ABSTRACT
By the end of January, Russian army and interior ministry troops had pacified most of Grozny, but the former general whose regime the troops had come to dissolve was still alive and remained a potent symbol of defiance, while large parts of the republic Russia had ostensibly come to liberate was united in arms against it. The problem of Dudayev himself was eventually dealt with when the Chechen leader was killed in a missile strike in April 1996. However, Russia failed to master Chechnya itself. Although federal forces, when fielded in large enough numbers, eventually proved victorious, Yeltsin's administration lacked the will to sustain a major military operation in Chechnya.
