The center of Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, is unrecognizable to anyone who saw it during the country’s two most recent wars against Russia. The First Chechen War, which began in 1994, was a war of nationalist resistance—Chechnya had declared independence from Russia when the Soviet Union disintegrated—and ended two years later, after a Russian bombing campaign killed thousands of civilians and left the city in ruins.
The New Yorker: Putin’s dragon
Chechen women hold a picture of the head of the Chechen republic Ramzan Kadyrov during a rally in central Grozny on Jan. 22, 2016.
