also established by the partially recognized Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the Taliban government on 16 January 2000. This recognition ceased with the fall of the Taliban in December 2001. However, despite Taliban recognition, there were no friendly relations between the Taliban and Ichkeria—Maskhadov rejected their recognition, stating that the Taliban were illegitimate. In June 2000, the Russian government claimed that Maskhadov had met with Osama bin Laden, and that the Taliban supported the Chechens with arms and troops. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration called on Maskhadov to cut all links with the Taliban. Ichkeria also received limited support from certain political factions in Poland, the Baltic countries and Ukrainian nationalists. Estonia once voted to recognize, but the act never was consummated due to pressure from both Russia and pro-Russian elements within the European Union. Dudayev also had contacts with Islamist movements and guerrillas in the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada passed a resolution in October recognizing the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria as "temporarily occupied" by Russia. Human rights First Chechen War The human rights situation in Chechnya during the hostility phases had long been a concern among several human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch, who, after several years of investigation and gathering evidence, referred to the situation as disturbing. Throughout the span of the first Chechen war, Russian forces have been accused by Human Rights organizations of starting a brutal war with total disregard for humanitarian law, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary civilian casualties among the Chechen population. The main strategy in the Russian war effort had been to use heavy artillery and air strikes leading to numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians. This has led to Western and Chechen sources calling the Russian strategy deliberate terror bombing on parts of Russia. According to Human Rights Watch, the campaign was "unparalleled in the area since World War II for its scope and destructiveness, followed by months of indiscriminate and targeted fire against civilians". Russian forces attacked civilians many times throughout the war. One of the most notable war crimes committed by the Russian army during the First Chechen War is the Samashki massacre, in which it is estimated that up to 300 civilians died during the attack. Russian forces conducted an operation of zachistka, house-by-house searches throughout the entire