d to the status of an autonomous republic. In February 1944, during World War II, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused the Chechen and Ingush people of collaboration with the Nazis and deported them to Central Asia. The Chechen-Ingush republic was abolished and was not restored until January 1957, when its former inhabitants were allowed to return from exile. About half of the Chechens died in Siberia. In 1991 Chechen general Dzhokhar Dudayev expelled the Communist government in Groznyy. Presidential elections were held in October, and Dudayev won a resounding victory. In November 1991, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya declared itself an independent state. The Russian government refused to recognize it as Chechnya – the conflict 6 such. The Ingush separated from Chechnya and formed their own republic. Dudayev set up a government in Groznyy but was unable to persuade any countries to recognize Chechnya’s independence or invest in its economy. In December 1994 the Russian Federation government under President Boris Yeltsin launched a full-scale invasion of Chechnya to halt the republic’s movement toward independence. Groznyy was almost completely destroyed before it was taken by the Russians in February 1995.Thousands of people were killed in the fighting.. Dudayev was forced into hiding, but his rebel forces refused to surrender, and fighting continued between the two sides; Dudayev was killed in a rocket attack in April 1996. In late May 1996 President Yeltsin and acting Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev agreed to a cease-fire, but fighting continued on both sides. By June 1996, when further peace negotiations were held, more than 40,000 people—including large numbers of civilians—had been killed in the conflict, and an estimated 300,000 Chechens had fled to other parts of Russia. The Russian government offered the Chechens almost complete autonomy within the Russian Federation...
