Presented by Russian author and attorney Ilya Milyukov, Chronicles of the First and Second Chechen War presents the main events of the First (1994-1996) and Second (1999-2009) Wars in Chechnya, Russia's deadliest conflicts since World War II.The First War began in December 1994 and lasted for one year and nine months, ending in August 1996. There were two major urban battles - the Battle of the Chechen capital of Grozny from December 1994 to March 1995 and the Battle of Grozny in August 1996 - and two major battles in the rural areas, the Russian offensive in the Southern Chechnya in May and June 1995, and fighting in the foothills part of the Republic from February to May 1996.The Second War began in August 1999 and lasted much longer - until mid-April 2009, for almost ten years. It also included a major urban battle, and it again occurred in New Year's Eve - the Battle of Grozny in December 1999 - February 2000. There was also a major battle in the countryside - the Battle for the village of Komsomolskoye, located in Urus-Martanovsky District, in March 2000. And there were also two large attacks outside Chechnya -in Moscow in October 2002, and in the North Ossetian town of Beslan in September 2004. During these war, Russian federal troops took heavy losses, while the number of civilian deaths reached nearly 400,000 people.Milyukov's expert and meticulous chronicle lists the major events of these conflicts soberly and without editorial comment to document their events in all their brutality and horror.

An examination of the difficulties faced by the Russian military in planningand carrying out urban operations in Chechnya.Russian and rebel military forces fought to control the Chechen city ofGrozny in the winters of 1994-1995 and 1999-2000, as well as clashing insmaller towns and villages. The author examines both Russian and rebeltactics and operations in those battles, focusing on how and why thecombatants' approaches changed over time. The study concludes that whilethe Russian military was able to significantly improve its ability to carryout a number of key tasks in the five-year interval between the wars, otherimportant missions--particularly in the urban realm--were ignored, largelyin the belief that the urban mission could be avoided. This consciousdecision not to prepare for a most stressful battlefield met withdevastating results, a lesson the United States would be well served tostudy.

A riveting history of Russia's crimes in Chechnya Terror in Chechnya is the definitive account of Russian war crimes in Chechnya. Emma Gilligan provides a comprehensive history of the second Chechen conflict of 1999 to 2005, revealing one of the most appalling human rights catastrophes of the modern era—one that has yet to be fully acknowledged by the international community. Drawing upon eyewitness testimony and interviews with refugees and key political and humanitarian figures, Gilligan tells for the first time the full story of the Russian military's systematic use of torture, disappearances, executions, and other punitive tactics against the Chechen population. In Terror in Chechnya, Gilligan challenges Russian claims that civilian casualties in Chechnya were an unavoidable consequence of civil war. She argues that racism and nationalism were substantial factors in Russia's second war against the Chechens and the resulting refugee crisis. She does not ignore the war crimes committed by Chechen separatists and pro-Moscow forces. Gilligan traces the radicalization of Chechen fighters and sheds light on the Dubrovka and Beslan hostage crises, demonstrating how they undermined the separatist movement and in turn contributed to racial hatred against Chechens in Moscow. A haunting testament of modern-day crimes against humanity, Terror in Chechnya also looks at the international response to the conflict, focusing on Europe's humanitarian and human rights efforts inside Chechnya.

A visceral and unflinching memoir of a young Russian soldier’s experience in the Chechen wars. In 1995, Arkady Babchenko was an eighteen-year-old law student in Moscow when he was drafted into the Russian army and sent to Chechnya. It was the beginning of a torturous journey from naïve conscript to hardened soldier that took Babchenko from the front lines of the first Chechen War in 1995 to the second in 1999. He fought in major cities and tiny hamlets, from the bombed-out streets of Grozny to anonymous mountain villages. Babchenko takes the raw and mundane realities of war the constant cold, hunger, exhaustion, filth, and terror and twists it into compelling, haunting, and eerily elegant prose. Acclaimed by reviewers around the world, this is a devastating first-person account of war that brilliantly captures the fear, drudgery, chaos, and brutality of modern combat. An excerpt of One Soldier’s War was hailed by Tibor Fisher in The Guardian as “right up there with Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Michael Herr’s Dispatches.” Mark Bowden, bestselling author of Black Hawk Down, hailed it as “hypnotic and terrifying” and the book won Russia’s inaugural Debut Prize, which recognizes authors who write despite, not because of, their life circumstances. “If you haven’t yet learned that war is hell, this memoir by a young Russian recruit in his country’s battle with the breakaway republic of Chechnya, should easily convince you.” —Publishers Weekly

Chechnya Diary is a story about "the story" of the war in Chechnya, the "rogue republic" that attempted to secede from the Russian Federation at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Specifically, it is the story of the Samashki Massacre, a symbol of the Russian brutality that was employed to crush Chechen resistance. Thomas Goltz is a member of the exclusive journalistic cadre of compulsive, danger-addicted voyeurs who court death to get the story. But in addition to providing a tour through the convoluted Soviet and then post-Soviet nationalities policy that led to the bloodbath in Chechnya, Chechnya Diary is part of a larger exploration of the role (and impact) of the media in conflict areas. And at its heart, Chechnya Diary is the story of Hussein, the leader of the local resistance in the small town that bears the brunt of the massacre as it is drawn into war. This is a deeply personal book, a first person narrative that reads like an adventure but addresses larger theoretical issues ranging from the history of ethnic/nationalities in the USSR and the Russian Federation to journalistic responsibility in crisis zones. Chechnya Diary is a crossover work that offers both the historical context and a ground-level view of a complex and brutal war.

In Chechnya: The Inside Story author Mairbek Vatchagaev chronicles the dramatic events that took place in Chechnya during the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Engaged on one side of the Russian-Chechen conflict, he presents what he witnessed, how he became involved, how the struggle with Russia and the internal Chechen rivalries evolved, and how it impacted his family, his friends, his acquaintances, and the Chechen people.

Chechnya, a 6,000-square-mile corner of the northern Caucasus, has struggled under Russian domination for centuries. The region declared its independence in 1991, leading to a brutal war, Russian withdrawal, and subsequent "governance" by bandits and warlords. A series of apartment building attacks in Moscow in 1999, allegedly orchestrated by a rebel faction, reignited the war, which continues to rage today. Russia has gone to great lengths to keep journalists from reporting on the conflict; consequently, few people outside the region understand its scale and the atrocities—described by eyewitnesses as comparable to those discovered in Bosnia—committed there. Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the liberal Moscow newspaper Novaya gazeta, was the only journalist to have constant access to the region. Her international stature and reputation for honesty among the Chechens allowed her to continue to report to the world the brutal tactics of Russia's leaders used to quell the uprisings. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya is her second book on this bloody and prolonged war. More than a collection of articles and columns, A Small Corner of Hell offers a rare insider's view of life in Chechnya over the past years. Centered on stories of those caught-literally-in the crossfire of the conflict, her book recounts the horrors of living in the midst of the war, examines how the war has affected Russian society, and takes a hard look at how people on both sides are profiting from it, from the guards who accept bribes from Chechens out after curfew to the United Nations. Politkovskaya's unflinching honesty and her courage in speaking truth to power combine here to produce a powerful account of what is acknowledged as one of the most dangerous and least understood conflicts on the planet. Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated in Moscow on October 7, 2006. "The murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya leaves a terrible silence in Russia and an information void about a dark realm that we need to know more about. No one else reported as she did on the Russian north Caucasus and the abuse of human rights there. Her reports made for difficult reading—and Politkovskaya only got where she did by being one of life's difficult people."—Thomas de Waal, Guardian