And then?

Over the next few years tensions once again escalated. Maskhadov’s government in the capital Grozny was opposed by extremist Wahhabi Muslim factions who began to take over more and more areas of the country. The introduction of Sharia law (see Islam) in February 1999 did nothing to appease these groups, and in August an extremist rebel army, led by Shamil Basayev and Saudi Arabian mercenary Ibn al-Khattab invaded neighbouring Dagestan in an effort to establish a separate Islamic state, which would cover part of Chechnya and Dagestan. Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister at the time, quelled this uprising quickly.

In September, bombs were set off in different areas of Russia, causing around 300 deaths. While critics, including former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko—who was poisoned in London in November 2006—have accused Russia’s Federal Security Services of co-ordinating the bombings, Russian officials pointed the finger at Chechen rebels. As a result, soldiers were sent in on the pretext of fighting future terrorism and the Second Chechen War got under way, with Putin declaring Maskhadov’s government illegitimate and Russia striving again to claim authority over the restless region. Thousands more military and civilian casualties ensued, and hundreds of thousands were displaced. Grozny fell back into Russian hands in February 2000, and three years later was pronounced the ‘most destroyed city on earth’ by the United Nations.

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