lesser casualties than in 1995 massively boosted Putin’s popularity, cementing this as a successful tactic (Kramer, 2005).

Furthermore, the Russian intervention in Syria has proven the willingness of Russia to utilise these methods in overseas operations, with this first significant direct Russian military intervention overseas since the fall of the USSR (Lavrov, 2018). This likewise ended with the widespread destruction and large-scale loss of life in the Syrian-rebel stronghold of Aleppo, in which an extensive Russian bombing campaign in 2015 and 2016, including the use of cluster munitions, played a key role in allowing Syrian government forces to seize the city (Graham, 2017). Once again, for Putin this was considered a great success, helping turn the tide of the Syrian War in favour of the Assad regime as a Russian ally. Before the 2015 Russian intervention, Assad’s forces were in a difficult situation holding only one-sixth of Syrian territory, whereas by 2018 after the intervention it held 57% of the territory containing 73% of the Syrian population (Lavrov, 2018). The Russian invasion of Ukraine, after the initial failure to achieve a quick victory by taking Kiev, has once again witnessed Russia fall back onto the use of indiscriminate bombardment to achieve battlefield gains, most significantly in Mariupol (Bachelet, 2022). This has established a clear pattern of widescale destruction of populated urban centres in direct post-Soviet Russian military interventions over the course of nearly three decades. Nevertheless, it is perhaps notable that the Russian Invasion of Georgia in 2008, and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, did not see the utilisation of indiscriminate bombardment. Yet the rapid nature of these two conflicts, with Russian forces achieving their military objectives within the first five days, meant there was little need to utilise such methods (Cohen & Hamilton, 2011; Wither, 2016). Rather, it seems the strategy is one that is resorted to in more protracted campaigns where a quick and easy victory is not possible.

Conclusions

As shown, the Russian invasion of Chechnya from 1994-1996 demonstrated the willingness of the Russian military to engage in the highly destructive strategy of widescale and indiscriminate bombardments of entire cities, towns and villages, to root out even small numbers of combatants, with little regard for civilian life. On a military level, these tactics were considered necessary to cover up the deficiencies of Russia’s conscripted and often poorly trained and motivated soldiers. Yet Russian leaders also justified the indiscriminate nature of these tactics through their belief that the bulk of the Chechen population was either actively involved in the Chechen armed opposition, or at least complicit in their support for it. What is clear is that, in military terms, this was considered a successful method for Russian military leaders in the pursuit of their objectives, with their opponents having little ability to respond. Subsequent Russian military campaigns in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine, have readily utilised and even intensified this tactic to achieve their strategic objectives. That these campaigns have taken place over a thirty-year period, under two different Russian Presidents, both at home and abroad and with varying levels of domestic and international accountability, shows that the destruction of Chechnya was far from an exception in regards to Russian military intervention. Instead, it appears to be the general rule forming the blueprint for Russian military operations when it expects to be engaged in a protracted campaign.

Bibliographical references

Akhmadov, I. & Lanskoy, M. (2010). The Chechen Struggle Independence Won and Lost , Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bachelet, M. (2022). High Commissioner updates the Human Rights Council on Mariupol, Ukraine, United Nations , Retrieved from: https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/06/high-commissioner-updates-human-rights-council-mariupol-ukraine

Brog, D. (2017). Reclaiming Israel's History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace , Simon and Schuster.

Cohen, A. & Hamilton, R. (2011). The Russian Military in the Georgian War, Strategic Studies Institute .

Lavrov, A. (2018). Russia in Syria: a military analysis, in: Popescu, N. terly, 88:4, 24-31.

Hodgson, Q. (2003) Is the Russian bear learning? an operational and tactical analysis of the second Chechen war, 1999–2002, Journal of Strategic Studies , 26:2, 64-91.

Lavrov, A. (2018) Russia in Syria: a military analysis, in: Popescu, N. et al , eds., Russia´s Return to the Middle East: Building Sandcastles?, European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) , 47-56.

Korostelina, K. & Kononenko, J. (2012). Double victims: the recruitment and treatment of child soldiers in Chechnya, in: Rothbart, D. et al , eds., Civilians and Modern War: Armed Conflict and the Ideology of Violence , Routledge, 96-113.

