 At the end of the Soviet era, ethnic Russians (including Cossacks) comprised about 23% of the population (269,000 in 1989).According to some Russian sources, from 1991 to 1994 tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity (mostly Russians, Ukrainians, and Armenians) left the republic amidst reports of violence and discrimination against the non-Chechen population, as well as widespread lawlessness and ethnic cleansing under the government of Dzhokhar Dudayev.However, Russian economists Boris Lvin and Andrei Iliaronov believe emigration of the Russian-speaking population from Chechnya was no more intense than that from Kalmykia, Tuva and Sakha-Yakutia.