Insurgency Success Factors and Rebel Legitimacy
through economic assistance and providing oil to refine69. As such, Russian assistance played a
crucial role in preventing collapse of the Chechen economy in the early 1990's. Virtually all
Chechen state funds were produced through these refineries 70. The loss of economic productivity
from the refineries would have been devastating to an already suffering economy. Further, the
state would have virtually no legal or official economic outputs, as the bulk of all other activity
was produced in the Chechen black market71.
The attitudes of the Russian administration towards the de facto government shifted
drastically after the First Chechen War72. Chechen victory left the Yeltsin administration
humiliated, and further contributed to declining popular support. Further, while the
administration before the war largely assumed that Russian military action would end the
rebellion, the outcomes of control over Chechnya after the war became vague and
unpredictable 73.
Following the war, Yeltsin supported the de facto government in early plans to rebuild oil
pipelines that had been destroyed during the war. Russia intended to assume the bulk of financial
responsibility for the project 74. Russian support of the project signified Russia's continued
dependence and stance on Chechnya.
Vladimir Putin's rise to power and developing insecurity in Chechnya from 1999-2000
brought about a drastic shift in Russian-Chechen political space, attitudes, and policy. Putin
portrayed a stark change in Russian leadership. An ex-KGB agent, pushing Russian nationalism
and enforcing no-nonsense politics, Putin presented a stark change in Russian leadership
compared to Yeltsin, the president that facilitated the demise of the Soviet Union, lost the First
Chechen War, and was perceived as weak and undirected. Shortly after Yeltsin's resignation and
a month before official Russian elections, Putin was faced with responding to the Moscow
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