Kramer, M. (2005). Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency and Terrorism in the North Caucasus: The Military Dimension of the Russian-Chechen Conflict, Europe-Asia Studies , 57:2, 209-290.

Malek, M. (2009). Russia's Asymmetric Wars in Chechnya since 1994, Connections , 8:4, 81-98.

Menon, R. & Fuller, G. (2000). Russia's Ruinous Chechen War, Foreign Affairs , 79:2, 32-44.

Pain, E. (2001). From the First Chechen War Towards the Second, Brown Journal of World Affairs , 8:1, 7-20.

Seely, R. (2001). The Russian-Chechen Conflict 1800-2000: A Deadly Embrace , London: Routledge.

Savranskaya, S. & Evangelista, M. (2020). Chechnya, Yeltsin, and Clinton: The Massacre at Samashki in April 1995 and the US Response to Russia’s War in Chechnya, National Security Archive , Retrieved from: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2020-04-15/massacre-at-samashki-and-us-response-to-russias-war-in-chechnya

Wither, J. (2016). Making Sense of Hybrid Warfare, Connections , 15:2, 73-87.

Visual References

Cover Image: Lowe, P. (1994). A wounded man was helped to safety after a Russian bombing attack killed 18 people, including the American photographer Cynthia Elbaum, in Grozny in December 1994 [Photograph]. VII/Redux. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/world/europe/photos-chechen-war-russia.html

Figure 1: Voeten, T. (1995). Grozny, Chechnya, RUSSIA, A Russian APC on patrol in the war-ravaged city [Photograph]. Panos Pictures. Retrieved from: https://library.panos.co.uk/stock-photo/a-russian-apc-on-patrol-in-the-war-ravaged-city/search/detail-0_00032837.html

Figure 2: Chapple, A. (1995). A Chechen volunteer takes cover behind a Russian tank during street fighting in Grozny. The first advances into the city were a disaster for ill-prepared Russian forces, who face a determined resistance [Photograph]. Radio Free Europe. Retrieved from: https://www.rferl.org/a/twenty-years-on-from-the-first-chechen-war/27940170.html

Figure 3: Erken, L. (1995). Grozny, Chechnya. A complete family is dug out of a former shelter in the centre of town. They starved to death, trapped during incessant shelling [Photograph]. Panos Pictures. Retrieved from: https://library.panos.co.uk/stock-photo/a-complete-family-is-dug-out-of-a-former-shelter-in-the-centre-of-town-they/search/detail-0_00001207.html

Figure 4: Bradner, H. (1995). Chechnya, Russian soldiers wearing gas masks examine a mass grave to look for their fallen comrades. Countless unidentified bodies, the majority civilians, were dumped here after the battle for Grozny [Photograph]. Panos Pictures. Retrieved from: https://library.panos.co.uk/stock-photo/russian-soldiers-wearing-gas-masks-examine-a-mass-grave-to-look-for-their/gallery-13-1729-2223-5/detail-0_00007383.html

Figure 5: Evstafiev, M. (1995). A Russian Mi-8 helicopter shot down by Chechen fighters near the Chechen capital, Grozny during the First Chechen War [Photograph]. Wikimedia.org. Retrieved from: https://neweasterneurope.eu/2018/07/10/forgetting-chechnya/

Figure 6: Getty Images (2000). In the second Chechen war from 1999-2000, Russian forces again laid siege to Grozny, and intense fighting lasted weeks [Photograph]. BBC News . Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60631433

Figure 7: AFP (2016). Hundreds of people have been killed by Russian bombs in rebel-held east Aleppo [Photograph]. Middle East Eye . Retrieved from: https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/russia-slams-uk-russophobic-commends-aleppo-832719976

• International relations

It is a really well-written and interesting article! You succeeded in giving an overview of the historical events, without diminish their atrocities (not just reporting a list of historical facts, but also analysing their implications). You have done an excellent job!

Incredibly insightful reading! You clearly illustrated the reasoning behind the choice of different military strategies, and the importance of how their implications were perceived. Thank you!

Finn Archer

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Chechnya, Russia and 20 years of conflict

How the tiny region shaped post-Soviet Russia on the 20th anniversary of the start of first Chechnya war.

