The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the North Caucasus , both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections . From the time Chechen separatists declared independence in the early 1990s , an intermittent guerrilla war has been fought between the rebel groups and the Russian military . Terrorist attacks against civilians carried out by separatists , most notably the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school siege , caused hundreds of deaths and drew worldwide attention
Moscow theater hostage crisis
Moscow theater hostage crisis
Russia