MCRP 12-10B.1, page 350

The recapture of Grozny was a significant loss for the Russians, precipitating a general cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Republic. Besides the military aspects of combat in Chechnya, other issues such as ethnic, cultural, and religious divides impacted upon the nature of the conflict. The Russians failed to culturally orient their troops, which resulted in many serious cultural mistakes when dealing with the Chechen civilians. Once insulted or mistreated, the Chechen civilians became active participants in the struggle against Russia. The war eventually degenerated into one of abject ferocity and brutality on both sides. The Chechens are reported to have executed Russian prisoners, decapitated bodies, and boobytrapped the dead. Russian wounded and bodies were hung upside down outside of Chechen defensive positions in buildings, causing the Russians to have to shoot through their own people to engage the Chechens. The Russians, initially hesitant to cause civilian casualties, increasingly engaged Chechen units with a growing disregard for the safety of the local populace. As Russian discipline degraded, the incidences of Russian troops engaging in looting, arson, torture, even the summary execution of civilians, rose significantly. The result was the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. 3. Lessons Learned. The intervention in Chechnya and the battles for Grozny generated many important lessons across the warfighting functions of combat in urbanized terrain. The following information is primarily from the Russian point of view, though some Chechen capabilities are included. The lessons learned are arrayed as warfighting functional considerations. a. Command and Control. (1) Russian military commanders lacked clear policy guidance. The Russian military's ability to attain and maintain steady, logical operational progress was hampered, if not negated, by a lack of clear governmental policy. The Russian government was split at the highest levels over the wisdom of committing forces to Chechnya, and the conduct of the intervention. (2) Poor Russian command and control structure throughout all levels. There was no direct, unified chain of command for the operations in Chechnya. Operational directives often flowed from a number of governmental agencies directly to local unit commanders, often bypassing intermediate military commanders. This resulted in a lack of overall situational awareness, and exceptionally poor coordination among tactical forces. (3) Russians were unable to contain/prohibit Chechen operations against Russia. When the Russian forces finally began to achieve progress in late May 1995, the Chechens initiated attacks against targets inside Russia. The result was a major propaganda victory for the Chechens. (4) Excessive senior officer (flag level) interference contributed to operational confusion. There were eight major changes at the senior command level during the course of the intervention. Additionally, there were approximately one hundred general officers on the MCWP 3-35 .3 J-2