Moscow, Russia – Twenty years ago on Thursday, Moscow started what it thought would be a “blitzkrieg” against secular separatists in Chechnya, a tiny, oil-rich province in Russia’s North Caucasus region that had declared its independence.

But the first Chechen war became Russia’s Vietnam; the second war was declared a victory only in 2009. The two conflicts have reshaped Russia, Chechnya, their rulers – and those who oppose them.

In 1994, s hortly after Moscow invaded Chechnya in an effort to restore its territorial integrity, Akhmad Kadyrov, a bearded, barrel-chested Muslim scholar turned guerrilla commander, declared jihad on all Russians and said each Chechen should kill at least 150 of them.

That was the proportion of the populations on each side of the conflict: some 150 million Russians and less than a million Chechens in a small, landlocked province, which the separatists wanted to carve out of Russia.

Western media and politicians dubbed the Chechens “freedom fighters” – an army of Davids fighting the Russian Goliath.

Moscow was lambasted internationally for disproportionate use of force and rolling back on the democratic freedoms that former leader Boris Yeltsin was so eager to introduce after the 1991 Soviet Union collapse.

Tens of thousands died amid atrocities committed by both sides – and many more were displaced before 1996, when the Russians retreated, leaving Chechnya essentially independent.

Retreating was a humiliation for Russia’s military machine that less than a decade earlier had presented a seemingly formidable threat to the entire Western world.

Chechen against Chechen

Independence did not quite work out for the Chechens.  The separatist government based in the ruined capital, Grozny, lost control over the rest of Chechnya.

Feuding field commanders and  foreign jihadists, such as the Saudi known as Emir al-Khattab,  ruled small districts with their own little armies. Kidnappings for ransom – along with primitive extraction of oil – were their main sources of income.

Many of the foreigners adhered to a puritanical Muslim ideology  known as Wahhabism  that ran counter to Chechnya’s Sufi traditions.

Akhmad Kadyrov, who was appointed as top Mufti of Chechnya, came into opposition with the puritans and their Chechen supporters, because he saw their extremist views as a threat to the separatist movement. In 1998, Kadyrov openly renounced the Wahhabis – and barely survived the first of many assassination attempts.

Kadyrov soon switched alliances, siding with the people upon whom he had once declared war – the Russians.

A virtually unknown ex-KBG officer, Vladimir Putin  became Russia’s new prime minister i n August 1999 and w ithin weeks led a military operation against the Chechen fighters.   

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When a series of explosions in apartment buildings in Moscow and two Russian towns killed more than 300 Russians, Moscow blamed Chechen rebels and embarked on an epic “anti-terrorist operation,” which became the second Chechen war.

Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketed, paving the way for his first presidency.  A ided by Kadyrov and other Chechen clans who had pledged allegiance to the Kremlin, t he Russian military  quickly returned most of Chechnya to Moscow’s control. In 2003, Kadyrov was elected Chechen president.

Russian targets

Cornered in Chechnya, the separatists took the war to Russia.

Attacks throughout the country became a grim reality of the new war and involved explosions in cities and towns, on planes and public transport.

At least two dozen attacks were carried out by female suicide bombers. Dubbed “black widows”, they became a sinister image imprinted on Russia’s collective psyche.

One such attack killed Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004. His son, 27-year-old Ramzan Kadyrov, was too young to run for president at the time, but as head of his father’s security service, he quickly became Chechnya’s de facto ruler. I n 2007, soon after he turned 30, the younger Kadyrov  was elected president.

Four months after his father’s assassination, Chechen separatists seized a public school in the town of Beslan taking more than 1,000 hostages, mostly children. Almost 200 kids died when Russian forces stormed the school. The incident changed the world’s attitude towards the Chechen cause – “freedom fighters” became “Islamic insurgents” in the Western media.

Meanwhile, the media in Russia came under attack.

“The saying was that it was journalists who won the first Chechen war,” says Tatyana Lokshina, deputy director of the Moscow branch of Human Rights Watch, an international rights watchdog.

Moscow used unfavourable media coverage of the war as an excuse to curtail press freedoms. The Kremlin took over all national television networks and most major newspapers.

