The first Russian-Chechen war: a comparison of the forces of the actual parties involved in the conflict. Based on the text:
Poor training and lack of experience caused Russia’s forces to be militarily less 
effective than their size and technological strength indicated they should have been.74
 
This training and experience deficiency applied to both tactical skills in the field and 
equipment proficiency. The Russian Army conducted virtually no training exercises 
between 1992 and 1994, and the only training in urban combat provided to soldiers was a 
brief introduction to the “basics.”75
 The last experience the Russian ground forces had 
with urban combat had been gained during World War II, and while its commanders
documented their experiences, such education had long since been left out of standard 
 
homes,” V. Prokhvatilov, “Rusln Khasbulatov: You Are Looking For Dictators in the Wrong Place…” 
Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 9, 1992.
74 Vyacheslav Mironov, “Assault on Grozny Downtown,” translation from the book by V.N. Mironova "I 
was in this war" (Grozny, 1995), http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/CHECHNYA/chechen_war.txt. 
75 P.P. Potapov, Irregular Warfare in the Caucasus, pp. 17-21; Michael Orr, “Second Time Lucky,” Jane’s 
Defesnse Weekly, March 8, 2000.
41
training.76
 Even the Russian army’s experiences in Afghanistan left them ill prepared for 
what they would be faced with in Chechnya. In both the Chechen wars and in 
Afghanistan most of the soldiers were drafted, and did not remain in the army. Only a 
few officers still commanded when war in Chechnya broke out. Edwin Bacon, of the 
Centre for Russian and East European Studies in Birmingham, makes the following
observation:
Of interest then is the extent to which lessons have been learnt by 
the Russian military from the experience of Afghanistan…An interesting 
paradox is that although in numerical terms Soviet Afghan veterans 
(afgantsy) apparently showed little interest in high office, being not just 
politically apathetic on a par with the population at large but ‘abnormally 
passive,’ the minority who did rise to post-war prominence have loomed 
large on the political and military stage in Russia. Generals Lebed and 
Gromov and Yeltsin’s loyal Defense Minister Grachev stand out amongst 
them…However, the fact that Grachev bears primary responsibility for the 
clumsy and ineffective tactics used in Chechnya since 1994 raises 
questions about how far Afghanistan’s lessons have been learnt on the 
ground, as opposed to on paper.77
Further, many of the more senior and experienced officers with this experience and/or 
knowledge left the military on account of the decision to invade Chechnya, creating a 
significant drain of practical combat experience. The drain of experienced military 
personnel left the attack in the hands of very young officers, and made it necessary to 
send many fresh conscripts with very little training to the front. Nonsensically, soldiers 
frequently carried with them advanced equipment that they had not been trained to use.
78
 
 
76 Olga Oliker, Russia’s Chechen Wars: 1994-2000.
77 Edwin Bacon, “Afghanistan,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1996, p.299.
78 Mukhin, “Every other youth had no training,” Nezabisimaya Gazeta, No. 61, April 5, 2000.
42
Also due to a lack of experience, Russian military leaders did not comprehend the 
difficulties of the logistics of fighting in an urban setting and of transporting men and 
equipment across the Caucasus Mountains. The planners assumed that that the initial and 
most substantial fighting would take place at the outskirts of the city, on relatively open 
(and dry) land, against a conventional force, and that the inner city fighting would 
amount to cleaning up against stragglers. When the bulk of the fighting ended up 
occurring deep within the city and it became necessary to transport supplies well within 
“enemy” territory, unarmored trucks proved entirely insufficient to the task. In order to 
get food and ammunition where it needed to go it was necessary to use armored vehicles, 
which had to make several trips for each one that a truck could make, and kept those 
armored vehicles out of combat where they were equally needed and intended to be used. 
Russian forces also had difficulties getting men and supplies to Grozny. Heavy ground 
vehicles became bogged down outside the city when the ground thawed. Due to the 
Chechen forces’ possession of anti-aircraft guns, aircraft had to drop their resupply loads 
outside of the city.
While the Chechen arsenal paled in comparison to what was materially available 
to the Russian forces, it was still greater than Moscow had expected. The most 
significant weakness in Dudaev’s arsenal was his lack of air support. Initially, Dudaev 
had approximately 266 aircraft at his disposal, although 40 percent were inoperable and 
the rest were grounded due to the fact that the Chechens lacked skilled pilots to fly 
43
them.79 Even these quickly became irrelevant, as Russia’s initial air raids destroyed 
virtually all of them. However, while the aircraft left behind by the Soviet army and air 
force (at least 80 L-29 Delin combat trainers, 39 L-39 Albatros, 3 MiG-17 fighters, 2 
Mig-15 UTIs, 6 An-2 helicopters, and 2 Mi-8 helicopters80) had little potential value to 
Dudaev in the context of urban combat, it was politically significant in Russia, and 
damaged Grachev’s image in the war overall by appearing as if the Russian military 
inadvertently armed the enemy as they fled the region.81
Chechnya’s air defense was a different matter. General Dudaev (a former Soviet 
air defense commander) knew exactly what he was doing when he trained his forces in 
this regard, and was cognizant of the requirements and limitations of both his 
environment and his enemy.82
 Chechnya’s air defense arsenal consisted of ZU-23 mobile 
antiaircraft launchers and DShK machine guns mounted on Cherokee Jeeps and Toyota 
off-road vehicles. Russian reports also stated they used ZSU-23/4 Shilka antiaircraft 
systems, Strela-3, Igla-1, and Stinger SAM systems, and RPG-7 portable antitank 
grenade launchers against low-flying aircraft.83
 Also, in addition to the arsenal left 
behind by Grachev, several reports indicated that Dudaev received weapons from 
 
