Chechens Mark War’s Anniversary
Shouting, dancing and crying beneath a sea of the green-and-red flags of Chechnya, angry residents of the republic’s capital marked the one-year anniversary of the start of Russia’s military campaign Monday.
While gunfire crackled nearby, about 2,000 angry demonstrators in Grozny demanded--yet again--that Russian troops withdraw.
The war in breakaway Chechnya has killed thousands, making it the worst bloodshed on Russian soil since World War II. Despite the protesters’ pleas, an end to the fighting seems distant.
On Dec. 11, 1994, about 40,000 Russian troops poured into Chechnya to quell the southern Muslim republic’s separatist drive and put an end to the three-year rule of elected President Dzhokar M. Dudayev.
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