Timeline: Chechnya after the Soviet Union

(CNN) -- The following is a chronology of events in Chechnya leading up to and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in August of 1991:

November 1990 -- Representatives from all of Chechnya's ethnic groups declare independence and separation from the Soviet Union.

October 1991 -- Dzhokhar Dudayev, a former general in the Russian air force, is elected president of Chechnya after leading a coup d'etat against the republic's communist government.

November 1991 -- Dudayev declares Chechnya independent, but the Soviet parliament says his election is illegal.

December 1994 -- Russia sends 40,000 troops into Chechnya, destroying many towns and heavily damaging the capital, Grozny.

March 1996 – Dudayev's rebels launch an offensive against Russian-held Grozny, the breakaway republic's capital.

April 1996 – Dudayev is killed during a Russian air attack. Zemlikhan Yandarbiyev, the leader of the Chechen rebel movement, succeeds him.

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June 1996 – A cease-fire is signed between Russian and Chechen troops. Russian troops withdraw, leaving separatists in charge of the breakaway republic but witthout full independence.

August 1999 – Russian planes attack Chechen guerrilla camps after blaming Islamic militants for bomb attacks in the neighboring republic of Dagestan and in Moscow.

October 1999 – Russian forces invade Chechnya and capture around a third of the territory.

February 2000 – Russian troops again capture Grozny, boosting the popularity of Vladimir Putin, the successor to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

June 2000 – Chechen religious leader Akhmad-Khadja Kadyrov is installed as the republic's new chief administrator by Russia. Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov declares Kadyrov a traitor and calls for his execution.

December 2001 -- A delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe enters Chechnya to monitor the observance of human rights in the breakaway republic.