In 1991, Dudayev refused orders from Moscow to suppress Estonia's independence movement, and subsequently resigned from the Soviet Armed Forces before returning to Chechnya.

Dudayev was born in Yalkhoroy from the Tsechoy teip in the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), just a few days before the forced deportation of his family together with the entire Chechen population on the orders of Lavrentiy Beria.

In 1962, after two years studying electronics in Vladikavkaz, he entered the Tambov Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots from which he graduated in 1966.

On 6 September 1991, the militants of the NCChP violently (the Grozny Communist party leader was killed and several other members were wounded) invaded a session of the local Supreme Soviet, effectively dissolving the government of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR.

[citation needed] Dudayev and his supporters stated that the revolution had occurred and that the revolutionary committee would assume all power before the snap presidential elections.

In November 1991, the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin dispatched troops to Grozny, but they were withdrawn when Dudayev's forces prevented them from leaving the airport.

[citation needed] Initially, Dudayev's government had diplomatic relations with Georgia where he received much moral support from the first Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

[citation needed] In 1993, the Chechen parliament attempted to organize a referendum on public confidence in Dudayev on the grounds that he had failed to consolidate Chechnya's independence.

Beginning in early summer of 1994, armed Chechen opposition groups with Russian military and financial backing tried repeatedly but without success to depose Dudayev by force.

[citation needed] On 1 December 1994, the Russians began bombing Grozny airport and destroyed some former Soviet training aircraft taken away by the republic in 1991.

On 11 December 1994, five days after Dudayev and Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev of Russia had agreed to avoid the further use of force, Russian troops invaded Chechnya.

[citation needed] Before the fall of Grozny, Dudayev abandoned the presidential palace, moved south with his forces and continued leading the war throughout 1995, reportedly from a missile silo close to the historic Chechen capital of Vedeno.

The full-scale Russian attack led many of Dudayev's opponents to side with his forces and thousands of volunteers to swell the ranks of mobile militant units.

Russian reconnaissance planes in the area had been monitoring satellite communications for some time trying to match Dudayev's voice signature to the existing samples of his speech.

[17] Dudayev was succeeded by his Vice-President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev (as acting President) and then, after the 1997 popular elections, by his wartime Chief of Staff, Aslan Maskhadov.