“For years, Vladimir Putin saw the pacification of Chechnya as his main achievement,” says Stanislav Belkovsky, a Moscow-based political analyst . “In that respect, Putin has a colossal psychological dependency on Chechnya and Ramzan Kadyrov who ensured the pacification.”

The Beslan crisis also served as a pretext to tighten political screws in Russia. Putin eliminated regional gubernatorial elections, complicated participation of opposition parties in elections, and limited democratic freedoms.

The public hailed Putin for bringing stability and pacifying Chechnya.  The victory revived Moscow’s imperial ambitions – at least in the area of the former Soviet Union.

Shaping today’s Russia

Moscow won the brief 2008 Russo-Georgian war over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia . In March 2014, Russia took over Crimea from Ukraine and helped unleash a civil war between pro-Russian separatists and the central Ukrainian government just a month later.

Both Chechen wars became systemic factors in shaping today's Russia. Instead of peaceful development inside the country we moved to the priority of external expansion by  - Stanislav Belkovsky, political analyst

“Both Chechen wars became systemic factors in shaping today’s Russia,” says Belkovsky . “Instead of peaceful development inside the country, we moved to the priority of external expansion.”

Putin declared “the counter-terrorism operation” in Chechnya over in 2009 – just when things in North Caucasus took a turn for the worse.

Dagestan and several other provinces in the region became the new hotbeds of radical Islamism. A new generation of Moscow’s foes did not want secular separation – instead they are fighting to establish a “Caucasus Emirate” that includes adjacent Russian regions with sizable Muslim populations.

At least 529 people were killed and 457 wounded in North Caucasus in 2013, according to Kavkazsky Uzel, a Russian web portal that monitors the situation in the region. The confrontation has turned into “Europe’s most active armed conflict ” , according to the International Crisis Group, a conflict-monitoring organisation.

The insurgency became self-sustaining because of a vicious circle perpetuated by corruption and brutality.

Federal forces and police trigger the violence with extra-judicial killings, arrests, kidnappings and other abuses, according to rights groups and critics. They claim young men have no other options but to join the rebels because corrupt officials blacklist their families to extort bribes.

The fighters, in turn, blackmail corrupt officials who embezzle lavish funds from Moscow. The practise involves “sending a flash card” containing a video message in which bearded men demand a “jihad tax”.

Storming Grozny again

Ramzan Kadyrov was, perhaps, the least attentive man in the crowd of about 1,100 officials in an opulent Kremlin hall on December 4 during Putin’s annual address. The stocky 38-year-old Chechen leader fidgeted in his seat and constantly checked his phone.

Just hours before the Kremlin ceremony, a dozen Islamist fighters attacked Grozny, Chechnya’s newly-rebuilt capital. Shootouts in a publishing house, an empty school, and an office building killed 11 insurgents and 14 law enforcement officers.

A day after the attack, Kadyrov said the attackers’ families should be thrown out of Chechnya, their houses destroyed. At least six houses that belonged to relatives of the Grozny attackers have been burned down by masked men, Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said.

Kadyrov’s threats were not new to Chechens. During the second Chechen war, he led paramilitary squads known as kadyrovtsy  that soon gained notoriety for abducting, torturing and killing separatists and civilians suspected of aiding them, according to human rights groups and survivors.

A string of his political enemies and critics, including a former bodyguard, an investigative reporter, and a human rights activist have been gunned down in Chechnya, Moscow, Austria, and Dubai.

Kadyrov denied involvement in the contract-style killings.

Over the years, Kadyrov developed a penchant for luxury – he has a private zoo, race horses, and numerous sports cars. Pop stars, Hollywood actors and sportsmen show up at concerts held on his birthday.

His portraits are seen on billboards, government buildings and schoolchildren’s lapel pins; while streets, schools, mosques and military units are named after his father and mother.

Whatever he does is breaking news on Chechen television – he is shown threatening rebels and corrupt officials, boxing with his ministers, welcoming foreign dignitaries,and bestowing money, apartments and cars upon average Chechens.

Some say Kadyrov’s lifestyle and political ways make him look like an eccentric sovereign, not a public official on the Kremlin payroll. 

“Today, Chechnya is a de facto independent state,” says Belkovsky. “Although formally [Kadyrov] shows loyalty to Putin and formally Chechnya is part of Russia.”