Khasavyurt agreements. How it was Who signed the Khasavyurt agreements
The First Chechen War is underway. From August 6 to August 14, 1996, Chechen fighters stormed the city of Grozny. After the separatists are blocked in the city by federal forces, the liberal opposition forces B. Yeltsin and General A. Lebed to sit down at the negotiating table with the militants.
August 28, 1996 - according to the agreement of August 22, the federals and militant groups leave Grozny, units of the joint commandant's offices enter the city.
On August 31, negotiations between General Lebed and Maskhadov ended with the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements. The war officially ended with the signing of a treaty humiliating for Russia.
On August 7, 1999, a massive invasion of militants into Dagestan was carried out from the territory of Chechnya under the overall command of Shamil Basayev and the Arab mercenary Khattab.
By the end of September, the country's leadership was faced with the need to send troops to the Chechen Republic and the beginning of the Second Chechen War.
August 1999 was the prologue to the tragic September: the country is shaken by a series of terrorist attacks - explosions of residential buildings in Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk. About 300 people died as a result of the attacks.
"I responsibly declare: there will be no second Khasavyurt." Vladimir Putin uttered these words at a meeting with representatives of Chechen business and the Chechen public in the Kremlin on November 10, 2002. They contain a new understanding of the problem, the scale of which is much larger than the scale of the Chechen Republic.
General Lebed was once popular among the people.
In June 1996, Alexander Ivanovich took an honorable third place in the first round of the presidential election, losing to Gennady Zyuganov and Boris Yeltsin. However, he then suddenly abandoned his claims to the Kremlin throne, withdrawing his candidacy in favor of Yeltsin. In return, the general received the post of secretary of the Security Council and full carte blanche in settling the Chechen war.
Boris Berezovsky was a great friend of the Chechen fighters and the inspirer of the Khasavyurt peace.
Berezovsky continues to insist on the rights of Chechen fighters. It is worth recalling his fraternization with "Chechen associates" during the conclusion of the Khasavyurt peace. The Russian army regarded Berezovsky's "peacekeeping" efforts as a betrayal.
England has always been very loyal to the armed supporters of the idea of Chechen independence. Congresses and public speeches of separatist leaders were held in London. London refused to extradite Akhmed Zakayev. London finally gave shelter to Boris Berezovsky.
A number of conclusions later confirmed that the funds allocated at that time for the restoration of Chechnya went to finance the armed formations of the separatists, allowed them to regroup and start a new war against the civilian population of Russia.
The Khasavyurt peace became a disgrace to Russia and split the society.
http://www.dni.ru/polit/2005/7/8/66325.html
Thank God, Chechnya is now being restored and rebuilt. And its people want peace on their land as part of Russia.
Amen.
P.S.
By the way, an interesting photo ... April 2011.
it's about freedom of choice and decency, hehe...
On August 31, 1996, in Khasavyurt, a Dagestan regional center on the border with Chechnya, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Alexander Lebed and Chief of Staff of Chechen militants Aslan Maskhadov signed documents that put an end to the first Chechen war - the Khasavyurt agreements. Hostilities were stopped, federal troops were withdrawn from Chechnya, and the issue of the status of the territory was postponed until December 31, 2001.
In the fall of 1991, the leadership of Chechnya declared state sovereignty and the republic's secession from the RSFSR and the USSR. Over the next three years, authorities in Chechnya were dissolved, the laws of the Russian Federation were repealed, the formation of the armed forces of Chechnya began, headed by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, President of the Republic, General of the Soviet Army Dzhokhar Dudayev.
(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing. Moscow. In 8 volumes 2004. ISBN 5 203 01875 - 8)
On December 9, 1994, Yeltsin signed a decree "On Measures to Suppress the Activities of Illegal Armed Groups on the Territory of the Chechen Republic and in the Zone of the Ossetian-Ingush Conflict." On December 11, when Russian troops crossed the administrative border with the Chechen Republic, an operation began to restore constitutional order in Chechnya.
Military operations in the republic continued for about two years.
Losses of the federal forces in the first Chechen war amounted, according to official figures, to 4,103 thousand killed, 1,906 thousand missing, 19,794 thousand wounded.
After two years of hostilities, terrorist attacks, militant raids, and after the death of Chechen President Dudayev, the Khasavyurt agreements were signed.
The signing of the Khasavyurt Accords took place a month after the presidential elections, which were won by the incumbent President Boris Yeltsin.
The signatures under the Khasavyurt peace were put by the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Alexander Lebed and the chief of staff of the armed formations of the separatists Aslan Maskhadov, the signing ceremony was attended by the head of the OSCE Assistance Group in the Chechen Republic Tim Guldiman.
