Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, close to the Caspian Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; with the Russian republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia-Alania to its east, north, and west; and with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.
Grozny is the capital city of Chechnya, Russia.
The Second Chechen War took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 to April 2009.
The Chechens, historically also known as Kisti and Durdzuks, are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group of the Nakh peoples native to the North Caucasus. They are the largest ethnic group of the North Caucasus and refer to themselves as Nokhchiy. The vast majority of Chechens are Muslims and live in Chechnya, a republic of Russia.
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is a Russian politician and current Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist-appointed mufti of Chechnya. He is a colonel general in the Russian military.
Said-Magomed Shamaevich Kakiyev is a colonel in the Russian Army, who was the leader of the GRU Spetsnaz Special Battalion Zapad ("West"), a Chechen military force, from 2003 to 2007. Inside Chechnya his men were sometimes referred to as the Kakievtsy. Unlike the other Chechen pro-Moscow forces in Chechnya, Kakiyev and his men are not former rebels and during the First Chechen War were some of the few Chechen militants who fought on the Russian side.
The Caucasian War or Caucasus War was a 19th-century military conflict between the Russian Empire and various peoples of the North Caucasus who resisted subjugation during the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. It consisted of a series of military actions waged by the Russian Imperial Army and Cossack settlers against the native inhabitants such as the Adyghe, Abaza–Abkhaz, Ubykhs, Chechens, and Dagestanis as the Tsars sought to expand.
Doku Khamatovich Umarov, also known as Dokka Umarov as well as by his Arabized name of Dokka Abu Umar, was a Chechen mujahid in North Caucasus. Umarov was a major military figure in both wars in Chechnya during the 1990s and 2000s, before becoming the leader of the greater insurgency in the North Caucasus. He was active mostly in south-western Chechnya, near and across the borders with Ingushetia and Georgia.
Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad were two Spetsnaz units of the GRU, the military intelligence agency of Russia, based in Chechnya. The overwhelming majority of the personnel were ethnic Chechens, while the command personnel were mixed ethnic Russians and Chechens. The Special Battalions were formed during the Second Chechen War as a force of Chechen volunteers under the direct control of the Russian government to perform operations in the mountain-forests of Chechnya. The two units operated independently from each other, with Zapad covering the western half of Chechnya and Vostok covering the eastern half, and their own commanders subordinate to the GRU but under the command network of the 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division.
The insurgency in the North Caucasus was a low-level armed conflict between Russia and militants associated with the Caucasus Emirate and, from June 2015, the Islamic State, in the North Caucasus. It followed the official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009. It attracted volunteers from the MENA region, Western Europe, and Central Asia. The Russian legislation considers the Second Chechen War and the insurgency described in this article as the same "counter-terrorist operations on the territory of the North Caucasus region".
Khuseyn Vakhaevich Gakayev, also known as Emir Mansur and Emir Hussein, was a mujahid Emir (commander) fighting in Chechnya. He was one of the most senior field commanders still operating in the North Caucasus prior to his death on 24 January 2013.
The 2010 Tsentoroy Attack was an insurgent operation carried out on the morning of 29 August 2010 by Chechen rebels in Tsentoroy, Chechnya, the home village and stronghold of pro-Moscow Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. The assault - which represented the largest and most audacious attack launched in the republic for over a year - is considered to have "shattered" the image of Kadyrov's unshakeable rule in Chechnya, as it was the first time in six years that his seemingly impregnable village had come under attack.
The Chechen–Russian conflict was the centuries-long conflict, often armed, between the Russian, Soviet and Imperial Russian governments and various Chechen forces. The recent phase of the conflict started after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and lasted until 2017.
On the early morning of August 11, 2009, the bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov were found in a car trunk on the outskirts of the Chechen Capital of Grozny. Their bodies had traces of many bullets. Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov were kidnapped a day earlier, August 10 afternoon, from their work place, the office of non-profit organization Save the Generation, located in Grozny.
Mamihan Umarov was an Austrian blogger of Chechen origin, also known as Anzor from Vienna; political emigrant. He was known as an ardent opponent and critic of Ramzan Kadyrov's activities as head of the Chechen Republic in Russia. On July 4, 2020, he was shot and killed in Vienna by a Russian agent.
The Yangulbaev case is a socio-political scandal that erupted in Russia in early 2022. Lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Abubakar Yangulbaev announced the disappearance of several dozen of his relatives in Chechnya. After that, the Chechen security forces forcibly took his mother Zarema Musayeva from Nizhny Novgorod to Grozny, where she became a defendant in a criminal case and was sent to a pre-trial detention center. Abubakar's brother, Ibragim, was put on the federal wanted list, his father and sister hastily left Russia. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said that members of the Yangulbaev family should be detained and punished, “and if they resist, then they should be destroyed as accomplices of terrorists”; he later demanded from foreign governments that the fugitives be returned to Chechnya.
Fight Club Akhmat(FCA) is a professional sports club from the Chechen Republic and has training bases in the regions of Russia. It was founded in 2014 and named after the first president of the Chechen Republic in Russia — Akhmat Kadyrov.
Magomed Salaudinovich Tushayev is a Russian Lieutenant Colonel and advisor to the Head of the Chechen Republic. He is a commander of the 141st Special Motorized Regiment (Kadyrovites).
Tumso Umaltovich Abdurakhmanov is a Chechen blogger and dissident from Chechnya. He has advocated for the independence of Chechnya on YouTube and opposes the pro-Kremlin Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.
