Names
The Second Chechen War is also known as the Second Chechen Campaign () or the Second Russian Invasion of Chechnya from the Chechen insurgents' point of view.

Historical basis of the conflict

Russian Empire

Chechnya is an area in the Northern Caucasus which has constantly fought against foreign rule, including the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. The Russian Terek Cossack Host was established in lowland Chechnya in 1577 by free Cossacks who were resettled from the Volga to the Terek River. In 1783, the Russian Empire and the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti signed the Treaty of Georgievsk, under which Kartli-Kakheti became a Russian protectorate. To secure communications with Georgia and other regions of the Transcaucasia, the Russian Empire began spreading its influence into the Caucasus region, starting the Caucasus War in 1817. Russian forces first moved into highland Chechnya in 1830, and the conflict in the area lasted until 1859, when a 250,000-strong army under General Aleksandr Baryatinsky broke down the highlanders' resistance. Frequent uprisings in the Caucasus also occurred during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78.

Soviet Union
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Chechens established a short-lived Caucasian Imamate which included parts of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia; there was also the secular pan-Caucasian Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus. Most of the resistance was defeated by Bolshevik troops by 1922. Then, months before the creation of the Soviet Union, the Chechen Autonomous Oblast of the Russian SFSR was established. It annexed a part of territory of the former Terek Cossack Host. Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia formed the Checheno–Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936. In 1941, during World War II, a small-scale Chechen revolt broke out, led by Hasan Israilov. In 1944, the entire Chechen people were deported to the Kazakh SSR and Kirghiz SSR in an act of ethnic cleansing; this was done under the false pretext of Chechen mass collaboration with Nazi Germany. An estimated 1/4 to 1/3 of the Chechen population perished due the harsh conditions. Many scholars recognize the deportation as an act of genocide, as did the European Parliament in 2004. In 1992 the separatist government built a memorial dedicated to the victims of the acts of 1944. The pro-Russian government would later demolish this memorial. Tombstones which were an integral part of the memorial were found planted on the Akhmad Kadyrov Square next to granite steles honoring the losses of the local pro-Russian power.

First Chechen War

During the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya declared independence. In 1992, Chechen and Ingush leaders signed an agreement splitting the joint Checheno–Ingush republic in two, with Ingushetia joining the Russian Federation and Chechnya remaining independent. The tension between Chechnya and Russia over independence ultimately led to Russian intervention in the republic, in which the Russians covertly tried to oust the government of Dzhokhar Dudayev. The First Chechen War began in 1994, when Russian forces entered Chechnya on the premise of restoring constitutional order. Following nearly two years of brutal fighting, with a death toll exceeding 100,000 by some estimates, the 1996 Khasavyurt ceasefire agreement was signed and Russian troops were withdrawn from the republic.

Prelude to the Second Chechen War

Instability in Chechnya

The authority of the government in Grozny was opposed by extremist warlords like Arbi Barayev, who according to some sources was in cooperation with the FSB. Kidnapping in Chechnya reached large proportions, and the total turnover reached tens of millions of dollars. In 1998, a group of four Western hostages was murdered. Russian special services were accused of being involved in kidnappings. In 1998, a state of emergency was declared by the authorities in Grozny. In July 1998 a confrontation occurred in Gudermes between Chechen National Guard troops and a fundamentalist faction leading to many casualties.

Russian–Chechen relations (1996–1999)
Political tensions were fueled in part by allegedly Chechen or pro-Chechen terrorist and criminal activity in Russia, as well as by border clashes. On 16 November 1996, in Kaspiysk (Dagestan), a bomb destroyed an apartment building housing Russian border guards, killing 68 people. The cause of the blast was never determined, but many in Russia blamed Chechen separatists. Three people died on 23 April 1997, when a bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Armavir (Krasnodar Krai), and two on 28 May 1997, when another bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Pyatigorsk (Stavropol Krai). On 22 December 1997, forces of Dagestani militants and Chechnya-based Arab warlord Ibn al-Khattab raided the base of the 136th Motor Rifle Brigade of the Russian Army in Buynaksk, Dagestan, inflicting heavy casualties.

The 1997 election brought to power the separatist president Aslan Maskhadov. In 1998 and 1999, President Maskhadov survived several assassination attempts, blamed on the Russian intelligence services. In March 1999, General Gennady Shpigun, the Kremlin's envoy to Chechnya, was kidnapped at the airport in Grozny and ultimately found dead in 2000 during the war. On 7 March 1999, in response to the abduction of General Shpigun, Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin called for an invasion of Chechnya. However, Stepashin's plan was overridden by the prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov. Stepashin later said:

 According to Robert Bruce Ware, these plans should be regarded as contingency plans. However, Stepashin did actively call for a military campaign against Chechen separatists in August 1999 when he was the prime minister of Russia. But shortly after his televised interview where he talked about plans to restore constitutional order in Chechnya, he was replaced in the PM's position by Vladimir Putin.

In late May 1999, Russia announced that it was closing the Russian-Chechnya border in an attempt to combat attacks and criminal activity; border guards were ordered to shoot suspects on sight. On 18 June 1999, seven servicemen were killed when Russian border guard posts were attacked in Dagestan. On 29 July 1999, the Russian Interior Ministry troops destroyed a Chechen border post and captured an 800-meter section of strategic road. On 22 August 1999, 10 Russian policemen were killed by an anti-tank mine blast in North Ossetia, and, on 9 August 1999, six servicemen were kidnapped in the Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz.

Dagestan

On 7 August 1999, Shamil Basayev together with Ibn al-Khattab, led two groups of up to 2,000 Chechen, Dagestani, Arab mujahideen from Chechnya into the neighboring Republic of Dagestan. This war saw the first (unconfirmed) use of aerial-delivered fuel air explosives (FAE) in mountainous areas, notably in the village of Tando. By mid-September 1999, the militants were routed from the villages they had captured and retreated back into Chechnya. According to Russia several hundred militants were killed in the fighting and the Russian side reported 275 servicemen killed and approximately 900 wounded.

Russian apartment bombings

Before the wake of the Dagestani campaign had settled, a series of bombings took place in Russia (in Moscow and in Volgodonsk) and in the Dagestani town of Buynaksk. On 4 September 1999, 62 people died in an apartment building housing members of families of Russian soldiers. Over the next two weeks, the bombs targeted three other apartment buildings and a mall; in total over 350 people were killed. The then Prime Minister Putin quickly blamed the attacks on Chechen militants and despite no evidence linking the bombings to Chechens; ordered the bombing campaign of Chechnya. In February 2000, the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated they have not seen any evidence that ties the bombings to Chechnya. A Russian criminal investigation of the bombings was completed in 2002. The results of the investigation, and the court ruling that followed, concluded that they were organized by Achemez Gochiyaev, who remains at large, and ordered by Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif (both of whom were later killed), in retaliation for the Russian counteroffensive against their incursion into Dagestan. Six other suspects have been convicted by Russian courts. However, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents were caught by local police for planting one of the bombs, but were later released on orders from Moscow. Many observers, including State Duma deputies Yuri Shchekochikhin, Sergei Kovalev and Sergei Yushenkov, cast doubts on the official version and sought an independent investigation. Some others, including David Satter, Yury Felshtinsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky and Alexander Litvinenko, as well as the secessionist Chechen authorities, claimed that the 1999 bombings were a false flag attack coordinated by the FSB in order to win public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya, which boosted the popularity of Prime Minister and former FSB Director Vladimir Putin, brought the pro-war Unity Party to the State Duma in the 1999 parliamentary election, and secured Putin as president within a few months.  A description of the bombings as FSB false-flag operations appears in the book Blowing Up Russia, which is banned in the Russian Federation.

1999–2000 Russian offensive

Air war

In late August and early September 1999, Russia mounted a massive aerial campaign over Chechnya, with the stated aim of wiping out militants who invaded Dagestan earlier in the same month. On 26 August 1999, Russia acknowledged bombing raids in Chechnya. The Russian air strikes were reported to have forced at least 100,000 Chechens to flee their homes to safety; the neighbouring region of Ingushetia was reported to have appealed for United Nations aid to deal with tens of thousands of refugees. On 2 October 1999, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that 78,000 people had fled the air strikes in Chechnya; most of them went to Ingushetia, where they arrived at a rate of 5,000 to 6,000 a day.

As of 22 September 1999, Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov said that Russian troops had surrounded Chechnya and were prepared to retake the region, but the military planners were advising against a ground invasion because of the likelihood of heavy Russian casualties.

Land war

The Chechen conflict entered a new phase on 1 October 1999, when Russia's new Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared the authority of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and his parliament illegitimate. At this time, Putin announced that Russian troops would initiate a land war but progress only as far as the Terek River, which cuts the northern third of Chechnya off from the rest of the republic. Putin's stated intention was to take control of Chechnya's northern plain and establish a cordon sanitaire against further Chechen aggression; he later recalled that the cordon alone was "pointless and technically impossible," apparently because of Chechnya's rugged terrain. According to Russian accounts, Putin accelerated a plan for a major crackdown against Chechnya that had been drawn up months earlier.

The Russian army moved with ease in the wide open spaces of northern Chechnya and reached the Terek River on 5 October 1999. On this day, a bus filled with refugees was reportedly hit by a Russian tank shell, killing at least 11 civilians; two days later, Russian Su-24 fighter bombers dropped cluster bombs on the village of Elistanzhi, killing some 35 people. On 10 October 1999, Maskhadov outlined a peace plan offering a crackdown on renegade warlords; the offer was rejected by the Russian side. He also appealed to NATO to help end fighting between his forces and Russian troops, without effect.

On 12 October 1999, the Russian forces crossed the Terek and began a two-pronged advance on the capital Grozny to the south. Hoping to avoid the significant casualties that plagued the first Chechen War, the Russians advanced slowly and in force, making extensive use of artillery and air power in an attempt to soften Chechen defences. Many thousands of civilians fled the Russian advance, leaving Chechnya for neighbouring Russian republics. Their numbers were later estimated to reach 200,000 to 350,000, out of the approximately 800,000 residents of the Chechen Republic. The Russians appeared to be taking no chances with the Chechen population in its rear areas, setting up "filtration camps" in October in northern Chechnya for detaining suspected members of bandformirovaniya militant formations (literally: "bandit formations").