The documents indicated the principles for determining the foundations of relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic. The parties pledged not to resort to the use of force or the threat of force, and also to proceed from the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The key points of the settlement were contained in a special protocol. Chief among them is the "postponed status" provision: the question of Chechnya's status was to be resolved by December 31, 2001. A joint commission of representatives of the state authorities of Russia and Chechnya was supposed to deal with operational problems. The tasks of the commission, in particular, included monitoring the implementation of Boris Yeltsin's decree on the withdrawal of troops, preparing proposals for restoring monetary, financial and budgetary relations between Moscow and Grozny, as well as programs for restoring the republic's economy.
After the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements, Chechnya became de facto an independent state, but de jure - a state not recognized by any country in the world (including Russia).
In October 1996, the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution "On the situation in the Chechen Republic", according to which the documents signed on August 31, 1996 in the city of Khasavyurt were considered "evidence of the readiness of the parties to resolve the conflict peacefully, having no state legal significance."
93 State Duma deputies submitted a request to the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of the Khasavyurt agreements. In December 1996, the Constitutional Court refused to accept for consideration the request of a group of deputies due to the lack of jurisdiction of the issues raised in it to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.
The Khasavyurt Accords and the signing of the Treaty “On Peace and Principles of Relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria”, which was signed by Boris Yeltsin and Aslan Maskhadov, in May 1997, did not lead to stabilization of the situation in the region. After the withdrawal of Russian armed forces in Chechnya, an interwar crisis began: destroyed houses and villages were not restored, due to ethnic cleansing and hostilities, almost the entire non-Chechen population left Chechnya or was physically destroyed.
In 1999, the Chechen armed formations invaded Dagestan, after which both sides finally ceased to comply with the provisions of the Khasavyurt agreements. The second Chechen campaign began. A counter-terrorist operation regime was introduced in the republic, which lasted almost 10 years and was canceled only on April 16, 2009.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries, they are inclined to believe that the adoption of a decision on this truce was erroneous for the Russian side - the Khasavyurt agreements gave the Chechen separatists an opportunity to rest and accumulate forces and means for further military operations.
An unquenchable hotbed of conflict
In the first Chechen campaign, the federal troops were placed in deliberately unfavorable conditions for themselves - the militants were supported by a significant part of the population of the rebellious republic, they were well versed in the mountainous terrain familiar to them and waged a largely successful guerrilla war. The liquidation of the first president of the self-proclaimed Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev, did not change the situation - the clashes continued, and the federal authorities realized that this bloody conflict could turn out to be protracted. The Kremlin made attempts to negotiate with the leadership of the militants, but these truces each time turned out to be short-lived. The situation was complicated by the fact that "illegal armed gangs" regularly received assistance from abroad - with weapons, money, mercenaries. At the end of the summer of 1996, the separatists recaptured Grozny from the federals, and such strategically important settlements of Chechnya as Argun and Gudermes also came under the control of the militants.
Chechnya was in fact recognized as independent
It was these strategic losses of the federal troops, according to some experts, that served as the reason for the conclusion of the Khasavyurt peace agreement, signed at the end of August of the same year. The treaty was signed by the then Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Alexander Lebed, and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, the future unrecognized president of rebellious Chechnya. The agreement included clauses on the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of the republic, on the resumption of economic relations with Russia (in fact, financing of Chechnya from the center). The main thing in this agreement was what was spelled out between the lines: Russia's de facto recognition of Chechnya's independence. Although the consideration of this issue from a legal point of view was formally postponed until the full restoration of Chechnya after the war.
Useless treaty
In essence, the legal aspects of this agreement were never respected by the Chechen side during the period of the agreement - it was drawn up in such a way that the main obligations were imposed on Russia. The main one is the full provision of the destroyed republic. In addition, a dangerous precedent was being created, on the basis of which the rest of the North Caucasian republics could also present their rights to autonomy. Some deputies of the State Duma tried to check the agreement for compliance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, but the Constitutional Court of Russia did not consider this appeal. With the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements, the situation in Chechnya only worsened: Islamic extremists rapidly expanded their territory of influence, human trafficking flourished in the republic, cases of hostage-taking became more frequent, and facts of cruel oppression of the Russian-speaking population. No one was going to restore the infrastructure of Chechnya, and because of ethnic cleansing, everyone who did not belong to the Chechen nation was in a hurry to leave the republic. Such "sluggish schizophrenia" continued until the attack of gangs on Dagestan in 1999. The second Chechen campaign began, this North Caucasian region this time stayed in the counter-terrorist operation regime for 8 years, until 2009. The Russian authorities realized that the only way to fight the militants was by force, not agreeing to their terms.
