Grozny ballistic missile attack

The Grozny ballistic missile attack was a wave of Russian ballistic missile strikes on the Chechen capital Grozny on October 21, 1999, early in the Second Chechen War. The attack killed at least 118 people according to initial reports, mostly civilians, or at least 137 immediate dead according to the HALO Trust count. Hundreds of people were also injured, many of whom later died.

The first reports from the region suspected the use of Scud missiles (SS-1). The hypersonic missiles, ten in number according to Chechen officials (other sources reported less), fell without warning, as the Chechen air defense system had been destroyed in the earlier Russian air strikes. The explosions occurred at around 18:15 hours in several areas of the capital, mostly in the downtown area including the crowded, central outdoor marketplace.

Two of the missiles exploded outside the city's only functioning maternity hospital, which was located near Aslan Maskhadov's presidential palace building (the palace itself was not damaged in the attack), and near the city's main post office. Another missile hit the mosque in the village of Kalinina, a suburb of Grozny. According to official Chechen sources, about 30–35 people died at the hospital; a correspondent for the AFP counted 27 bodies, most of them women and newborn babies. Most of the casualties from the post office strike seemed to have been people waiting for public transport outside the building, as several buses were at the stop at the moment of the explosion. In the Kalinina mosque, some 41 people who had gathered for evening prayer were said to have been killed.