 Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Republic of Chechnya's nationalist president, was driven to take his republic out of the Russian Federation, and had declared Chechnya's independence in 1991.Russia was quickly submerged in a quagmire like that of the U.S. in the Vietnam War.When the Russians attacked the Chechen capital of Grozny during the first weeks of January 1995, about 25,000 civilians died under week-long air raids and artillery fire in the sealed-off city.