On 15 October 1999, Russian forces took control of a strategic ridge within artillery range of the Chechen capital Grozny after mounting an intense tank and artillery barrage against Chechen fighters. In response, President Maskhadov declared a gazavat (holy war) to confront the approaching Russian army. Martial law was declared in Ichkeria and reservists were called, but no martial law or state of emergency had been declared in Chechnya or Russia by the Russian government. The next day, Russian forces captured the strategic Tersky Heights, within sight of Grozny, dislodging 200 entrenched Chechen fighters. After heavy fighting, Russia seized the Chechen base in the village of Goragorsky, west of the city.

On 21 October 1999, a Russian Scud short-range ballistic missile strike on the central Grozny marketplace killed more than 140 people, including many women and children, and left hundreds more wounded. A Russian spokesman said the busy market was targeted because it was used by separatists as an arms bazaar. Eight days later, Russian aircraft carried out a rocket attack on a large convoy of refugees heading into Ingushetia, killing at least 25 civilians including Red Cross workers and journalists. Two days later Russian forces conducted a heavy artillery and rocket attack on Samashki; some claimed that civilians were killed in Samashki in revenge for the heavy casualties suffered there by Russian forces during the first war.

On 12 November 1999, the Russian flag was raised over Chechnya's second largest city, Gudermes, when the local Chechen commanders, the Yamadayev brothers, defected to the federal side; the Russians also entered the bombed-out former Cossack village of Assinovskaya. The fighting in and around Kulary continued until January 2000. On 17 November 1999, Russian soldiers dislodged separatists in Bamut, the symbolic separatist stronghold in the first war; dozens of Chechen fighters and many civilians were reported killed, and the village was levelled in the FAE bombing. Two days later, after a failed attempt five days earlier, Russian forces managed to capture the village of Achkhoy-Martan.

On 26 November 1999, Deputy Army Chief of Staff Valery Manilov said that phase two of the Chechnya campaign was just about complete, and a final third phase was about to begin. According to Manilov, the aim of the third phase was to destroy "bandit groups" in the mountains. A few days later Russia's Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Russian forces might need up to three more months to complete their military campaign in Chechnya, while some generals said the offensive could be over by New Year's Day. The next day the Chechens briefly recaptured the town of Novogroznensky.

On 1 December 1999, after weeks of heavy fighting, Russian forces under Major General Vladimir Shamanov took control of Alkhan-Yurt, a village just south of Grozny. The Chechen and foreign fighters inflicted heavy losses on the Russian forces, reportedly killing more than 70 Russian soldiers before retreating, suffering heavy losses of their own. On the same day, Chechen separatist forces began carrying out a series of counter-attacks against federal troops in several villages as well as in the outskirts of Gudermes. Chechen fighters in Argun, a small town five kilometres east of Grozny, put up some of the strongest resistance to federal troops since the start of Moscow's military offensive. The separatists in the town of Urus-Martan also offered fierce resistance, employing guerilla tactics Russia had been anxious to avoid; by 9 December 1999, Russian forces were still bombarding Urus-Martan, although Chechen commanders said their fighters had already pulled out.

On 4 December 1999, the commander of Russian forces in the North Caucasus, General Viktor Kazantsev, claimed that Grozny was fully blockaded by Russian troops. The Russian military's next task was the seizure of the town of Shali, 20 kilometres south-east of the capital, one of the last remaining separatist-held towns apart from Grozny. Russian troops started by capturing two bridges that link Shali to the capital, and by 11 December 1999, Russian troops had encircled Shali and were slowly forcing separatists out. By mid-December the Russian military was concentrating attacks in southern parts of Chechnya and preparing to launch another offensive from Dagestan.

Siege of Grozny

The Russian assault on Grozny began in early December, accompanied by a struggle for neighbouring settlements. The battle ended when the Russian army seized the city on 2 February 2000. According to official Russian figures, at least 134 federal troops and an unknown number of pro-Russian militiamen died in Grozny. The separatist forces also suffered heavy losses, including losing several top commanders. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said that 1,500 separatists were killed trying to leave Grozny. The separatists said they lost at least 500 fighters in the mine field at Alkhan-Kala. The siege and fighting devastated the capital like no other European city since World War II. In 2003, the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on Earth. The Russians also suffered heavy losses as they advanced elsewhere, and from Chechen counterattacks and convoy ambushes. On 26 January 2000, the Russian government announced that 1,173 servicemen had been killed in Chechnya since October, more than double the 544 killed reported just 19 days earlier.

Battle for the mountains
Heavy fighting accompanied by massive shelling and bombing continued through the winter of 2000 in the mountainous south of Chechnya, particularly in the areas around Argun, Vedeno and Shatoy, where fighting involving Russian paratroopers had raged since 1999.

On 9 February 2000, a Russian tactical missile hit a crowd of people who had come to the local administration building in Shali, a town previously declared as one of the "safe areas", to collect their pensions. The attack was a response to a report that a group of fighters had entered the town. The missile is estimated to have killed some 150 civilians, and was followed by an attack by combat helicopters causing further casualties. Human Rights Watch called on the Russian military to stop using FAE, known in Russia as "vacuum bombs", in Chechnya, concerned about the large number of civilian casualties caused by what it called "widespread and often indiscriminate bombing and shelling by Russian forces". On 18 February 2000, a Russian army transport helicopter was shot down in the south, killing 15 men aboard, Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo announced in a rare admission by Moscow of losses in the war.

On 29 February 2000, United Army Group commander Gennady Troshev said that "the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya is over. It will take a couple of weeks longer to pick up splinter groups now." Russia's Defense Minister, Marshal of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeyev, evaluated the numerical strength of the separatists at between 2,000 and 2,500 men, "scattered all over Chechnya." On the same day, a Russian VDV paratroop company from Pskov was attacked by Chechen and Arab fighters near the village of Ulus-Kert in Chechnya's southern lowlands; at least 84 Russian soldiers were killed in the especially heavy fighting. The official newspaper of the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that at least 659 separatists were killed, including 200 from the Middle East, figures which they said were based on radio-intercept data, intelligence reports, eyewitnesses, local residents and captured Chechens. On 2 March 2000, an OMON unit from Podolsk opened fire on a unit from Sergiyev Posad in Grozny; at least 24 Russian servicemen were killed in the incident.

In March a large group of more than 1,000 Chechen fighters, led by field commander Ruslan Gelayev, pursued since their withdrawal from Grozny, entered the village of Komsomolskoye in the Chechen foothills and held off a full-scale Russian attack on the town for over two weeks; they suffered hundreds of casualties, while the Russians admitted to more than 50 killed. On 29 March 2000, about 23 Russian soldiers were killed in a separatist ambush on an OMON convoy from Perm in Zhani-Vedeno.

On 23 April 2000, a 22-vehicle convoy carrying ammunition and other supplies to an airborne unit was ambushed near Serzhen-Yurt in the Vedeno Gorge by an estimated 80 to 100 "bandits", according to General Troshev. In the ensuing four-hour battle the federal side lost 15 government soldiers, according to the Russian defence minister. General Troshev told the press that the bodies of four separatist fighters were found. The Russian Airborne Troops headquarters later stated that 20 separatists were killed and two taken prisoner. Soon, the Russian forces seized the last populated centres of the organized resistance. (Another offensive against the remaining mountain strongholds was launched by Russian forces in December 2000.)

Restoration of federal government

Russian President Vladimir Putin established direct rule of Chechnya in May 2000. The following month, Putin appointed Akhmad Kadyrov interim head of the pro-Moscow government. This development met with early approval in the rest of Russia, but the continued deaths of Russian troops dampened public enthusiasm. On 23 March 2003, a new Chechen constitution was passed in a referendum. The 2003 Constitution granted the Chechen Republic a significant degree of autonomy, but still tied it firmly to Russia and Moscow's rule, and went into force on 2 April 2003. The referendum was strongly supported by the Russian government but met a harsh critical response from Chechen separatists; many citizens chose to boycott the ballot.  Akhmad Kadyrov was assassinated by a bomb blast in 2004. Since December 2005, his son Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the pro-Moscow militia known as kadyrovtsy, has been functioning as the Chechnya's de facto ruler. Kadyrov has become Chechnya's most powerful leader and, in February 2007, with support from Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as president.

Insurgency

Guerrilla war in Chechnya

Guerrilla phase by year: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

Although large-scale fighting within Chechnya had ceased, daily attacks continued, particularly in the southern portions of Chechnya and spilling into nearby territories of the Caucasus, especially after the Caucasus Front was established. Typically small separatist units targeted Russian and pro-Russian officials, security forces, and military and police convoys and vehicles. The separatist units employed IEDs and sometimes combined for larger raids. Russian forces retaliated with artillery and air strikes, as well as counter-insurgency operations. Most soldiers in Chechnya were kontraktniki (contract soldiers) as opposed to the earlier conscripts. While Russia continued to maintain a military presence within Chechnya, federal forces played less of a direct role. Pro-Kremlin Chechen forces under the command of the local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, known as the kadyrovtsy, dominated law enforcement and security operations, with many members (including Kadyrov himself) being former Chechen separatists who had defected since 1999. Since 2004, the Kadyrovtsy were partly incorporated into two Interior Ministry units, North and South (Sever and Yug). Two other units of the Chechen pro-Moscow forces, East and West (Vostok and Zapad), were commanded by Sulim Yamadayev (Vostok) and Said-Magomed Kakiyev (Zapad) and their men.