On August 31, 1996, in Khasavyurt, representatives of the Russian Federation and the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) signed a document on the cessation of hostilities.
What started the war
The conflict between the Russian authorities and Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev began after the collapse of the USSR and escalated in the summer of 1994, when the Russian special services began to actively support the local opposition. The peak of this activity was the unsuccessful assault on Grozny on November 26, 1994. On December 11 of the same year, by decision of President Boris Yeltsin, troops began to enter Chechnya in order to "ensure law, order and public safety on the territory of the republic."
What preceded the settlement
Despite some successes of the federal forces in early 1996 (liquidation of Dzhokhar Dudayev, capture of the settlements of Goiskoye, Stary Achkhoy, Bamut, Shali), the war began to take on a protracted character. On the eve of the presidential elections, Moscow entered into negotiations with the militants. On June 10, an agreement was reached in Nazran on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya (with the exception of two brigades), and the disarmament of separatist detachments. However, fighting resumed after the elections.
From August 6 to 22, the militant detachments carried out Operation Jihad, as a result of which they managed to occupy Grozny, Gudermes and Argun.
Who signed the agreements
On August 31, 1996, the Khasavyurt agreements were signed in Dagestan. In the presence of the head of the OSCE Assistance Group in Chechnya, Tim Guldiman, Secretary of the RF Security Council Alexander Lebed and Head of the CRI Armed Forces Headquarters Aslan Maskhadov put their signatures. The signing was also attended by Alexander Lebed's deputy Sergey Kharlamov and CRI vice-president Said-Khasan Abumuslimov.
What was agreed
The parties agreed to renounce the use of force and withdraw Russian troops. Until October, they planned to create a commission to prepare joint measures to combat terrorism and crime, proposals for restoring financial and budgetary relations, and a program to restore the socio-economic complex of Chechnya. The main issue - the status of Ichkeria - was postponed until December 31, 2001.
Views on agreements divided
The signing of the Khasavyurt Accords divided Russian society. Among those who supported the end of hostilities were the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and General Lev Rokhlin. However, many, including the Russian military leadership, believed that this step was not necessary.
Alexander Lebed, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation:
If this massacre is not stopped, we will come not only to a new Caucasian war... As for the status of the republic, I consider it reasonable to postpone this issue.
Konstantin Pulikovsky, Commander of the United Group of Federal Forces in Chechnya:
As you know, the Kremlin suddenly blew the all-clear, Lebed arrived and signed a peace agreement. I am convinced that if we had been allowed to close the ring then, there would not have been a second Chechen campaign and thousands of Russian guys would have remained alive.
How the Khasavyurt agreements were respected
On October 3, 1996, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, head of the CRI, visited Moscow. As a result of the visit, decisions were made to resume funding for the republic and complete the withdrawal of troops. On November 23, Aslan Maskhadov and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin signed an agreement on the principles of relations between the federal center and the Chechen Republic. However, in the same year, the Criminal Code was introduced in Chechnya, based on the principles of Sharia.
In 1997, a group of Chechen fighters attacked the Dagestan city of Buynaksk. And in August 1999, militants led by Shamil Basayev and Khattab invaded Dagestan, which marked the beginning of the second Chechen war.
According to the Russian Ministry of Nationalities Affairs, more than 21,000 Russians were killed in Chechnya between 1991 and 1999, not counting those who died in the course of hostilities.
The fate of the signatories
Alexander Lebed. On October 17, 1996, he was relieved of his duties as Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and Assistant to the President for National Security. In May 1998 he was elected governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. He died on April 28, 2002 in the crash of a Mi-8 helicopter in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Aslan Maskhadov. October 17, 1996 headed the coalition government of Chechnya. In January 1997 he was elected president of Chechnya. In the spring of 1999, he introduced Sharia rule in Chechnya. In August 1999, he first condemned the actions of Shamil Basayev and Khattab, who attacked Dagestan, but then led the armed resistance to the Russian authorities. In March 2000, he was put on the federal wanted list, and in 2002 - on the international wanted list. Destroyed during a special operation in Chechnya on March 8, 2005.
08/30/2016 | Sergei Markedonov
Twenty years ago, on August 31, 1996, the "Principles for determining the foundations of relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic" were announced in Khasavyurt, Dagestan. They entered the post-Soviet history of Russia as the Khasavyurt agreements. And for several years, until the beginning of the second anti-separatist campaign in Chechnya, these agreements became a symbol of national defeat, a kind of analogue of the notorious Brest Peace.
