Aslan Maskhadov

Aslan Maskhadov's life was a map of the late-20th century's most violent fractures. A decorated artillery officer in the Soviet Red Army, he unexpectedly became a chief military strategist for Chechen independence, orchestrating a surprising victory in the First Chechen War. This wartime credibility propelled him to the presidency of the self-declared Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in 1997, in an election monitored as legitimate by international observers. His tenure, however, was an impossible task: rebuilding a shattered society while contending with powerful warlords and the looming threat of a resurgent Russia. A secular nationalist who sought dialogue, Maskhadov found himself marginalized by the rise of radical Islamist factions and then engulfed by the Second Chechen War. He died in 2005, a symbol of a lost chance for a secular, independent Chechnya, killed by Russian forces while leading an insurgency he could no longer fully control.