The Russian military stated that 291 Russian soldiers were killed in Chechnya in 2003. [1]
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. In August 1999, Islamist fighters from Chechnya infiltrated Russia's Dagestan region, violating Russia's borders. During the initial campaign, Russian military and pro-Russian Chechen paramilitary forces faced Chechen separatists in open combat and seized the Chechen capital Grozny after a winter siege that lasted from December 1999 until February 2000. Russia established direct rule over Chechnya in May 2000 although Chechen militant resistance throughout the North Caucasus region continued to inflict heavy Russian casualties and challenge Russian political control over Chechnya for several years. Both sides carried out attacks against civilians. These attacks drew international condemnation.
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev, also known by his kunya "Abu Idris", was a senior military commander in the Chechen independence movement and terrorist. As a military commander in separatist armed forces of Chechnya, one of his most notable battles was the separatist recapture of Grozny in 1996, which he personally planned and commanded together with Aslan Maskhadov.
The 1999–2000 battle of Grozny was the siege and assault of the Chechen capital Grozny by Russian forces, lasting from late 1999 to early 2000. The siege and fighting left the capital devastated. In 2003, the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on Earth. Between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians were killed during the siege, making it the bloodiest episode of the Second Chechen War.
Human rights violations were committed by the warring sides during the second war in Chechnya. Both Russian officials and Chechen rebels have been regularly and repeatedly accused of committing war crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, decapitation, and assorted other breaches of the law of war. International and humanitarian organizations, including the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, have criticized both sides of the conflict for blatant and sustained violations of international humanitarian law.
In June 2000, the North Caucasian Chechen separatist-led Chechen insurgents added suicide bombing to their tactics in their struggle against Russia. Since then, there have been dozens of suicide attacks within and outside the republic of Chechnya, resulting in thousands of casualties among Russian security personnel and civilians. The profiles of the suicide bombers have varied, as have the circumstances surrounding the bombings.
The 2000 Zhani-Vedeno ambush took place on March 29, 2000, when a mechanized column of Russian Interior Ministry troops was ambushed in the southern Vedensky District of Chechnya. As the result of the attack on the convoy and on Russian relief forces, scores of Russian special police and paramilitary troops were killed or captured. 37 OMON officers in the column and six in a relief column were killed and 11 more were taken hostage, 9 of whom were executed soon after Russian command refused to swap them for the arrested military officer Yuri Budanov.
The 2007 Zhani-Vedeno ambush occurred on 7 October when a convoy of vehicles carrying local Russian interior ministry soldiers and policemen was ambushed in the volatile Vedeno region of Chechnya. The ambush resulted in the deaths of at least four soldiers and the hospitalisation of 10 to 16. It was carried out under the command of Amir Aslambek, and was one of the deadliest attacks in several months.
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".