On 16 April 2009, the head of the Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, announced that Russia had ended its "anti-terror operation" in Chechnya, claiming that stability had been restored to the territory. "The decision is aimed at creating the conditions for the future normalisation of the situation in the republic, its reconstruction and development of its socio-economic sphere," Bortnikov stated. While Chechnya had largely stabilised, there were still clashes with militants in the nearby regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Suicide attacks

Between June 2000 and September 2004, Chechen insurgents added suicide attacks to their tactics. During this period, there were 23 Chechen-related suicide attacks in and outside Chechnya, notably the hostage taking at an elementary school in Beslan, in which at least 334 people died.

Assassinations

Both sides of the war carried out multiple assassinations. The most prominent of these included the 13 February 2004 killing of exiled former separatist Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Qatar, and the 9 May 2004 killing of pro-Russian Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov during a parade in Grozny.

Caucasus Front

While anti-Russian local insurgencies in the North Caucasus started even before the war, in May 2005, two months after Maskahdov's death, Chechen separatists officially announced that they had formed a Caucasus Front within the framework of "reforming the system of military–political power." Along with the Chechen, Dagestani and Ingush "sectors," the Stavropol, Kabardin-Balkar, Krasnodar, Karachai-Circassian, Ossetian and Adyghe jamaats were included. This meant that practically all the regions of Russia's south were involved in the hostilities.

The Chechen separatist movement took on a new role as the official ideological, logistical and, probably, financial hub of the new insurgency in the North Caucasus. Increasingly frequent clashes between federal forces and local militants continued in Dagestan, while sporadic fighting erupted in the other southern Russia regions, such as Ingushetia, and notably in Nalchik on 13 October 2005.

Human rights and terrorism

Human rights and war crimes
The Second Chechen War saw a new wave of war crimes and violation of international humanitarian law. Both sides have been criticised by international organizations of violating the Geneva Conventions. However, a report by Human Rights Watch states that without minimizing the abuses committed by Chechen fighters, the main reason for civilian suffering in the Second Chechen War came as a result of the abuses committed by the Russian forces on the civilian population.  According to Amnesty International, Chechen civilians have been purposely targeted by Russian forces, in apparent disregard of humanitarian law. The situation has been described by Amnesty International as a Russian campaign to punish an entire ethnic group, on the pretext of "fighting crime and terrorism". Russian forces have throughout the campaign ignored to follow their Geneva convention obligations, and has taken little responsibility of protecting the civilian population. Amnesty International stated in their 2001 report that Chechen civilians, including medical personnel, have been the target of military attacks by Russian forces, and hundreds of Chechen civilians and prisoners of war are extrajudicially executed.

According to human rights activists, Russian troops systematically committed the following crimes in Chechnya: the destruction of cities and villages, not justified by military necessity; shelling and bombardment of unprotected settlements; summary extrajudicial executions and killings of civilians; torture, ill-treatment and infringement of human dignity; serious bodily harm intentionally inflicted on persons not directly participating in hostilities; deliberate strikes against the civilian population, civilian and medical vehicles; illegal detentions of the civilian population and enforced disappearances; looting and destruction of civilian and public property; extortion; taking hostages for ransom; corpse trade. There were also rapes, which, along with women, were committed against men. According to the Minister of Health of Ichkeria, Umar Khanbiev, Russian forces committed organ harvesting and organ trade during the conflict.

Russian forces have since the beginning of the conflict indiscriminately and disproportionately bombed and shelled civilian objects, resulting in heavy civilian casualties. In one such occasion in October 1999, ten powerful hypersonic missiles fell without warning and targeted the city's only maternity hospital, post office, mosque, and a crowded market. Most of the casualties occurred at the central market, and the attack is estimated to have killed over 100 instantly and injuring up to 400 others.  Similar incidents include the Baku–Rostov highway bombing where the Russian Air Force perpetrated repeated rocket attacks on a large convoy of refugees trying to enter Ingushetia through a supposed "safe exit". This was repeated in December 1999 when Russian soldiers opened fire on a refugee convoy marked with white flags.

The 1999–2000 siege and bombardments of Grozny caused between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians to perish.  The Russian army issued an ultimatum during the Grozny-siege urging Chechens to leave the city or be destroyed without mercy. Around 300 people were killed while trying to escape in October 1999 and subsequently buried in a mass grave. The bombing of Grozny included banned Buratino thermobaric and fuel-air bombs, igniting the air of civilians hiding in basements. There were also reports of the use of chemical weapons, banned according to Geneva law. The Russian president Putin vowed that the military would not stop bombing Grozny until Russian troops quote 'fulfilled their task to the end.'  In 2003, the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on Earth.

Another occasion of indiscriminate and perhaps deliberate bombardment is the bombing of Katyr-Yurt which occurred on 4–6 February 2000. The village of Katyr Yurt was far from the war's front line, and jam-packed with refugees. It was untouched on the morning of 4 February when Russian aircraft, helicopters, fuel-air bombs and Grad missiles pulverised the village. After the bombing the Russian army allowed buses in, and allowed a white-flag refugee convoy to leave after which they bombed that as well. Banned Thermobaric weapons were fired on the village of Katyr-Yurt. Hundreds of civilians died as a result of the Russian bombardment and the following sweep after. Thermobaric weapons have been used by the Russian army on several occasions according to Human Rights Watch.

During the Alkhan-Yurt massacre where Russian soldiers went on a murdering spree throughout the village and summarily executing, raping, torturing, looting, burning and killing anyone in their way. Nearly all the killings were committed by Russian soldiers who were looting. Civilian attempts to stop the killings were often met with death. There has been no serious attempt conducted by the Russian authorities to bring to justice those accountable for the crimes committed at Alkhan-Yurt. Credible testimony suggests that Russian leadership in the region had knowledge of what was happening and simply chose to ignore it. Russian military leadership dismissed the incident as "fairy tales", claiming that the bodies were planted and the slaughter fabricated in order to damage the reputation of Russian troops. Russian general Vladimir Shamanov dismissed accountability for the abuses in the village saying "Don't you dare touch the soldiers and officers of the Russian army. They are doing a sacred thing today-they are defending Russia. And don't you dare sully the Russian soldier with your dirty hands!"

In what is regarded as one of gravest war crimes in the war, Russian federal forces went on a village-sweep (zachistka), that involved summary executions of dozens of people, murder, looting, arson and rape of Chechens (including committing other crimes) in what is known as the Novye Aldi massacre. Russian troops had cluster-bombed the village a day prior before entering the village, telling local residents to come out from their cellars for inspection the next day. Upon entering the village, Russian soldiers shot their victims in cold blood, with automatic fire at close range. Victims ranged from a one-year-old babies to an 82-year-old woman. Victims were asked for money or jewelry by Russian soldiers, which served as a pretext for their execution if the amount was insufficient. Federal soldiers removed gold teeth from their victims and looted their corpses. Killings were accompanied by arson in an attempt to destroy evidence of summary executions and other civilian killings. There were several cases of rape. In one incident, Russian soldiers gang raped several women before strangling them to death. Pillage on a massive scale took place in the village, with Russian soldiers stripping the houses of civilians in broad daylight. Any attempt to make the Russian authorities take responsibilities for the massacre resulted in indignant denial. Human Rights Watch described the Russian authorities' response as "typical". A spokesperson from the Russian Ministry of Defence declared that "these assertions are nothing but a concoction not supported by fact or any proof . . . [and] should be seen as a provocation whose goal is to discredit the federal forces' operation against the terrorists in Chechnya." An eye-witness also said that investigators from the Federal Security Service told her the massacre was probably committed by Chechen fighters "disguised as federal troops".

Western European rights groups estimate there have been about 5,000 forced disappearances in Chechnya since 1999. Dozens of mass graves containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the start of the Chechen conflict. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves including the 5,000 civilians who disappeared since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. In 2008, the largest mass grave found to date was uncovered in Grozny, containing some 800 bodies from the First Chechen War in 1995. Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.

American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted in her 24 March 2000 speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights:We cannot ignore the fact that thousands of Chechen civilians have died and more than 200,000 have been driven from their homes. Together with other delegations, we have expressed our alarm at the persistent, credible reports of human rights violations by Russian forces in Chechnya, including extrajudicial killings. There are also reports that Chechen separatists have committed abuses, including the killing of civilians and prisoners.... The war in Chechnya has greatly damaged Russia's international standing and is isolating Russia from the international community. Russia's work to repair that damage, both at home and abroad, or its choice to risk further isolating itself, is the most immediate and momentous challenge that Russia faces.
The Russian government failed to pursue any accountability process for human rights abuses committed during the course of the conflict in Chechnya. Unable to secure justice domestically, hundreds of victims of abuse have filed applications with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In March 2005 the court issued the first rulings on Chechnya, finding the Russian government guilty of violating the right to life and even the prohibition of torture with respect to civilians who had died or forcibly disappeared at the hands of Russia's federal troops. Many similar claims were ruled since against Russia.

Terrorist attacks

Between May 2002 and September 2004, the Chechen and Chechen-led militants, mostly answering to Shamil Basayev, launched a campaign of terrorism directed against civilian targets in Russia. About 200 people were killed in a series of bombings (most of them suicide attacks), most of them in the 2003 Stavropol train bombing (46), the 2004 Moscow metro bombing (40), and the 2004 Russian aircraft bombings (89). Two big kidnaps, the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis and the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004, resulted in the deaths of many civilians. In the Moscow stand-off, FSB Spetsnaz forces stormed the building on the third day using an unknown incapacitating chemical agent that proved to be lethal without sufficient medical care, resulting in deaths of 133 out of 916 hostages. In Beslan, some 20 hostages had been murdered by their captors before the assault, and the ill-prepared assault (started hastily after explosions in the gym that had been rigged with explosives by the terrorists) resulted in 294 more casualties among the 1,128 hostages, as well as many losses among the special forces.

Other issues

Georgian Pankisi crisis

Russian officials have accused the bordering republic of Georgia of allowing Chechen separatists to operate on Georgian territory and permitting the flow of militants and materiel across the Georgian border with Russia. In February 2002, the United States began offering assistance to Georgia in combating "criminal elements" as well as alleged Arab mujahideen activity in Pankisi Gorge as part of the War on Terrorism. Without resistance, Georgian troops have detained an Arab man and six criminals, and declared the region under control. In August 2002, Georgia accused Russia of a series of secret air strikes on purported separatists havens in the Pankisi Gorge in which a Georgian civilian was reported killed.

