What did Russia do in the Chechnyan wars?

We've seen references during the current Russian war against Ukraine to the Chechnyan wars, i.e, and Russia's conduct there, particularly it's military attacks against the city of Grozny.

There were two Chechnyan wars, the First Chechnya War - 1994-1996 (01/03/2016), the Second Chechnya War - 1999-2006 (07/012011), and the North Caucasus Insurgency (01/20/2016) in the aftermath. (Links are to GlobalSecurity.org articles.)

Chechnya was clearly legally part of Russia and recognized as such by the US and NATO. In the 1990s, the US was already realizing that the jihadist movement the US had so heavily supported in the Afghanistan War against the USSR wasn't entirely a congenial development. So the concern of the NATO nations about Russia's fight against internal "Muslim terrorists" was more restricted. There was no Chechnyan "Volodymyr Zelenskyy" to stoke sympathy for their cause in the West. The US and NATO were in any case focused on the Balkan Wars during the 1990s, which were nightmare enough for Western politicians.

GlobalSecurity.org says of the First Chechnya War:

After a decision of unclear origin in the [Russia President Boris] Yeltsin administration, three divisions of Russian armor, pro-Russian Chechen infantry, and internal security troops -- a force including units detailed from the regular armed forces -- invaded Chechnya on 10-11 December 1994. The objective was a quick victory leading to pacification and reestablishment of a pro-Russian government. The result, however, was a long series of military operations bungled by the Russians and stymied by the traditionally rugged guerrilla forces of the Chechen separatists.

Russian military aircraft bombed both military and civilian targets in Groznyy, the capital of the republic. Regular army and MVD troops crossed the border into Chechnya on December 10 to surround Groznyy. Beginning in late December 1994, following major Chechen resistance, there was massive aerial and artillery bombardment of Chechnya's capital, Groznyy, resulting in a heavy loss of civilian life and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons. Air strikes continued through the month of December and into January, causing extensive damage and heavy civilian casualties. According to press reports, there were up to 4,000 detonations an hour at the height of the winter campaign against Groznyy.

Beyond the large number of civilians injured and killed, most residential and public buildings in Groznyy, including hospitals and an orphanage, were destroyed.

These actions were denounced as major human rights violations by Sergey Kovalev, President Yeltsin's Human Rights Commissioner, and by human rights NGO's. The Russian Government announced on December 28 that Russian ground forces had begun an operation to "liberate" Groznyy one district at a time and disarm the "illegal armed groupings." Dudayev supporters vowed to continue resisting and to switch to guerrilla warfare. [my emphasis]

The famous British spy novelist David Cornwell (better known as John Le Carre) wrote during the First Chechnya War (Schlafende Dämonen Der Spiegel 5271994 25.12.1994; my translation from the German):

Now Russian troops, tanks and artillery have crossed the border of the little-known Republic of Chechnya in the North Caucasus to depose President Dzhokar Dudayev and force his breakaway duchy of 1.2 million inhabitants back into the Russian Federation - or, as many see it, into the Russian Empire. Russian planes have repeatedly fired on the capital Grozny. As I write, Russian tanks have formed a ring around Grozny.

Russian-style peace negotiations continued next door in Christianized, Moscow-affiliated Ossetia. The Russian Foreign Minister calls the action "restoration of law and order within Russia's borders." President Clinton, apparently seeking agreement, declared the Chechen crisis an "internal matter."

The Moscow propaganda machine portrays Dudayev as a mad criminal and the Chechens as the originators of the massive organized-crime industry in Russia. It barely mentions that Dudayev was enthusiastically elected on the basis of his promise to liberate Chechnya from Russia, that Chechnya is a Muslim country, rich in oil and natural gas, that it controls an oil pipeline and important roads between the Caspian and Black Seas and is therefore indispensable for Russian economic interests, that Moscow's colonial wars have been raging continuously for 150 years in the North Caucasus - first under the white tsars, then under the red and now under a wobbly construction of both.

Le Carre's 1995 novel Our Game dealt with the First Chechnya War.

How concerned was the Clinton Administration about Russia's actions? The famous Time cover of 07/15/1996 celebrating the Americans success in, uh, intervening in the Russian Presidential election, gives an idea:

And then after the 911 attacks, the US was far too focused about the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)- particularly the Muslim version of terrorism - to expend a whole lot of effort in behalf of Russian Muslims in Chechnya. When you're running a GWOT with (in the view of some) the goal of An End to Evil, keeping Russia on good behavior toward its own citizens didn't seem so high a priority.

The Second Chechnya War lasted longer and took place during Vladimir Putin's rule, but also ended with Chechnya still a part of Russia. Uwe Klußmann wrote in 2009 for Spiegel International Russia Claims Victory in Chechnya 04/17/2009, referring also to the effects on Grozny:

The Chechen separatists lost their battle with the Kremlin because in Putin they had an opponent who believed that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. One of the main reasons for their failure, however, was the fact that between 1996 and 1999 -- the years of de facto independence -- they were never capable of establishing a stable state, never mind one based on the rule of law. The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was a lawless state where kidnappings became a thriving industry.

Power lay in the hands of rival gangs and President Maskhadov hardly controlled anything beyond his modest residency. The Islamists, with links to the Taliban, had already become stronger before the second Chechen war. They had what the traditionalists in the resistance lacked: international ties, a stirring ideology and donations. Their overestimation of their own capabilities led them to invade the Russian semi-autonomous republic of Dagestan in August 1999. They hoped to start a holy war against the Kremlin there. However, the intervention was a fiasco, provoked a Russian backlash and was the beginning of the end of Chechnya's independence.

From late 1999 until the spring of 2000. Grozny was reduced to rubble as it received a pounding from the Russian air force. Tens of thousands of people became refugees and thousands were killed; a political vacuum opened up. Russia wanted to maintain long-term control over the rebel province but needed local personnel to do the job. They turned to Akhmad Kadyrov, the chief mufti of Chechnya. After his assassination in 2004, his son Ramzan took over the role of Moscow's most loyal ally in the country. In February 2007, Putin appointed the 30-year-old as president of the semi-autonomous republic. [my emphasis]