Battle of Grozny ( November 1994 ) The November 1994 Battle of Grozny was an abortive coup d ' état attempt by Chechen opposition forces , sponsored and aided by the government of the Russian Federation , to seize the Chechen capital of Grozny and overthrow the Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev . The attack was conducted by armed formations of the Chechen opposition council with a clandestine support of Russian federal armor and aircraft on 26 November 1994 . The fighting subdued after the first 10 hours , but some clashes continued until the following day . What was supposed to be a quick black operation of regime change against the separatist government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria ( ChRI ) ended in a spectacular fiasco , prompting the government in Moscow to carry out a large - scale military invasion of the republic that began in December 1994 . Background . In the summer of 1994 the FSK ( the former KGB and future FSB ) began an active co - operation with leaders of the Chechen internal opposition against Dudayev , uniting them in a body named the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic . Forces of Umar Avturkhanov ( a former officer of the Soviet MVD ) and Beslan Gantemirov ( a former mayor of Grozny and Dudayev ' s ally - turned - enemy ) received from Moscow not only money but also training and arms , including heavy weapons . The months of August and September saw the outbreak of fighting between the opposition and Dudayev ' s forces . By this time , the opposition had established a well armed force of several hundred men , equipped with armoured vehicles and covertly backed by Russian helicopters operating from an air base at Mozdok , Republic of North Ossetia – Alania . This military campaign climaxed in an attack on Grozny on 15 – 16 October , when the militias of Gantamirov ( advancing north from the newly seized ChRI base at Gekhi ) and Ruslan Labazanov ( advancing south from Znamenskoye ) unsuccessfully attempted to take the city by a joint assault for the first time ( Labazanov alone had previously also attempted to enter Grozny on August 24 ) . Disappointed by their failures and aware of their military weakness up to and after the October assault , the Chechen opposition , aided by an ethnic - Chechen former Chairman of the State Duma , Ruslan Khasbulatov , intensified their lobbying with the FSK and Russian president Boris Yeltsin ' s staff in favour of more direct involvement on Moscow ' s part . As a result , Avturkhanov and Gantemirov , who by then had joined their militias , received all the weapons , instructors , training and media support they requested , setting the ground for the final assault . In October , Russia ' s Defense Minister General Pavel Grachev ordered the formation of a special task force of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation , led by the Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate Anatoly Kvashnin and General Leontiy Shevtsov . Active duty tank crewmen from Russia ' s elite formations in the Moscow Military District , as well as other Russian personnel such as 18 helicopter crewmen from the North Caucasus Military District , were recruited as a mercenaries , provided with fake documents and sent into Chechnya . A transport of 50 additional armored vehicles were also brought in by the FSK . The issues of recruitment ( Russian tank commanders were reportedly an equivalent of $ 1 , 500 to participate in the coup ) and transfer of weapons involved the Deputy Director of the FSK in charge of supervising the Caucasus , General Sergei Stepashin ( his emissary to Chechnya was the FSK Colonel Khromchenko ) and Russia ' s Deputy Minister for Nationalities , General Alexander Kotenkov , as well as his direct superior , Nikolai Yegorov . The attack . On 22 November , the Provisional Council began preparing their final assault on Grozny . A large group of Russian officers led Chief of General Staff , Mikhail Kolesnikov , flew from Moscow to Mozdok , and the direct supervision of combat operations was entrusted to the deputy commander of Russia ' s 8th Guards Army Corps from Volgograd , General Gennady Zhukov . A convoy of Russian armored vehicles entered the territory of Chechnya . The first clash took place 10 kilometers from the border near Tolstoi - Yurt , when a small group of Dudayev ' s supporters ambushed the convoy and disabled two tanks . On the following day , en route towards Urus - Martan , the convoy was again attacked near the settlement of Alkhan - Kala ( Yermolovka ) resulting in a loss of another tank . In spite of this , the pro - Dudayev ' s forces in Grozny have been not excepted of being capable of any organized resistance to such a large - scale attack . On the morning of 26 November , the Russian and their Chechen allies entered the capital in the motorised columns advancing from two directions , Nadterechny District and Urus - Martanovsky District , supported by several unmarked federal attack aircraft . According to Chechen commander Dalkhan Kozayev , the coup force in Grozny numbered 42 T - 72 main battle tanks , eight BTR - 80 armoured personnel carriers , various other vehicles , a number of aircraft , and more than 3 , 000 men . Russian sources give similar figures of about 40 – 42 tanks ( by one count , 14 of them manned by the Chechen opposition and the rest by Russians ) , supported from air by six helicopters and six Sukhoi Su - 27 air superiority fighters , but give much lower figures of no more than 1 , 000 – 1 , 500 allied Chechen militiamen ( including Labazanov ' s 30 remaining fighters after his militia was defeated at Argun ) . The attack was met with an improvised but fierce defense of the Chechen government forces and loyalist militias ( prominently the battle - hardened Abkhaz Battalion made of veterans of the War in Abkhazia and led by Shamil Basayev ) in the city center , including an ambush near the Chechen presidential palace and the fighting at the State Security headquarters , the railway station and the television center . Soon the assault turned into a disaster as the defenders burned or captured most of the attacking armored vehicles , capturing scores of Russian servicemen in the process ( mostly after having trapped a large group of them in Kirov Park , Leninsky district ) , and completely routed the opposition . Aftermath . This defeat was catastrophic , not only in military but also in political terms . Any Russian complicity and knowledge of the operation was at first denied by Moscow , but then acknowledged after 20 captured Russian servicemen were paraded before television cameras and Dudayev threatened to shoot them if Yelstin would not recognise his own soldiers . On 1 December , Yeltsin vowed to help the Russian prisoners , the first indirect acknowledgement of Russian involvement . A failure of the coup attempt exhausted Russia ' s means of waging war against Dudayev by proxy means and leading to launching an all out direct intervention in December 1994 . On 28 November , the Security Council of Russia met in an emergency meeting , adopting a secret decision to prepare a plan for a military operation in Chechnya within 14 days , and Russia ' s Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin called on for Yelstin to " restore the constitutional order in the Chechen Republic " . On the same day , a large air strike by the Russian military aviation eliminated every military and civilian aircraft available to Dudayev ' s government and destroyed the runways at both airfields near Grozny ( the Khankala air base and at the Grozny Airport ) . On 29 November , Yelstin gave Chechnya 48 hours to disband all " illegal armed formations " , disarm , and release all prisoners . On 10 December 1994 , tens of thousands of Russian regulars were ordered to move towards Grozny from Dagestan , Ingushetia and North Ossetia , and the First Chechen War officially began .