On 8 October 2001, a UNOMIG helicopter was shot down in Georgia in Kodori Valley gorge near Abkhazia, amid fighting between Chechens and Abkhazians, killing nine including five UN observers. Georgia denied having troops in the area, and the suspicion fell on the armed group headed by Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev, who was speculated to have been hired by the Georgian government to wage proxy war against separatist Abkhazia. On 2 March 2004, following a number of cross-border raids from Georgia into Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, Gelayev was killed in a clash with Russian border guards while trying to get back from Dagestan into Georgia.

Unilateral ceasefire of 2005
On 2 February 2005, Chechen separatist president Aslan Maskhadov issued a call for a ceasefire lasting until at least 22 February (the day preceding the anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechen population). The call was issued through a separatist website and addressed to President Putin, described as a gesture of goodwill. On 8 March 2005, Maskhadov was killed in an operation by Russian security forces in the Chechen community of Tolstoy-Yurt, northeast of Grozny.

Shortly following Maskhadov's death, the Chechen separatist council announced that Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev had assumed the leadership, a move that was quickly endorsed by Shamil Basayev (Basayev himself died in July 2006). On 2 February 2006, Sadulayev made large-scale changes in his government, ordering all its members to move into Chechen territory. Among other things, he removed First Vice-Premier Akhmed Zakayev from his post (although later Zakayev was appointed a Foreign Minister). Sadulayev was killed in June 2006, after which he was succeeded as the separatist leader by the veteran terrorist commander Doku Umarov.

Amnesties
As of November 2007, there were at least seven amnesties for separatist militants, as well as federal servicemen who committed crimes, declared in Chechnya by Moscow since the start of the second war. The first one was announced in 1999 when about 400 Chechen switched sides. (However, according to Putin's advisor and aide Aslambek Aslakhanov most of them were since killed, both by their former comrades and by the Russians, who by then perceived them as a potential "fifth column".) Some of the other amnesties included one during September 2003 in connection with the adoption of the republic's new constitution, and then another between mid-2006 and January 2007. In 2007, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights published a report entitled Amnestied People as Targets for Persecution in Chechnya, which documents the fate of several persons who have been amnestied and subsequently abducted, tortured and killed.

Government censorship of the media coverage

The first war, with its extensive and largely unrestricted coverage (despite deaths of many journalists), convinced the Kremlin more than any other event that it needed to control national television channels, which most Russians rely on for news, to successfully undertake any major national policy. By the time the second war began, federal authorities had designed and introduced a comprehensive system to limit the access of journalists to Chechnya and shape their coverage.

The Russian government's control of all Russian television stations and its use of repressive rules, harassment, censorship, intimidation and attacks on journalists almost completely deprived the Russian public of the independent information on the conflict. Practically all the local Chechen media are under total control of the pro-Moscow government, Russian journalists in Chechnya face intense harassment and obstruction leading to widespread self-censorship, while foreign journalists and media outlets too are pressured into censoring their reports on the conflict. In some cases Russian journalists reporting on Chechnya were jailed (Boris Stomakhin) or kidnapped (Andrei Babitsky), and foreign media outlets (American Broadcasting Company) banned from Russia. Russia's step came in retaliation for ABC's broadcast of an interview with Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel leader who ordered and/or carried out some of the worst terrorist acts in the country's history, including the school siege in Beslan that left 330 people dead. The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society was shut down on "extremism and national hatred" charges. According to a 2007 poll only 11 percent of Russians said they were happy with media coverage of Chechnya.

Effects

Civilian losses

In the Second Chechen War, over 60,000 combatants and non-combatants were killed. Civilian casualty estimates vary widely. According to the pro-Moscow Chechnya government, 160,000 combatants and non-combatants died or have gone missing in the two wars, including 30,000–40,000 Chechens and about 100,000 Russians, while separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov (deceased) repeatedly claimed about 200,000 ethnic Chechens died as a consequence of the two conflicts. As in the case of military losses, these claims can not be independently verified. According to a count by the Russian human rights group Memorial in 2007, up to 25,000 civilians have died or disappeared since 1999. According to Amnesty International in 2007, the second war killed up to 25,000 civilians since 1999, with up to another 5,000 people missing. However, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society set their estimate of the total death toll in two wars at about 150,000 to 200,000 civilians.

Environmental damage
Environmental agencies warn that the Russian republic of Chechnya, devastated by war, now faces ecological disaster. A former aide to Boris Yeltsin believes Russian bombing has rendered Chechnya an "environmental wasteland." There is a special concern over widespread oil spills and pollution from sewers damaged by war (the water is polluted to a depth of 250 m), and chemical and radioactive pollution, as a result of the bombardment of chemical facilities and storages during the conflict. Chechnya's wildlife also sustained heavy damage during the hostilities, as animals that had once populated the Chechen forests have moved off to seek safer ground. In 2004, Russian government has designated one-third of Chechnya a "zone of ecological disaster" and another 40% "a zone of extreme environmental distress".

Land mines

Chechnya is the most land mine-affected region worldwide. Since 1994 there have been widespread use of mines by both sides (Russia is a party to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons but not the 1996 protocol on land mines and other devices). The most heavily mined areas of Chechnya are those in which separatists continued to put up resistance, namely the southern regions, as well as the borders of the republic. No humanitarian mine clearance has taken place since the HALO Trust was evicted by Russia in December 1999. In June 2002, Olara Otunnu, the UN official, estimated that there were 500,000 land mines placed in the region. UNICEF has recorded 2,340 civilian land mine and unexploded ordnance casualties occurring in Chechnya between 1999 and the end of 2003.

Military losses

Military casualty figures from both sides are impossible to verify and are generally believed to be higher. In September 2000, the Kavkaz Center compiled a list of casualties officially announced in the conflict, which, although incomplete and with little factual value, provide some minimal insight of the casualties. According to the figures released by the Russian Ministry of Defence in August 2005, at least 1,250 Russian Armed Forces soldiers were killed in action in 1999–2005. This death toll did not include losses of Internal Troops, the FSB, police and local paramilitaries, of whom all at least 1,720 were killed by October 2003. Independent Russian and Western estimates are much higher; the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia, for instance, estimated about 2,000 Russian Army servicemen have been killed between 1999 and 2003.

Political radicalization of the separatist movement
The Chechens had become increasingly radicalized. Former Soviet Armed Forces officers Dzhokhar Dudayev and Aslan Maskhadov were succeeded by people who rely more on Islamist doctrine, rather than the secular nationalistic feelings of the population. While Dudayev and Maskhadov were seeking from Moscow recognition of the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, other leaders spoke out more about the need to expel Russia from the territory of the whole North Caucasus, an impoverished mountain region inhabited mostly by Muslim, non-Russian ethnic groups.

In April 2006, asked whether negotiations with Russians are possible, the top separatist commander Doku Umarov answered: "We offered them many times. But it turned out that we constantly press for negotiations and it's as if we are always standing with an extended hand and this is taken as a sign of our weakness. Therefore we don't plan to do this any more." In the same month, the new separatist spokesman Movladi Udugov said that attacks should be expected anywhere in Russia: "Today, we have a different task on our hands – total war, war everywhere our enemy can be reached. (...) And this means mounting attacks at any place, not just in the Caucasus but in all Russia." Reflecting growing radicalization of the Chechen-led militants, Udugov said their goal was no longer Western-style democracy and independence, but the Islamist "North Caucasian Emirate".

This trend ultimately resulted in the October 2007 declaration of the Caucasus Emirate by Doku Umarov where he also urged for a global Jihad, and the political schism between the moderates and the radical Islamists fighting in Chechnya and the neighbouring regions with ties in the Middle East. Some commanders, still fighting along with Doku Umarov, like Anzor Astemirov, publicly denounced the idea of a global Jihad, but keep fighting for the independence of Caucasus states.

The struggle garnered support from Muslim sympathizers around the world nonetheless, and some of them were willing to take up arms. Many commentators thought it was likely that Chechen fighters had links with international Islamist separatist groups. The BBC said in an online Q&A on the conflict: "It has been known for years that Muslim volunteers have traveled to Chechnya to join the fight, reportedly after attending training camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan." Projecting back from the post-9/11 period, some have linked Chechen resistance to Russia to the al-Qaida global jihad movement. However, the number of foreign jihad fighters in Chechnya was at most in the hundreds. Most Western observers prior to 11 September regarded the alleged al-Qaida links claimed by Russian government with skepticism. The Clinton and Bush administrations, as well as other NATO governments, uniformly dismissed Moscow's rhetoric concerning the existence of Chechens in Afghanistan and Afghans in Chechnya as Soviet-style "agitprop" (agitation-propaganda) until 11 September occurred.

Islamic radicalisation also affected the Chechen separatist movement's support abroad. In 2013, the Tsarnaev brothers launched a suicide attack in Boston with a claim of jihad, accusing the United States of killing Muslims of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, weakening sympathy for the Chechen resistance globally and increasing xenophobia against Chechens and Muslims in the United States. Rampant Islamic terrorism in Europe and the exclusive role of the Chechens on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, most notably Abu Omar al-Shishani, also put the Chechen separatist movement in jeopardy due to increasing anti-Islamic sentiment on the rise in Europe, even in some of the countries in Europe like Poland, who supported Chechens during and after conflicts with Russia.

Impact on the Chechen population
According to a 2006 report by Médecins Sans Frontières, "the majority of Chechens still struggle through lives burdened by fear, uncertainty and poverty." A survey conducted by MSF in September 2005 showed that 77% of the respondents were suffering from "discernible symptoms of psychological distress".

