First Chechen War — Grozny Levelled

Yeltsin sent Russian forces into Chechnya in December 1994 to crush its declared independence, expecting a swift victory. Russian bombardment reduced the Chechen capital Grozny to what the UN at the time called the most destroyed city on Earth; independent estimates put civilian deaths in the tens of thousands over the two-year war. Russian forces withdrew in 1996 having failed to subdue the insurgency, in a war widely seen even domestically as a military and political humiliation.