The 2006 Khasavyurt agreements on the cessation of hostilities in Chechnya were signed after a series of successful operations by the Chechens and de facto consolidated the independence of Ichkeria.
Reasons for the Khasavyurt agreements
A joint statement by the Secretary of the Security Council Alexander Lebed and the head of the unrecognized republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, made in the village of Khasavyurt, put an end to the First Chechen campaign. The agreement was reached after the Chechen militants carried out a successful "jihad" operation, as a result of which the city of Grozny was taken by bandit formations for the second time. At the same time, the militants attacked the cities of Argun and Gudermes, which were also taken under control. Despite the numerical superiority of the Russian army, air supremacy and superiority in armored vehicles, the Russian side was weaker due to the demoralization of the personnel.
Official propaganda, on the contrary, spoke of the victorious offensive of the Russian troops, so the signing of the agreement was received with hostility by the majority of the population of Russia. Under these agreements, Moscow pledged to withdraw all its troops from the territory of Chechnya, in fact, contributing to the formation of a bandit enclave on the territory of the republic. Moscow also pledged to allocate money for the reconstruction of Chechnya and to help it with food and medicine. Unsurprisingly, most of the Russian political establishment still perceives the signing of the agreement as a betrayal. The decision on the status of Ichkeria was postponed for five years.
It should be noted the role played here by the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, one of the main lobbyists of Khasavyurt, who literally insisted on signing.
Consequences of signing agreements
There is a version that Khasavyurt was beneficial to General Lebed, who wanted to look like a conciliator in the eyes of future voters, because in the last presidential election he gained almost fourteen percent. However, shortly after the agreements were signed, Lebed was declared almost a traitor and dismissed from his post as secretary of the Security Council. The Chechen side, however, perceived Khasavyurt as its unambiguous victory. But Maskhadov did not manage to put under control the field commanders, who were engaged in various criminal business.
Money from Moscow for the restoration of the republic came in the proper amount, but the destroyed houses and villages were not restored, and the entire republican economy was of a purely criminal nature.
The republic turned into a criminal enclave, where the drug trade, the slave trade, the practice of taking hostages and demanding ransom for them flourished. A real hotbed of religious extremism arose in Chechnya, the flames of which spread to neighboring territories. The situation remained dangerous and unstable until the attack of Chechen militants on Dagestan in 1999, which led to the cancellation of the Khasavyurt agreements and the start of the Second Chechen campaign.