As of 2008, the infant mortality rate stood at 17 per 1,000, the highest in Russia; There are reports of a growing number of genetic disorders in babies and unexplained illnesses among school children. One child in ten is born with some kind of anomaly that requires treatment. Some children whose parents can afford it are sent to the neighbouring republic of Dagestan, where treatment is better; Chechnya lacks sufficient medical equipment in most of its medical facilities. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), since 1994 to 2008 about 25,000 children in Chechnya have lost one or both parents. A whole generation of Chechen children is showing symptoms of psychological trauma. In 2006, Chechnya's pro-Moscow deputy health minister, said the Chechen children had become "living specimens" of what it means to grow up with the constant threat of violence and chronic poverty. In 2007, the Chechen interior ministry has identified 1,000 street children involved in vagrancy; the number was increasing.

According to official statistics, Chechnya's unemployment rate in August 2009 was 32.9%. By 2017, this figure had decreased to 13.9%. Many people remain homeless because so much of Chechnya's housing was destroyed by the Russian federal forces and many people have not yet been given compensation. Not only the social (such as housing and hospitals) and economic infrastructure but also the foundations of culture and education, including most of educational and cultural institutions, were destroyed over the course of the two wars in Chechnya. However, ongoing reconstruction efforts have been rebuilding the region at a quick pace over the past few years, including new housing, facilities, paved roads and traffic lights, a new mosque, and restoration of electricity to much of the region. Governmental, social and commercial life remain hobbled by bribery, kidnapping, extortion and other criminal activity; reports by the Russian government estimate that the organized crime sector is twice the Russian average and the government is widely perceived to be corrupt and unresponsive.

Hundreds of thousands of Chechens were displaced by the conflict, including 300,000 at the height of the conflict in 2000. Most of them were displaced internally in Chechnya and in neighbouring republic of Ingushetia, but thousands of refugees also went into exile, with, as of 2008, most of them residing in the European Union countries.

Impact on the Russian population

The start of the war bolstered the domestic popularity of Vladimir Putin as the campaign was started one month after he had become Russian prime minister. The conflict greatly contributed to the deep changes in the Russian politics and society.

Since the Chechen conflict began in 1994, cases of young veterans returning embittered and traumatized to their home towns were reported all across Russia. Psychiatrists, law-enforcement officials, and journalists started calling the condition of psychologically scarred soldiers "Chechen syndrome" (CS), drawing a parallel with the post-traumatic stress disorders suffered by Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. According to Yuri Alexandrovsky, deputy director of the Moscow Serbsky Institute in 2003, at least 70% of the estimated 1.5 million Chechnya veterans suffered CS. Many of the veterans came back alcoholic, unemployable and antisocial. Thousands were also physically disabled for life and left with very limited help from the government.

According to the 2007 study by Memorial and Demos human rights organisations, Russian policemen lost their qualifications and professional skills during their duty tours in Chechnya. The conflict was linked to the rising brutality and general criminalisation of the Russian police forces. According to human rights activists and journalists, tens of thousands of police and security forces that went to Chechnya learned patterns of brutality and impunity and brought them to their home regions, often returning with disciplinary and psychological problems. Reliable numbers on police brutality are hard to come by, but in a statement released in 2006, the internal affairs department of Russia's Interior Ministry said that the number of recorded crimes committed by police officers rose 46.8% in 2005. In one nationwide poll in 2005, 71% of respondents said they didn't trust their police at all; in another, 41% Russians said they lived in fear of police violence. According to Amnesty International, torture of detainees in Russia had become endemic. Since 2007, police officers from outside the Caucasus were not only being sent to Chechnya, but to all the region's republics.

The wars in Chechnya and associated Caucasian terrorism in Russia were major factors in the growth of intolerance, xenophobia, and racist violence in Russia, directed in a great part against the people from the Caucasus. The Russian authorities were unlikely to label random attacks on people of non-Russian ethnicity as racist, preferring to call it "hooliganism". The number of murders officially classified as racist more than doubled in Russia between 2003 and 2004. The violence included acts of terrorism such as the 2006 Moscow market bombing which killed 13 people. In 2007, 18-year-old Artur Ryno claimed responsibility for 37 racially motivated murders in the course of one year, saying that "since school [he] hated people from the Caucasus." On 5 June 2007, an anti-Chechen riot involving hundreds of people took place in the town of Stavropol in southern Russia. Rioters demanded the eviction of ethnic Chechens following the murder of two young Russians who locals believed were killed by Chechens. The event revived memories of a recent clash between Chechens and local Russians in Kondopoga, when two Russians were killed over an unpaid bill. The Caucasians also face ethnic-related violence in the ranks of Russian Army.

Status
In 2005, there were about 60,000 Federal troops in Chechnya, but that number has since decreased significantly. Tony Wood, a journalist and author who has written extensively about Chechnya, estimated there were about 8,000 local security forces remaining in the region . Independent analysts say there are no more than 2,000 armed terrorists combatants still fighting, while Russia says only a few hundred remain. There is still some sporadic fighting in the mountains and south of the republic, but Russia has scaled down its presence significantly leaving the local government to stabilize things further.  In February 2008 the President of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dokka Umarov, spoke of "thousands of fighters" when he addressed a speech to all his fighters in the mountains.

Most of the more prominent past Chechen separatist leaders have died or have been killed, including former president Aslan Maskhadov and leading warlord and terrorist attack mastermind Shamil Basayev. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the Chechen independence movement sagged, plagued by the internal disunity between Chechen moderates and Islamist radicals and the changing global political climate after 11 September 2001, as well as the general war-weariness of the Chechen population. Large-scale fighting has been replaced by guerrilla warfare and bombings targeting federal troops and forces of the regional government, with the violence often spilling over into adjacent regions. Since 2005, the insurgency has largely shifted out of Chechnya proper and into the nearby Russian territories, such as Ingushetia and Dagestan; the Russian government, for its part, has focused on the stabilization of the North Caucasus.

Throughout the years Russian officials have often announced that the war is over. In April 2002, President Vladimir Putin's declared that the war in Chechnya was over.
The Russian government maintains the conflict officially ended in April 2002, and since then has continued largely as a peacekeeping operation.

In a 10 July 2006, interview with the BBC, Sergei Ivanov, Russia's then–prime minister and former minister of defense, said that "the war is over," and that "the military campaign lasted only 2 years."

Ramzan Kadyrov, the current president of the Chechnya, has also stated the war is over. Others believe the war ended in 2003 with the passage of a Moscow-backed constitutional referendum and the election of pro-Moscow president Akhmad Kadyrov, while some consider the conflict on-going. Some independent observers, including Álvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy for the Council of Europe, and Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have said that the war has largely concluded as of 2006.

The separatists denied that the war was over, and guerrilla warfare continued throughout the North Caucasus. Colonel Sulim Yamadayev, Chechnya's second most powerful loyalist warlord after Kadyrov, also denied that the war is over. In March 2007, Yamadayev claimed there were well over 1,000 separatists and foreign Islamic militants entrenched in the mountains of Chechnya alone: "The war is not over, the war is far from being over. What we are facing now is basically a classic partisan war and my prognosis is that it will last two, three, maybe even five more years." According to the CIA factbook, Russia has severely disabled the Chechen separatist movement, although sporadic violence still occurs throughout the North Caucasus. The overall security situation in Chechnya remains exceedingly difficult to accurately report due to the near monopoly the Russian government has on media covering the issue. In May 2007, Amnesty International refuted claims by the government that the conflict has ended, stating "while large-scale military operations have been reduced, the conflict continues." The strength of the separatists has for many years been unknown. Although Russia has killed a lot of separatists throughout the war, many young fighters have joined the separatists.

An estimation, based on the war reports, shows that in the past three years Federal casualties are higher than the number of coalition casualties of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021).
With the abolition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the proclamation of the Caucasus Emirate by the president of the separatist movement Dokka Umarov, the conflict in Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus is often referred to as the "War in the North Caucasus". The Russian government has given no new name to the conflict while most international observers still refer to it as a continuation of the Second Chechen War.

In late April 2008, the Human Rights Commissioner for the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, visited Russia's Caucasian republics. After wrapping up the week-long visit, he said he observed a number of positive developments in Chechnya, and that there was "obvious progress". He also noted that the judicial system in Chechnya was functioning properly. According to Hammarberg, missing people and the identification of missing bodies were still the two biggest human rights issues in the region, and he expressed his wish that further efforts be done to clarify the issue. President Putin responded to his comments, saying that the visit was of "great significance", and that Russia will take into account what the council had to say.

Counter-insurgency operations have been conducted by Russian army in Chechnya since 1999. President of Chechnya, and former separatist, Ramzan Kadyrov declared this phase to end in March 2009. On 27 March 2009, President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev met with Alexander Bortnikov, the Director of the Federal Security Service to discuss the official ending of counter-terrorism operations in Chechnya. Medvedev directed the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which Bortnikov also heads, to report to the Russian government on this issue, which will then be decided by the Russian parliament. However Medvedev asserted that situation in Chechnya must remain under direct control of the FSB.

On 16 April 2009, the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya was officially ended. As of 2009, close to 480 active insurgents were fighting in the mountains under leadership of field commander Doku Umarov according to official data. Doku Umarov was killed by poisoning in 2013. Umarov's successor Aliaskhab Kebekov was reported killed in 2015. The "Caucasus Emirate" grouping founded by Umarov in 2007 was by 2015 largely absorbed into the ISIS-affiliated Vilayat Kavkaz led by Rustam Asilderov. Asilderov was reported killed in 2016.

On 18 October 2022, Ukraine's parliament condemned the "genocide of the Chechen people" during the First and Second Chechen Wars.