79 O. Shapovalov, “General Dudaev: The Caucasus Underneath Me,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, January 23, 
1992.
80 (FBIS-UMA-96-216-S; Vladimir Georgiyevich Mukhin, “Military Lessons of the Chechen Campaign: Part 
One,” Nezavisimoe Voyennoye Obozreniye, no. 18 (22), September 26, 1996, from Timothy L. Thomas, “Air 
Operations in Low Intensity Conflict: The Case of Chechnya,” Airpower Journal, Winter 1997).
81 “An order came from Moscow: Leave the Arms,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, Januare 21, 1995, p.2.
82 Olga Oliker, Russia’s Chechen Wars: 1994-2000; Timothy L. Thomas, “The Russian Armed Forces 
Confront Chechnya: I. Military-Political Aspects, 11-31 December 1994,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 
Vol. 8, No. 2, June 1995, pp. 233-256; Stasys Knezys and Romanas Sedlickas, The War in Chechnya.
83 Colonel Anatoly Surtskov and Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Prokopenko, “A Shooting Sky: How Many Years 
Now Has It Tested the Mettle of Ground Forces’ Helicopter Pilots?,” Krasnaya Zvezda, July 18, 1995.
44
contacts in Georgia and possibly Turkey.84
 While Chechnya did not have an air force, 
the urban and mountainous nature of the theater severely hampered Russian airpower, 
and Dudaev’s substantial air defense arsenal effectively rendered the Russian Air Force 
almost entirely ineffective after the initial air strike.85
In the organization of his troops, Dudaev utilized well the advantage of defending 
an urban area. While Dudaev did not state if either his experience in Afghanistan or his 
knowledge of Chechen history had any significant impact on his military structure, 
veterans of the war noticed correlations, and two things can be reasonably concluded, if 
not proven: his organization closely resembled the historical organization of mountain 
Caucasians (when social and military hierarchies overlapped), and it successfully 
exploited the weaknesses of the Russian forces in the Caucasian theater.86
 The 
foundational combat unit under Dudaev was a very small cell of 3-4 fighters, with 
specific duties assigned to each (anti-tank gunner, machine gunner, and a sniper). Similar 
to the forces recruited by the imam Shamil, these cells organized themselves based on 
preexisting associations. Unlike Shamil, Dudaev’s commanders organized these cells 
into squads of 5-6 cells, giving the squads under Dudaev a more centralized hierarchy 
than those under Shamil.87
 
 
84 Bespalov and Yakov, “Who is arming Dudaev?” Izvestya, July 7, 1995; Elmar Guseinov, Gennadii
Charodeev, “Turkish Chechens tell us, that Dudaev lives...” Izvestya, August 24, 1996; A. Kapkin, “A few 
questions on the tactics of irregular warfare in the Chechen Republic,” Voyskovoy vestnik, vol. 4, 1995. 
85 P.P. Potapov, Irregular Warfare in the Caucasus, стр. 72-75; Benjamin S. Lambeth, Russia’s Air Power at
the Crossroads (RAND, 1996).
86 “Chechen War, Excerpts from Federal Law ‘On Veterans,’" http://www.warchechnya.ru.
87 Pavel Milyukov and Konstantin Yauk, Storm of Grozny: January ‘95 (Publisher OAO, Yaroslavl, 2010); 
Oleg Blotskii, “Chechen Captive http://www.warchechnya.ru; “Snipers of the Chechen War,” 
http://www.warchechnya.ru; Theodore Karasik, “Chechen Clan Military Tactics and Russian Warfare,” 
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, March 15, 2000.
45
Most coordination occurred within a squad, but in November and December 
1994, multiple squads coordinated with each other. When a squad engaged an armored 
Russian combat group, it dispersed itself around the convoy and communicated via 
simple Motorola handheld radios.
88
 The snipers, positioned both high in the buildings 
and in the basements, pinned down the infantry while the anti-tank gunners attacked the 
armored units. The machine gunners provided assistance wherever needed. Although the 
teams were very small, their diversity and suitability to urban combat proved 
exceptionally effective against the Russians’ reliance on awkward and slow armored 
groups.
The greatest difference between the two forces in technology and materiel was 
less the weaponry itself and more that the Chechen forces received better training in the 
use of their equipment, specifically oriented toward that which better suited the theater of 
combat. Dudaev personally oversaw this training and carried credit for its success. 
Yeltsin, on the other hand, had no personal military experience and disregarded the 
advice of those who did. General Lebed and Colonel General Shustko, the commander of 
the North Caucasian Military District from 1987 to 1993, each warned Yeltsin that 
invading Chechnya would not be a simple “restoration of constitutional order,” and that 
military intervention would be a long, complicated, and expensive endeavor.89
 Grachev, 
for unknown reasons, contributed little of benefit; as Grachev was deploying forces to 
Mozdok, Generals Beslan and Vladikavkaz publically berated his move as reckless, 
 
88 It is interesting to note that, while each side had the capability to eavesdrop on the communications of 
the other, the Chechens spoke Russian and could make use of what they heard, but the Russians could 
not understand Chechen, making their own eavesdropping useless.
89 Yuri Dmitryev, “Interview with General Lebed: Two Questions to General Lebed,” Trud, December 16, 
1994. 
46
claiming he turned a deaf ear to military advice for political reasons.90
 When Russian 
forces invaded Chechnya in December 1994, with the same tactics and force composition 
as in the failed November coup, Dudaev’s tactics again proved sufficient to repel the 
stronger, yet inappropriate, Russian tactics and arsenal.