Russia didn't lose in Chechnya, there were two campaigns and three rival military insurgent groups to combat. Eventually, the most prominent one was dealt with, and Khattab and all of his Saudi and Afghani terrorist field commanders were eliminated.
No it didn't, you're referring to an article on Wikipedia explaining how a battle was lost. I was saying how the war was won. Eventually every single insurgency leader and their field commanders were eliminated and nowadays Chechnya is part of Russia, and Chechen military forces are fighting on the side of Russia. If that's your definition of Russia's losing then I don't envy Ukrainian military command leaders.
The three insurgent groups acted across two campaings (two hot war phases). The first phase was dealing with Dudayev & Maskhadov and their following specifically. The second phase acted on the Kadyrovs group and the Khattab & Basayev group. The former essentially were bought out and negotiated out of the war via rivalry with Maskhadov, financial incetives, and several regional autonomy promises (they have their own militia and army divisions like the 141 Special Motorized Regiment). The latter Khattab group effectively became the most prominent force during the second phase, it had several field commanders from Middle East who organized acts of terror in major Russian cities. [1] The war ended with elimination of all the leaders and field commanders of the two separatist groups.