See also
 Guerrilla phase of the Second Chechen War
 International response to the Second Chechen War
 Insurgency in the North Caucasus

Notes

References

Publications

Bibliography
 "Three Worlds Gone Mad" Author: Robert Young Pelton
 [ A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya] Author: Anna Politkovskaya
 [ A Military History of Russia: From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya] Author: David R. Stone (preview available)
 [ A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya] Author: Anna Politkovskaya (preview available)
 [ Allah's Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya] Author: Sebastian Smith (preview available)
 [ Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad] Author: James Hughes (preview available)
 [ Chechnya: From Past To Future] Author: Richard Sakwa and others (preview available)
 [ Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society] Author: Valery Tishkov (preview available)
 [Chechnya: The Case for Independence] Author: Tony Wood
 [ Chechnya: To the Heart of a Conflict] Author: Andrew Meier
 [ Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya] Author: Anne Nivat
 [ Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya] Author: Vanora Bennett
 [ My Jihad] Author: Aukai Collins
 [ One Soldier's War] Author: Arkady Babchenko.
 [ Open Wound: Chechnya 1994–2003] Author: Stanley Greene
 [ Putin's Russia] Author: Anna Politkovskaya
 [ Russia's Chechen Wars 1994–2000: Lessons from Urban Combat] Author: Olga Oliker (preview available)
 [ Russia's Islamic Threat] Author: Gordon M. Hahn
 [ Russia's Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia] Author: Dmitri Trenin, Anatol Lieven (preview available)
 [ Russia's Wars with Chechnya 1994–2003] Author: Michael Orr
 [ Russian Military Reform, 1992–2002] Author: Anne Aldis, Roger N. McDermott
 [ Russo-Chechen Conflict, 1800–2000: A Deadly Embrace] Author: Robert Seely (preview available)
 [ The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War] Author: Asne Seierstad
 [ The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union?] Author: Matthew Evangelista (preview available)
 [ The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule] Author: Moshe Gammer (preview available)
 [ The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire] Author: Khassan Baiev
 [ The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror] Author: Paul J. Murphy (preview available)
 [ "Welcome to Hell": Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Extortion in Chechnya] Author: Human Rights Watch (preview available)

External links

Timelines and chronologies
 BBC Timeline: Chechnya

Summaries
 Chechnya: Two Federal Interventions Conflict Studies Research Centre

Human rights issues
 Council of Europe resolutions on 'The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic':
 Resolution 1323 (2003)
 Resolution 1403 (2004)
 Human Rights Violations in Chechnya Society for the Russian–Chechen Friendship
 The Trauma of ongoing War in Chechnya Doctors Without Borders

Articles
 "The North Caucasus," Russian Analytical Digest No. 22 (5 June 2007)
 Critical media coverage of Chechnya stifled
 Shifting Battlefields of the Chechen War (April 2006)
 The Chechen resistance movement: 2006 in review Jamestown Foundation
 ISN Case Study: The North Caucasus on the Brink (August 2006)

Wars of independence
Conflicts in 1999
Conflicts in 2000
Dirty wars
Conflicts in territory of the former Soviet Union
2
Wars involving Chechnya
1999 in Russia
2000 in Russia
Wars involving Russia

Second Chechen War


Major Dennis Barraclough Fox MBE (1920-1993) was an officer of the British Army. During the Second World War he led the first platoon to land at Horsa Bridge in the gliderborne 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (the 52nd) coup de main operation, during the opening minutes of D-Day, 6 June 1944, which captured the Caen canal and Orne river bridges (Pegasus Bridge and Horsa Bridge). These bridges were considered to be critical to securing the eastern flank of the Normandy landings area.

Early life
Dennis Barraclough Fox was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Fox was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in April 1941 and was posted to the 7th Ox and Bucks. He transferred to the 2nd Ox and Bucks (the 52nd) in February 1942. Originally from B Company, he joined Major John Howard's D Company as a platoon commander in April 1944.

Horsa bridge
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Fox's No 17 platoon was one of three platoons tasked with capturing the bridge over the Orne River at Ranville, later to be known as Horsa Bridge. Fox's  platoon was the first platoon to arrive at the bridge, landing less than 100 yards from the bridge at 00.20hrs on 6 June, and secured the bridge and surrounding area before Lieutenant Tod Sweeney's platoon arrived several minutes later. When Fox was asked by Sweeney how things were, he replied, " Well, so far the exercise is going fine, but I can't find any bloody umpires."[1] Fox's platoon was then ordered by Major John Howard to assist in defending the area around both bridges by forming fighting patrols and moving to the nearby village of Benouville.[2] Fox was later wounded in Normandy and evacuated to England.

Rhine crossing
He took part in Operation Varsity: the air assault landing over the River Rhine on 24 March 1945. His glider was hit by enemy fire and crash landed. He was again wounded and evacuated to England. Fox was a member of the advance party of 2nd Ox and Bucks which was sent to India in August 1945 to prepare for an airborne assault in the Far East.

Post World War II
Fox served in Palestine, Cyprus, Suez Canal Zone, BAOR and Cyprus again from 1956 to 1959. He was Military Assistant to the Governor of Cyprus Sir Hugh Foot, later Lord Caradon. In 1960 he was appointed MBE in the New Year Honours. His last regiment was the 1st Green Jackets (43rd and 52nd) and he retired from the Army in September 1961. He later worked for the Independent Television Network. Fox was involved in the production of the 1962 film The Longest Day.

Major Dennis Fox MBE died in Hawstead, Suffolk.

1. D-Day The Battle for Normandy Antony Beevor (2014) page 53 .
2. Beevor page 53.

References

Pegasus Bridge by Stephen Ambrose (1984)
The Pegasus and Orne Bridges by Neil Barber (2009)
Pegasus Bridge and Horsa Bridge by Carl Shilleto (2010)
Pegasus Diaries by John Howard and Penny Bates (2006)
Gliderborne: The Story of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (the 52nd) in World War II (2007)
The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (The 43rd/52nd Regiment of Foot) by Philip Booth (1971)
One Night in June by Kevin Shannon and Stephen Wright (1994)
The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan (1959)
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor (2014)

1920 births
1993 deaths
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry officers
British Army personnel of World War II
British military personnel of the Palestine Emergency
South African emigrants to the United Kingdom
Military personnel from Johannesburg

Dennis Fox


Old Yeller is a 1957 American Western drama film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney. It stars Dorothy McGuire and Fess Parker, with Tommy Kirk, and Kevin Corcoran. It is about a boy and a stray dog in post-Civil War Texas. The film is based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Fred Gipson. Gipson also co-wrote the screenplay along with William Tunberg. The film's success led to a 1963 sequel, Savage Sam, which was based on a 1962 book by Gipson.

In 2019, the film was selected for preservation into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

In the late 1860s, Jim Coates leaves his family—wife Katie, teenage son Travis, and small son Arliss—to collect cattle in Kansas. While Jim is away, Travis sets off to work in the cornfield, where he encounters a Black Mouth Cur he names "Old Yeller", as "yeller" is a dialect pronunciation of "yellow" and the dog's bark resembles a human yell. Travis unsuccessfully tries to shoo the dog away, while Arliss defends him. Yeller's habit of stealing meat from smokehouses and robbing hens' nests does not endear him to Travis, but his mother agrees with the idea of Arliss having a dog.

Later, Arliss tries to capture a black bear cub by feeding it cornbread and grabbing it. Its angry mother hears her cub wailing and attacks, but Old Yeller frightens her away, winning over the family. Travis grows to love and respect Old Yeller, who comes to profoundly affect the boy's life.

Bud Searcy and his granddaughter Lisbeth come for supper one day, and Lisbeth takes Travis aside to tell him Old Yeller has been stealing food all over the county. After she and Bud leave, Travis scolds Old Yeller. The next day, Old Yeller proves himself as a cow dog by protecting Travis from Rose, their cow, and restraining her while Travis milks her.

One day, Old Yeller's original master, Burn Sanderson, arrives looking for his dog. Realizing that the Coates family really needs Old Yeller, he agrees to trade him to Arliss for a horny toad and a home-cooked meal. Sanderson later takes Travis aside and warns him of the growing plague of hydrophobia (rabies).

One day, Travis sets out to trap a family of feral hogs. Advised by Bud Searcy, he sits in a tree, trying to rope them from above as Old Yeller corners them. However, Travis then falls into the group of hogs and is attacked by one. Old Yeller defends Travis as he crawls away with an injured leg. However, Old Yeller is severely injured by the hog and Travis hides him in a large hole. Travis' mother then retrieves Old Yeller and uses mule hair to suture his wounds. As Old Yeller recovers, Searcy warns the Coates family of hydrophobia in the area but Katie chastises him for trying to scare Travis. Searcy leaves, and Lisbeth stays with the Coateses to help them harvest corn. Travis assures Katie that the hogs were not rabid, and both he and Old Yeller recover.

Later, the family sees their cow, Rose, stumbling and foaming at the mouth. Travis confirms that she is rabid and shoots her. While Katie and Lisbeth burn her body that night, a wolf suddenly attacks them. Katie's scream alerts Travis, who runs outside with a rifle, just in time to see Old Yeller fighting off the wolf. Travis successfully shoots the wolf, but not before it bites Old Yeller on the neck. Katie tells Travis that because no healthy wolf would attack near a burning area, the wolf was rabid. Katie then suggests shooting Old Yeller, but Travis insists that they instead pen him in the corn crib to see if he shows symptoms of the disease. After remaining quarantined, the Coateses believe that Old Yeller escaped infection. However, one night, when Travis goes to feed Old Yeller, he growls at him aggressively. Travis suspects that Old Yeller may have been infected but says nothing. Later that night, Arliss obliviously tries to open the corn crib to release Old Yeller. Katie slams the door shut as Old Yeller snarls and tries to attack. Katie then tells Travis that Old Yeller is suffering and returns Arliss to the house. Katie returns with the rifle, but Travis takes it, reluctantly shoots Old Yeller and departs.

Upset over his dog's death, Travis declines a new puppy sired by Old Yeller. Jim then returns with money and gifts for the family. Katie tells him about the dog, and Jim discusses it with Travis. Upon returning to the farmhouse, Travis observes the puppy stealing a piece of meat, a habit inherited from Old Yeller. Travis then accepts the puppy, "Young Yeller", as his new dog.

