Images of armed separatists during the initial period of the first Chechen campaign (based on materials from the central media of the Russian Federation)

<jats:p>The purpose of the study is to obtain the information about the perception of armed separatists by the central media of the Russian Federation during the initial period of the first Chechen campaign. The article analyzes the most typical publications in the capital’s mass media that held pro-war (departmental and nationalist publications) and anti-war political views (democratic mass media). It explores the historical context of the confrontation between the federal authorities and the rebellious Chechen Republic in 1994-1996, as well as the perspectives of journalists from leading Russian publications on the separatist military formations. Most of the authors were direct eyewitnesses of the operation in Chechnya. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the systematization of the federal press’s representations of the Chechen separatists during this period. As a result, it was revealed that there were fundamental differences between the media representatives of different political camps in covering the topic. Journalists from departmental and nationalist publications gave exclusively negative assessments of the armed supporters of General D. M. Dudayev, while their colleagues considered them to be victims of the federal center’s unwise policies. This is the main difference in the information coverage of the events in the mid-1990s in the North Caucasus compared to previous military and political events.</jats:p>