The battle for Grozny lasted into March, 1994. The Russians this time were more cautious in their strategies and now made heavy use of aerial and artillery bombardments, taking the city in small bites with special forces soldiers and teams of snipers. Thousands of civilians were killed in the battle as the Russians seemed to consider Grozny a free fire zone. While finally driving the deadly Chechen fighters out of the capital and forcing Dudayev into a life of hiding, the expedition had not come close to accomplishing its aim of bringing the Chechens back into the fold. And at such appalling cost, the Russians now had to answer for everything from human rights abuses to revelations about the severe limitations of their military. A military superpower with vast weaponry at its disposal still couldn't bring a runaway separatist movement to heel? Even after taking Grozny the Chechens were far from defeated. As 1994 wore on, the Chechen problem began to make Yeltsin look worse and worse.

The situation in Grozny was insane. Russian citizens, who the army should have been protecting, were getting blasted out of their homes in the artillery barrages. This had a debilitating effect on Russian morale. Many Russian combat units were made up of 18 and 19 year old conscripts with little military training and even less motivation. The Russians were ill-equipped for winter warfare, had no training in urban combat, and even lacked updated maps of Grozny. Russians soldiers broke ranks and began looting the city, sending the goods back home on Army trucks in an attempt to make money. Russians traded their guns with Chechens in exchange for alcohol. Logistical support for the Russian soldiers was abysmal, and for the first month of fighting water and food supplies were scarce. Many resorted to killing and eating stray dogs. Russian generals were sacked on a regular basis and commander reshuffling was commonplace as everyone passed the blame around.

With Grozny in hand, the Russians soon spread South across the plains that lead up to the foothills of the Caucasus. While the open fields favored the Russian forces, each city they came upon turned into a mini-Grozny. The Chechens bitterly contested the towns all across the republic, inflicting heavy casualties during night raids on the Russian outposts. In response, the Russians flattened the villages and burned what was left to flush out the resistance. Through the use of GRAD rockets (truck-mounted rocket tubes) and conventional artillery, the Russians took no chances with sending in troops anymore. Only after the towns had been leveled would they commit their troops. This resulted in more civilian deaths and a growing refugee problem as there seemed to be nowhere safe to go in the entire place. It also wasn't that brilliant of a military strategy because the Chechens simply hid in the ruins of the towns and waited for them. Whether a town is standing or in ruins doesn't make a lot of difference to a guerrilla fighters. They executed effective counter attacks on the Russian supply lines and ruled the night. But the Russians, who now had close to 60,000 troops in Chechnya, were gradually driving the Chechens into the mountains.

The rest of 1994 and the spring of 1995 were characterized by suicidal Chechen defensive stands as they were pushed across the plains. When the two main mountain fortress towns fell to the Russians in April 1995, the Chechen fighters were almost done. The months of constant artillery bombardments, the steady attrition of battle casualties and the absence of medical supplies and ammunition had finally taken their toll. Armed bands of Chechens still ranged across the mountains but they were becoming less and less a threat to the Russian campaign. The Chechens needed something to break the logjam.

In June 1995 the Chechens resorted to a hostage-taking raid under the leadership of Shamil Basayev, one of Chechnya's most lethal men. A group of 150 heavily-armed Chechens on busses slipped through the Russian lines and drove 100 miles into Russia to the town of Budyonnovsk. Once there, they drove quietly in then suddenly attacked the town hall, taking the building in a matter of minutes. Russian helicopter reinforcements arrived and a large gun battle followed for several hours. At one point the Chechens escaped out the back and into a residential neighborhood where they rounded up several hundred Russian civilians. With this group they marched to the town hospital trading shots with incredulous Russian soldiers the entire way. Once ensconced in the hospital, the Chechens issued their demands - that Russia withdraw its troops from Chechnya and begin direct negotiations with Dudayev.

It was the largest hostage-taking incident in the twentieth century. There were over 1000 people in the hospital and the negotiations dragged on for days. The Russians tried everything, from threatening to execute 2000 Chechen civilians to using Basayev's brother to talk him out of it. In response, the Chechens executed five Russian helicopter pilots who had suffered wounds in the battle the first day. There clearly was no negotiating with Basayev. The Russians stormed the hospital at dawn on the fourth day of the standoff but were beaten back with casualties. More civilians were killed in the fighting, unable to avoid the grenades the Russians were throwing in through the shot-out windows. A similar attack was repulsed later in the day.

Finally, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was patched through directly to Basayev. After another day of negotiations he agreed to let the Chechens go free back home. The Chechens were allowed to leave Budyonnovsk with 150 hostages on busses and made it safely back home, much more than any of them were expecting. The episode highlighted the fact that the war in Chechnya was far from over and that the Chechens were willing to take it onto Russian soil. Yeltsin's headache continued.

A second hostage crisis erupted six months later in the town of Pervomaiskoye in neighboring Dagestan. A replica of Budyonnovsk, this was Yeltsin's worst nightmare happening all over again. This one ended in a pitched battle that leveled the town under the weight of intensive air and artillery strikes. It cost the Chechens nearly 100 fighters but also served to shake Moscow's resolve to continue the war that the Chechens seemed to be suddenly winning again and the Russians were on the defensive.

By the spring of 1996, the Chechens were roaming the countryside again. Russian bases spread around the country could not control the areas they were supposed to. And at night, the Chechens carried out attacks and ambushes without hindrance. A Russian puppet governor was installed in Grozny and Yeltsin was claiming victory even though it was anything but that. The Chechens were not being taken seriously-Yeltsin refused to speak directly with Dudayev. A Chechen delegation did actually go to Moscow and a cease fire was agreed on, but the Russians were soon violating it. For the Chechens the only thing to do was to attempt to retake Grozny.

On August 6, over 1500 Chechen fighters poured into Grozny from the surrounding countryside and began a desperate battle for the town. The Russian strongholds were soon surrounded and no Russian patrols were able to escape without being cut down. Tanks and artillery on the ridges around Grozny attempted to fire in support of the pinned-down Russians but it was with limited success. The Chechens moved freely about the city attacking the Russians at their key points, cutting off escape routes, blocking roads, destroying armor caught in the open. By the end of the first day the 12,000 Russian soldiers in Grozny were under seige from an invisible and deadly foe.

The Russians countered with a massive armored thrust to attempt to relieve the posts in Grozny under seige. Once again, they met with defeat as carefully-planned Chechen ambushes decimated the columns. Two more were sent out the next day and they were also annilihated. It was suddenly clear that the Chechens could take and hold Grozny for as long as they wished. For the Russians to take it back would likely cost thousands of lives and take months. The Russian situation in Chechnya had reached the end of the line. The wounded were piling up and there was nothing they could do.

Over the next two months a cease fire was arranged and a Russian withdrawal was set. The peace that settled on the land was the first in almost three years. While Moscow did not agree to the Chechen demands for independence, the settlement gave each side until 2001 to come up with some sort of plan. It was a humiliating defeat for the Russian military that cost at least 6000 lives. The Chechen civilians took the brunt of the casualties during the endless aerial bombing and artillery attacks and lost nearly 100,000 people over the course of the war. What did the entire war accomplish? Nothing, because in 1999 the Russians went back in again. And they are still there now.

A burned-out Russian tank after a mountain ambush.