The country of Chechnya has a long history and the oldest settlement appears to have been thousands of years BCE. Chechnya is in the Northern Caucasus and since the fifteenth century has been consistently engaged in battle against foreign invaders. The Chechens converted to Islam and while tensions with Turkey were eased there was still trouble from their Christian neighbours, the Cossacks and the Georgians. By 1577 the Terek Cossacks were established in Chechnya by free Cossacks from the Volga who settled by the Terek River.

The Russians practically ruled the area from the late eighteenth century onwards and whenever the Russian State caused a general air of uncertainty in the region, the Chechens rebelled. Rebellions were especially strong during the Russian/Turkish war and the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. In the late nineteen thirties, Chechnya, together with Ingushetia became an autonomous republic, the Chechen-Ingushetia. During the 1940s the Chechens again rebelled against Russia rule, the Russians deported the entire populations of ethnic Chechnya and Ingushetia to the Kazakh USSR and Siberia. Towards the end of World War 2 the Russians argued that this deportation was punishment for assisting the German forces.

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The Chechens were not allowed to return to their homeland until after 1956. The Chechnya National Congress was an independent movement that was formed during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the following years Chechnya was in constant battle with the Russians ending in their attempt to secede from Russia in a war that took place between 1994 and 1996, they did eventually declare their independence and became the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, but the wars continued. The presidency and the separatist state continued and recent evidence from Amnesty International tends to suggest that today Chechnya is being ruled without law.