Here's the remnants of Grozny after the last big attack from Russia:

[image|http://www.lurchmag.com/grozny-ap.jpg||||]

[image|http://www.hro.org/editions/karta/nr22-23/foto/grozny.jpg||||]

[image|http://www.acemodel.com.ua/pages/models/72107/grozny-54.jpg||||]

That attack was in 2000, most buildings are only four more years along in their dissolution, and there are apparently still bodies lying about from that war in collapsed buildings and the like.

From [link|http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/fmsopubs/issues/grozny2000/grozny2000.htm|http://fmso.leavenwo...00/grozny2000.htm] the Foreign Military Studies Office of the US army:
In late 1999 and early 2000, after a very well planned advance to theTerek River, Russian forces again assaulted Grozny\ufffdthis time with artillery fire and air power instead of tanks and infantry\ufffd
turning the city into rubble. This battle for Grozny proved different from the infamous January 1995 battle in both the attackers' strategy and tactics.
Basically, their conclusion was that the Russians learned from the first Chechen war, and just bombed the place flat instead of trying to take it via more traditional means.

Nobody really knows how many people died... probably not even the Russians.

A large part of the above article goes into information control:
In 1995 the Russian government lost the propaganda war by default. This time it made every effort to control the media and ensure that its view of the war dominated public opinion. Russia won this information war from day one of the fighting and is still winning. The government and military control access to combatants and censor reporting that could undermine support for the war. Reports of Russian military successes have fueled support for military activities among the populace. However, some military spokesmen have altered the facts and limited independent reporting so much that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.
In short, this did not come out of a vacuum, and very few people have seen the scale of the destruction visited on the Chechens. In short, nobody is paying any attention to them, despite earlier attempts to get attention via more staid terrorist acts like subway bombings and the like. They're simply upping the scale in order to get people to pay attention.

This is not to say that any of this is OK, but considering the circumstances, it cannot be said to be wholly unexpected, or unexpectable.

Edit: Argh, wrong button.