Cast

 Spike as Old Yeller
 Fess Parker as Jim Coates
 Dorothy McGuire as Katie Coates
 Tommy Kirk as Travis Coates
 Kevin Corcoran as Arliss Coates
 Jeff York as Bud Searcy
 Beverly Washburn as Lisbeth Searcy
 Chuck Connors as Burn Sanderson

Comic book adaptation
The film was adapted into a 1957 comic book published by Dell Comics. It was issue #869 of Four Color comic series, and was reprinted in 1965.

In 1959 Japan also released a comic adaption, drawn by Leiji Matsumoto. It is considered very rare nowadays.

Reception

Box office
During its initial theatrical run, Old Yeller earned $5.9 million in box office rentals from the United States and Canada. The film was re-released in 1965, and earned an estimated $2 million in domestic rentals.

Critical reaction
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film's performers and called the film "a nice little family picture" that was a "lean and sensible screen transcription of Fred Gipson's children's book." He further described the film as a "warm, appealing little rustic tale [that] unfolds in lovely color photography. Sentimental, yes, but also sturdy as a hickory stick." Time magazine felt the "action, in short, is exciting for everybody, but all too often the dialogue is only for the very young." However, they heralded the film as being "for the kids that adults will stay to enjoy themselves. Old Yeller propounds a major tenet of Disney philosophy: a dog should be a dog, and a boy should act like a man."

Harrison's Reports wrote the film "is fine entertainment for all, even though it has a special appeal for the children." John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times praised the two child actors for "their naturalness and ability", as well as Spike the dog, writing that he "may be well be the next movie star dog." In summary, he wrote that "[t]he production is not a great one; but it will bring families back to the theater."

Legacy
Old Yeller went on to become an important cultural film for baby boomers, with Old Yeller's death in particular being remembered as one of the most tearful scenes in cinematic history. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 22 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.20/10. The critical consensus reads: "Old Yeller is an exemplary coming of age tale, packing an emotional wallop through smart pacing and a keen understanding of the elemental bonding between humanity and their furry best friends." One critic cited it as "among the best, if not THE best" of the boy-and-his-dog films. Critic Jeff Walls wrote:

Old Yeller, like The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars, has come to be more than just a movie; it has become a part of our culture. If you were to walk around asking random people, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who did not know the story of Old Yeller, someone who didn't enjoy it or someone who didn't cry. The movie's ending has become as famous as any other in film history.

See also
 List of American films of 1957
 Savage Sam

References

External links

1957 films
1957 drama films
American adventure drama films
American children's drama films
American Western (genre) films
1957 Western (genre) films
Films about euthanasia
American coming-of-age films
1950s English-language films
Animal adventure films
Films about dogs
Films adapted into comics
Films based on American novels
Films based on children's books
Films directed by Robert Stevenson
Films produced by Bill Anderson (producer)
Films produced by Walt Disney
Films set in Texas
Films set in the 1860s
Films scored by Oliver Wallace
Rabies in popular culture
Films about hunters
United States National Film Registry films
Walt Disney Pictures films
1950s American films

Old Yeller (film)


Peter Dodson (born August 20, 1946) is an American paleontologist who has published many papers and written and collaborated on books about dinosaurs. An authority on Ceratopsians, he has also authored several papers and textbooks on hadrosaurs and sauropods, and is a co-editor of The Dinosauria, widely considered the definitive scholarly reference on dinosaurs. Dodson described Avaceratops in 1986; Suuwassea in 2004, and many others, while his students have named Paralititan and Auroraceratops. He has conducted field research in Canada, the United States, India, Madagascar, Egypt, Argentina, and China. A professor of vertebrate paleontology and of veterinary anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, Dodson has also taught courses in geology, history, history and sociology of science, and religious studies. Dodson is also a research associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences. In 2001, two former students named an ancient frog species, Nezpercius dodsoni, after him (as well as after the Native American Nez Perce people). Dodson has also been skeptical to the theory of a dinosaurian origin of birds, but more recently has come down on the side of this theory.

Religious views
Describing himself as a "deeply committed Christian," Dodson is a Roman Catholic who subscribes to theistic evolution and has argued that there is no real conflict between religion and science, writing that: "I have found little if anything to support or necessitate the warlike antagonism between science and religion pictured by Dawkins and like-minded scientists, who are animated by motives other than pure, disinterested science." Dodson has written numerous essays on the topic of religious belief and science, and has served on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit New York City-based Metanexus Institute.

Publications

Books

References

1946 births
American paleontologists
Living people
Theistic evolutionists
University of Alberta alumni
Yale University alumni

Peter Dodson


Marcus Driver O'Day (1897–1961) was an American physicist.

In 1918, he entered the military service in Eugene, Oregon after graduating from Centralia, Washington. He then attended the University of Oregon where he was assigned to the Students Army Training Corps, and was discharged at the end of the year.

Beginning in 1926 O'Day taught physics at Reed College. During World War II, he was employed at the  MIT Radiation Laboratory where he worked on the radar IFF system.

In 1945 he joined the Air Force Cambridge Research Labs. In 1946 and 1947 he guided a team named the Blossom research group, that worked to launch scientific payloads into the ionosphere using V-2 rockets that had been brought to the United States from Germany following the war. He was also a member of the Rocket and Satellite Research Panel until it ceased operating in 1960.

He would theorize in 1958 that solar power could be used to sustain a colony on the Moon, and hypothesized that there may be water under the lunar surface.

The crater O'Day on the Moon is named  after him, as is the "Marcus D. O'Day award".

Bibliography
 M.D. O'Day and A.A. Knowlton, "Laboratory Manual in Physics", 1935, New York, McGraw-Hill.
 Marcus O'Day, Watson Laboratories, "Rocketbourne Upper Atmospheric Experiments of the Air Materiel Command", American Physical Society, SE Section, 1949.

1897 births
1961 deaths
People from Centralia, Washington
20th-century American physicists
Fellows of the American Physical Society
University of Oregon alumni
Reed College faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff

Marcus O'Day


Julie Corletto (née Prendergast; born 31 October 1986) is an Australian international netball player. She played for the Australian Diamonds and NSW Swifts but has now retired. She usually played in the positions of goal defence and wing defence.  Corletto is the younger sister of former AFL footballer Ian Prendergast and former Victorian State netballer Karen Dennis, (née Prendergast).

Career
Corletto started playing netball at aged 10 in her home town of Kerang. She made her Commonwealth Bank Trophy debut at the age of 16 for the Melbourne Phoenix, where her style of defence saw her named Netball Australia's best new talent. She was selected in the Australian open squad at the age of 17. In 2005 she captained the Australian U-21 team to a bronze medal at the World Youth Championships, while on the comeback trail from a stress fracture in her foot.

In 2007 Corletto was recruited from the Melbourne Phoenix to cross-town rivals, Melbourne Kestrels. Also that year, she was named in the Australian national team to tour England in a tri-series. However, after injuring her ankle in the first minutes of the season opener, the local derby between Phoenix and Kestrels, she was forced to pull out, with Melbourne Kestrels teammate Rebecca Bulley called up in her place. But a few months later Corletto went on to make a debut for Australia against Jamaica, and played goal defence during a subsequent Australian series win against New Zealand. In November 2007, she won her first ever world championship title, as the youngest member of the victorious Australian team.

In 2008 Corletto signed with the Melbourne Vixens to play in the new trans-Tasman ANZ Championship. She again played for the Vixens in the 2009. She capped off the 2009 season with the ANZ Championship premiership-winning Vixens, coming runner-up in the Vixens' Best & Fairest, and being awarded the Liz Ellis Diamond, the highest and most prestigious individual honour in Australian netball, awarded to the player that has polled the most votes across the ANZ Championship and Australian Diamonds seasons. Corletto's 2010 season was interrupted with her having to undergo knee surgery on both knees, thus missing out in representing Australia in the Commonwealth Games.

Corletto made up for her misfortunes in 2011, returning to the Vixens team during round 5 of the 2011 season, and being named in the Diamonds Squad to represent Australia in the World Netball Championships. At the end of the 2012 ANZ championship season, she announced she was leaving the Vixens to sign with the New Zealand team the Northern Mystics in 2013 to join husband Daryl, who had re-signed with the New Zealand Breakers. She played for the Northern Mystics in 2013 and 2014.  Corletto played in the Australian Netball Diamonds 2014 Commonwealth Games team that won the gold medal.

In 2015, Corletto was part of the New South Wales Swifts team that lost in the ANZ Championship finals to the Queensland Firebirds. She also won the gold medal playing for the Diamonds at 2015 Netball World Cup, playing with injured knees and a broken foot. Corletto subsequently announced her retirement from international netball after the tournament.

ANZ Championship accolades
 2011 Melbourne Vixens Coaches Award

Netball career facts
 2015 World Championship gold medal
 2014 Australian Commonwealth Games Netball Team
 2011 World Championship gold medal (extra-time)
 2009 Liz Ellis Diamond winner
 2009 ANZ Championship victory with Melbourne Vixens
 2007 World Championship gold medal
 2005 Commonwealth Bank Trophy winner with Melbourne Phoenix
 2004 Commonwealth Bank Trophy Best New Talent

Personal life
Julie has three Children, Cooper (2016), Zara (2018) & Harvey (2021)

References

External links
 2009 Melbourne Vixens profile. Retrieved on 2009-03-27.

1986 births
Living people
Melbourne Vixens players
Melbourne Kestrels players
Melbourne Phoenix players
New South Wales Swifts players
Northern Mystics players
Commonwealth Games gold medallists for Australia
Netball players at the 2014 Commonwealth Games
Commonwealth Games medallists in netball
People from Kerang
Australia international netball players
Victorian Netball League players
Netball players from Victoria (state)
Australian expatriate netball people in New Zealand
2007 World Netball Championships players
2011 World Netball Championships players
2015 Netball World Cup players
Medallists at the 2014 Commonwealth Games

Julie Corletto


Screwed: The Truth About Life as a Prison Officer is a non-fiction book written by former prison officer Ronnie Thompson (a pseudonym). The book was first published by Headline Review on 24 January 2008 in hardback.

