Bombing of Katyr-Yurt

On February 4, 2000, Russian forces carried out a bombing campaign against the village of Katyr-Yurt in Chechnya. The village had previously been bombed by Russian forces in 1995 and 1996. At the time of the 2000 attack, the village held many civilian refugees who had fled earlier fighting in Grozny.

Residents were not warned in advance of the bombardment and were not given information about safe exit routes. Heavy bombardment began in the early hours of the morning and continued until approximately 3 p.m., at which point many villagers attempted to leave, believing the military had granted safe passage. As they left by road, aircraft appeared and bombed the vehicles.

In the afternoon of February 4, Russian forces reportedly told residents they could leave in a convoy of buses displaying white flags. The convoy, which had been dispatched by the Russian side, was then bombed by Russian forces. One resident of the village stated that Chechen fighters entered the village on February 5. The bombing lasted two days in total and resulted in the deaths of at least 363 civilians, all Russian citizens, with many more injured.

The events at Katyr-Yurt were subsequently examined by the European Court of Human Rights. In a ruling dated February 24, 2005, the Court held Russia responsible for the civilian deaths. The Court found that the military operation, aimed at disarming or destroying fighters, had not been spontaneous, and that the risks of deploying aviation with heavy combat weapons in a populated area should have been considered but were not shown to have played a significant role in planning. The Court noted that the military used FAB-250 and FAB-500 free-falling high-explosion aviation bombs with a damage radius exceeding 1,000 metres, and found that using such weapons in a populated area, outside wartime and without prior evacuation of civilians, could not be reconciled with the degree of caution expected of a law-enforcement body in a democratic society. The Court also noted that no martial law or state of emergency had been declared in Chechnya, and no derogation had been entered under Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, meaning the operation had to be judged against a normal legal background. The Court further found that even if villagers had been held hostage by fighters, as the Russian government submitted, the use of indiscriminate weapons was incompatible with the standard of care required in an operation involving lethal force by state agents.

Additional related judgments followed: the case of Abuyeva and Others v. Russia in 2010, and a further judgment concerning the bombing in 2015.