December 11, 1994
Boris Yeltsin orders Russian federal forces into Chechnya to crush the separatist government. Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev boasted he could take Grozny with a single airborne regiment in two hours — a catastrophic miscalculation. Poorly trained conscripts drove tanks into an urban labyrinth against seasoned Chechen fighters, and the 'two hour' war would drag on for nearly two years.
Commanders