This year for Russia as a whole and for the North Caucasus in particular is rich in significant anniversaries. Twenty-five years ago, almost immediately after the failure of the State Emergency Committee in Chechnya, there was a transfer of power from the republican Supreme Council to the National Congress of the Chechen People (OKChN), which subsequently predetermined the formation of an unrecognized separatist entity and the split of Chechen-Ingushetia into two separate entities. Five years later, filled with intra-Chechen confrontation, a brutal military confrontation between the unrecognized Ichkeria and the federal center, Khasavyurt happened. He completed the first failed campaign to restore the territorial integrity of post-Soviet Russia within the borders of the RSFSR. And in fact, it became a prologue to the second attempt to "collect the Russian Federation." To what extent are the events of twenty years ago relevant today? What lessons have been learned from them or, on the contrary, turned out to be insufficiently studied?
Today's official view of the post-Soviet history of Chechnya can be described in several theses. This is a classic example of the chaos of the "turbulent 1990s" and evidence of the subsequent strengthening of Russian statehood under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin and head of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov.
This version is supported by the fact that Chechnya is the only unrecognized entity that broke away from the newly independent post-Soviet states, which was returned under the control of the central authorities. And it was not just returned, but turned into a showcase of exemplary loyalty to the center. Ramzan Kadyrov publicly called himself "Putin's infantryman." The republic under his leadership has become an important political symbol for the head of the Russian state. Its authorities demonstrate support not only for the Kremlin’s domestic political undertakings (and sometimes they try to take the initiative to get ahead of the center and offer ideas that Moscow, for one reason or another, is unwilling or unable to voice), but also to the foreign policy of the Russian Federation. At the same time, Grozny has become a kind of additional resource for Russia in the Middle East.
Kadyrov is known for his tough management style. However, even his critics do not deny that he has a certain resource of popularity and popular support. By the way, he turned out to be the only leader in the North Caucasus who did not follow the path beaten by his neighbors and spoke in favor of the procedure for the popular election of the head of a subject of the Federation.
At the same time, this, at first glance, flawless scheme does not take into account important nuances, which is why it suffers from a certain simplification. Let's start with the fact that the separatist project in Chechnya was not something that developed in a political vacuum. The appearance of Ichkeria in August 1991 is not some kind of man-made chaos (although it is impossible to deny the career aspirations of individual characters, both at the local and at the all-Russian level at that time), but a systemic problem, part of the general process of the collapse of the USSR. It must be considered in the context of the “rebellion of the autonomies” against the union republics, although in each specific case (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh) there were specific features for speaking out against the center.
The genesis of Chechen post-Soviet separatism is a topic that requires a separate study. Let us only note that in determining its root causes, one should look not so much for the echoes of the Caucasian War and Stalin's deportation, but for the collapse of the Soviet economic system and such a by-product of it as seasonal crafts (“shabashism”), which led to the appearance in Chechnya of a large number of labor surplus population. People who are ready to perceive the ideas of sovereignization in the literal sense and who do not understand the logic of the collapse of the USSR only within the strict framework of the Belovezhskaya precepts.
At the same time, fair criticism of the center for the passivity shown in the early 1990s must take into account certain circumstances of fundamental importance. First, Moscow observed instability and conflicts in proclaimed Ichkeria. The entry of Russian army and military-police units into the republic in December 1994 did not signify a violation of the peaceful life of Chechnya. The first blood was shed long before that. The republic survived the confrontation between the president and the city authorities of Grozny, the executive and representative authorities, and faced "reciprocal separatism." So, the Nadterechny region of Chechnya became a kind of Vendee for the unrecognized state, born of the "Chechen revolution" of 1991. Consequently, there were hopes that the separatist project itself would fizzle out sooner or later. Secondly, it is high time to refute the myth that in 1991-1994 no one from the federal center worked with Dzhokhar Dudayev. Negotiations were held with him on many formats (presidential, parliamentary), and in 1991-1993. he received from Moscow 11 different options for the delimitation of powers with the federal government!
Moscow and Grozny came closest to reaching a compromise in April 1994, when the federal president instructed the government to prepare a draft treaty similar to the "Tatarstan model." Meanwhile, this model (based on the Treaty between Moscow and Kazan of February 15, 1994) gave the republic such rights as jointly with the federal center the solution of issues related to the "economic, environmental and other features" of the subject of the Federation, and in particular, with "long-term exploitation of oil fields". The authorities of the republic also received the right to provide state support to compatriots and issue passports to citizens living on the territory of the republic with an insert in the Tatar language and depicting the coat of arms of the republic. For contenders for the post of president of the republic, an additional requirement was introduced: he must speak two state languages of the republic, Russian and Tatar. But even such broad powers did not receive support in Grozny.
