Twenty-six years ago, on December 11, 1994, the Russian Federation poured thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks into the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. It was the largest Russian military offensive since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That same day, the Ukraina Democratic coalition, representing 40 political organizations, protested at the Russian Embassy in Kyiv.
Members of the protest called the developments in Chechnya “the beginning of the second stage in the break-up of the empire,” and political analyst Vadym Halynovksy called it “a dress rehearsal for an attack on Ukraine.”