Dudayev Quotes

The military operation to overthrow the Dudayev regime was launched on 11 December 1994. It was poorly planned—recall the then minister of Defense General Grachyov’s announcement that he would ‘capture Grozny with two regiments in two hours.’ From the outset, the army was betrayed by the high command. Its soldiers were insufficiently trained, depressed and demoralized; they did not understand the aims of this war, and they were treated as cannon fodder.

Ruscism is worse than fascism, nazism and racism, worse than all misanthropic ideologies... Ichkeria has curbed (Russia's) appetite, but it has not stopped. There will be carnage in Crimea. Ukraine will still clash with Russia in irreconcilable circumstances. As long as Ruscism exists, it will never give up its ambitions. They want to take over Belarus, Ukraine, under the "Slavic" brand, just like in the old days. Now nobody wants to ally with Russia, not militarily, politically, economically, or even trade-wise. Russia is essentially a racketeer. By threats, tanks, and armadas it extorts money for itself. And now it threatens to give nuclear technology to Iran. And if the civilized world does not want this (to suffer), says - give us money to make up for this profit. This is what is called racketeering.

[Dzhokhar Dudayev] had come up to the sentry and asked him, “Young man, how many tanks did you blow up?” The sentry very proudly answered, “One tank.” Dudayev patted him gently on the cheek, “Oh you have barely fought at all!” You could see tears well up in the young man’s eyes.

I remember Dudayev, who knew some Spanish, singing “Bessame Mucho” (“Kiss Me a Lot”) over the telephone to an American professor whom he occasionally consulted. When she voiced fears about explosions that could she heard in the background, he dismissed her concerns and started singing that Mexican love song. This was Dudayev’s style of interacting with people: to distract them from the gravity of a situation with any spontaneous, jovial gesture. He did not like it when people complained, and he always projected confidence.

Our satellite telephone was in my care and we were naively unconcerned about it being used to identify our location. This was presumably how the Russians pinpointed Dudayev the following year in April 1996 and ordered an aerial strike against him.

Dudayev used to say, “I can win the war, that’s possible. But how am I going to govern the veterans?