The first anti-separatist campaign of 1994-1996 ended in a heavy defeat for Russia, not so much a military one as a political and psychological one. The author of this article has repeatedly heard from the lips of Georgian, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, Armenian diplomats words about the shock experienced twenty years ago. Khasavyurt drew a peculiar line under the first series of wars for the Soviet inheritance, the main consequence of which was the “freezing” of armed ethno-political confrontations and the institutionalization of de facto formations.
Be that as it may, after August 31, 1996, Chechnya received a "deferred status". Thus, in the North Caucasus, Russia showed a fundamentally different approach from those demonstrated by Baku, Tbilisi, Chisinau. Not a single de facto state that emerged as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, be it Abkhazia or Nagorno-Karabakh, received even a theoretical opportunity to implement its national-state project. Meanwhile, paragraph one of the Khasavyurt "Principles" proclaimed that the foundations of relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic would be determined in accordance with the generally recognized principles and norms of international law until December 31, 2001. Note that the Agreement of twenty years ago did not close the secession for Ichkeria. The third paragraph, which defines the foundations of Chechen legislation (“on observance of human and civil rights, the right of peoples to self-determination, the principles of equality of peoples, ensuring civil peace, interethnic harmony ...”) did not contain a word about Russia, as well as its statehood.
Such an idea (not to mention practice) would lead to the immediate resignation of any official in the structures of the Georgian or Azerbaijani authorities. And it is not Moscow's fault (at least, it is not a direct fault) that state building in Ichkeria failed. This is how the well-known British expert on Eurasian issues, Anatol Lieven, assessed this situation: “After Chechnya was granted de facto independence in 1996, the local government was unable to keep the situation under control. A wave of abductions and other crimes against Russian citizens swept through the republic and the North Caucasus as a whole, in Chechnya the positions of forces that publicly advocated unleashing a religious war against Russia and further dismembering Russian territory were strengthened .... In this situation, Russia undoubtedly had a legitimate right to strike back.”
Moreover, the Ichkerians, who gained de facto independence, literally from the first days of the won "deferred status" began to systematically violate the Khasavyurt agreements, predetermining the republican status unilaterally until 2001. On September 6, 1996, the Ichkeria newspaper published the Criminal Code of the Ichkerian de facto state, which abolished secular legal proceedings within Chechnya. But the most important thing is that in Ichkeria (unlike Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia or Transnistria) a capable government (albeit financially dependent on a third force) has not been formed. The “federation of field commanders” regime, which contributed to the conduct of the war of all against all, was not overcome. The champions of the ideas of so-called “pure Islam” also played their negative role, turning their anger not only against Russia, but also against local religious traditions. Having failed to ensure elementary controllability inside Chechnya, its leader Aslan Maskhadov (by the way, supported at first in this capacity by Moscow) actually played along with those militants who set themselves the task of multiplying their Khasavyurt success.
As a result, the formation of a request, even in a separatist environment, to build new relations with Moscow, based on pragmatics and the idea of potential incorporation in the Russian Federation as an "art of the possible." This largely explains the complex evolution of such figures as Akhmat Kadyrov or Magomed Khambiev. It was during the period between the two anti-separatist campaigns that the decline of the national-separatist Chechen project was predetermined, whose representatives subsequently dispersed into different (even diametrically opposed) camps. And if someone stood up under the Russian tricolor flag, and someone marginalized, turning into a professional Ichkerian - an emigrant, then someone made a bet on radical Islamism. By the way, we should not forget that the second anti-separatist campaign began a few months before the famous phrase “I'm tired, I'm leaving,” and the “Chechen” policy of the federal center of the zero years was by no means written from scratch.
According to formal criteria, today the Russian state looks like a winner. It took revenge for Khasavyurt. However, the victory over the opponents of the Russian state project only closed one set of problems, opening others, among which the most important problem remains the integration of Chechnya and the entire North Caucasus into the all-Russian space. To paraphrase the outstanding politician and diplomat of modern times, Camilo Kavur, Chechnya has remained a part of Russia, now it is necessary to form Chechen-Russians. And the solution to this problem cannot be limited to the elite level and contacts of top officials. Significant breakthroughs in this direction cannot be achieved without solidary public efforts.
– Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Regional Studies and Foreign Policy, Russian State University for the Humanities