Lessons Learned From Russia’s Battles With Ethnic Militants Chechnya To The Moscow Theater Incident

13 Pages 3176 Words

e, and jihad arose. In 1988 Rhetoric turned to jihad in the badlands of Afghanistan.

The Soviet military and Interior Ministry troops were completely unprepared for the level of viciousness unleashed upon them by Muslim fanatics; and the slaughter which ensued demanded a complete rethinking of how Russia fights war – especially urban asymmetric warfare.

Russia fought two major campaigns in Chechnya, 1994 and 2000, and is currently preparing to engage jihadi militants a third time. The first campaign in 1994 was nothing short of a disaster. The poor performance of Russian troops, their leaders in the field, their equipment, and the total lack of an effective media relations campaign, resulted in a loss of public support and a serious negative effect on the morale of its entire army. To make matters worse their seemed to be a total loss of memory among military leaders by the time the second war erupted in 2000. It was as though they had not retained anything from their first campaign and had to learn the lessons all over again, with t...