Contents
Screwed is Thompson's account of his time serving seven years in some of the UK's toughest jails. The action is set around "HMP Romwell", a fictional prison. Thompson created HMP Romwell to protect the identities of the establishments he worked in and the colleagues he worked with.  Throughout the book, the author describes his day-to-day duties. It is a "warts and all" memoir; Thompson does not hold back his views about being a prison officer in the 21st century. He describes how his career comes to a halt when an inmate accuses him of using excessive force.

Reception
The book led to acclaim and controversy. The book was praised by serving officers, serving prisoners, and magistrates. Debate resulted from the commonly avoided social issues Thompson deals with. Furthermore, the book's brutality and obscene vocabulary led to criticism, but Thompson insists that this is a reflection of how prison life is and how he lived. The novel also deals with themes such as the abuse of inmates by other inmates and also by prison officers. It also highlights the ways in which Thompson copes with interacting with inmates who have committed crimes involving children. He describes how he strives to endure life as a prison officer by maintaining a tough exterior, bending the occasional rule and also by being approachable. His life as a prison officer ultimately leads to strains in his marriage and has a profound effect upon his relationship with his son.

Film adaptation

The book was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name.

References

External links
"Screwed by Ronnie Thompson", The Times (22 February 2008).

2008 non-fiction books
British non-fiction books
Non-fiction crime books
Penal system in the United Kingdom
Memoirs by prison officers
Works published under a pseudonym
Headline Publishing Group books


Malcolm Martineau, OBE (born 3 February 1960) is a Scottish pianist who is particularly noted as an accompanist.

Life
Martineau was born to the pianist Hester Dickson Martineau and Canon George Martineau in 1960. He was an only child but he had several step siblings from his parents' previous marriages. He was born in Edinburgh, and educated at George Watson's College. He studied at St Catharine's College, Cambridge between 1978 and 1981, and went on to study at the Royal College of Music between 1981 and 1984.

Malcolm Martineau has played in Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Milan, Berlin, throughout the United Kingdom and in North America accompanying many of the world's leading singers including Thomas Allen, Dame Janet Baker, Barbara Bonney, Susan Graham, Della Jones, Simon Keenlyside, Tom Krause, Dame Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Anne Sofie von Otter, Frederica von Stade, Sonya Yoncheva, Bryn Terfel, Sarah Walker and Ainhoa Arteta. Among many noted instrumentalists he regularly accompanies clarinettist Emma Johnson. He has appeared at numerous festivals throughout the United Kingdom, has given many recitals for the BBC, and has appeared at the Aix-en-Provence, Vienna, Edinburgh and Salzburg festivals and in North and South America.

He accompanied the winners of the Lieder prize at the 1989 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and at the 1990 Elly Ameling Award. He has accompanied at masterclasses at the Britten-Pears School in Snape for Dame Joan Sutherland, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Suzanne Danco, Ileana Cotrubaș and Kurt Equiluz. He presented his own series at St John's Smith Square of the complete songs of Debussy and Poulenc and a major Britten series at the Wigmore Hall (both broadcast by the BBC).

Recent recordings have included Schubert, Schumann and English song recitals with Bryn Terfel (for Deutsche Grammophon), Schubert and Strauss recitals with Simon Keenlyside (for EMI), recital records with Angela Gheorghiu (for Decca), Emma Johnson, Della Jones and Yvonne Kenny, the complete Faure songs with Sarah Walker and Tom Krause for CRD, the complete Britten Folk Songs for Hyperion, the complete Beethoven folksongs, and the song recital "Songs My Mother Taught Me", together with Magdalena Kožená, for Deutsche Grammophon.

His awards include the Walther Gruner International Lieder Competition. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to music and young singers.

Notes

External links

 Hyperion artist page

Scottish classical pianists
Male classical pianists
Classical accompanists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
People educated at George Watson's College
Musicians from Edinburgh
1960 births
Living people
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
21st-century classical pianists
21st-century British male musicians

Malcolm Martineau


Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU, The Valley or Valley) is a public historically black university in Mississippi Valley State, Mississippi, adjacent to Itta Bena, Mississippi. MVSU is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

History
The institution, which opened in 1950, was created by the Mississippi Legislature as Mississippi Vocational College. The legislation to form the institution was signed into law by Governor Thomas L. Bailey on April 5, 1946. On February 10, 1950, Governor Fielding L. Wright served as the main speaker at the opening ceremony.

The legislature anticipated that legal segregation of public education was in danger because there were increasing challenges to it through legal suits (in 1954 it was declared unconstitutional in the United States Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education). It created this institution in the hopes that it would attract African-American applicants who might otherwise apply to Mississippi's premier whites-only institutions: the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi.

State leaders hoped that founding separate institutions of higher learning for Mississippi's black population would reduce the pressure to integrate the state's premier universities. To attract the support of those who opposed any government action to provide higher education to black people, those proposing creation of M.V.C. used the term "vocational" to imply that the institution's main purpose would be to train black people to take on blue-collar jobs.

The site selection committee appointed by the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning had originally selected as a site the former Greenwood Army Air Base, which had many facilities ready for use and thus would have been a very cost-effective choice. The Greenwood Commonwealth celebrated the choice. However, residents of Carroll County, Mississippi objected to having the institution located near their properties.

After further study, the committee selected a site in Itta Bena. Whites of that town also objected to having a black institution nearby, so the final site chosen was away from the downtown area, and on land that was not good for cultivation.

In 1964, Mississippi Vocational College was renamed Mississippi Valley State College. In February 1969, a nonviolent student boycott, which included eight hundred students, male and female, was organized to protest President James Herbert White's administration. The students demanded required courses in black history, more library purchases of works by black writers, remedial courses in English and Math, scheduling of prominent black speakers, and fewer curfew restrictions.

In the early 1970s, civil rights leaders continued to protest the inequalities in higher education opportunities offered to whites and blacks in Mississippi. In an effort to defuse some of the criticism, Gov. Bill Waller proposed changing the names of three black institutions from "colleges" to "universities". Thus, in 1974, the institution was renamed again, as Mississippi Valley State University.

Following President White, Dr. Ernest A. Boykins, Jr.  took office in July 1971. Dr. Joe L. Boyer became MVSU's third president in January 1982 and was followed by Dr. William W. Sutton in July 1988. Dr. Lester C. Newman became the fifth president of MVSU on July 1, 1998. Dr. Donna H. Oliver became MVSU's sixth president and first female president on January 1, 2009. On November 6, 2013, Dr. William Bynum took office as MVSU's seventh president.

In May 2017, Bynum departed MVSU to become president of Jackson State University. Dr. Jerryl Briggs, who served as executive vice president and chief operating officer in Bynum's administration, was named interim president of the university shortly afterwards. On October 19, 2017, Briggs was officially named as the university's eighth president.

In a 1997 article in Innovative Higher Education, the journalist Dale Thorn describes MVSU's successful attempt to avoid a merger with another institution and to remain a separate entity.

In 1998, the university renamed many of the buildings on campus, except for those named for white supremacist politicians Walter Sillers, Jr., Fielding Wright, and J. H. White.

Campus

The campus is on a  tract of land adjacent to U.S. Highway 82.

It is in Mississippi Valley State census-designated place, in unincorporated Leflore County, in the Mississippi Delta region. It is  northwest of Itta Bena. The university is about  from Greenwood, about  from Greenville, about  north of Jackson, and about  south of Memphis, Tennessee.

MVSU includes faculty and staff apartments and other residential apartments. Dependent children living in these units are within the Greenwood-Leflore School District. These apartments were formerly served by the Leflore County School District. Effective July 1, 2019 this district consolidated into the Greenwood-Leflore School District.

Academics
Mississippi Valley State University offers undergraduate and graduate degrees through the following entities:
College of Art & Sciences
College of Professional Studies
College of Education
Graduate School

MVSU offers an honors program to better cater to high-achieving undergraduate students on campus.

MVSU was accredited in 1968 by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award bachelor's and master's degrees.

Student activities
Activities include theater, special interest groups, orchestra, fraternities, sororities, and band. Students may work on the Delvian (yearbook) or the Delta Devil Gazette (student-run newspaper). Leadership opportunities are found in the Student Government Association (SGA) or other organizations such as English Club, Future Teachers of America, and Trades and Industries Club.

Mean Green Marching Machine
Mississippi Valley State University's marching band is known as the "Mean Green Marching Machine" (also goes by the moniker of "The Mack Of The SWAC") and the "Satin Dolls" are the featured dance squad. The band holds the distinction of being the first African-American band to participate in the Tournament of Roses parade, which it achieved in 1965.

Athletics

MVSU's colors are forest green and white. Their nickname is the Delta Devils for men's teams and Devilettes for women's teams. MVSU sports teams participate in NCAA Division I (I-AA for football) in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). Famous alumni include NFL wide receiver Jerry Rice of the 1984 football team.

The Mississippi Valley State University Department of Athletics currently sponsors intercollegiate:

Women's
Basketball
Cross country
Golf
Track
Soccer
Volleyball
Softball
Bowling
Men's
Basketball
Cross country
Golf
Track
Baseball
Football
Tennis

In 1986, the men's basketball team received a 16 seed in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. There, they faced #1 ranked Duke on national television in the first round. The Delta Devils almost became the first 16 seed to beat a 1 seed in NCAA Tournament history. They forced 23 turnovers and led 40–37 at the half before falling 85–78.

In 2016, MVSU completed $17.5 million worth of renovations to the Harrison HPER Complex.  The 87,042 square foot multi-purpose arena is home to MVSU men's basketball, women's basketball, volleyball, and commencement ceremonies.  The facility includes features such as fitness centers, an indoor walking track, and three technology HPER classrooms.

WVSD 91.7 FM
MVSU's on-campus public radio station is WVSD 91.7 FM.  The station offers a variety of programming involving MVSU, current events, and music.

Notable alumni

References

External links

Public universities and colleges in Mississippi
Historically black universities and colleges in the United States
Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Education in Leflore County, Mississippi
Buildings and structures in Leflore County, Mississippi
Universities and colleges established in 1950
1950 establishments in Mississippi

Mississippi Valley State University