 On 29 December, in a rare instance of a Russian outright victory, the Russian airborne forces seized the military airfield next to Grozny and repelled a Chechen armoured counter-attack in the Battle of Khankala; the next objective was the city itself.With the Russians closing in on the capital, the Chechens began to hastily set up defensive fighting positions and grouped their forces in the city.When the Russians besieged the Chechen capital, thousands of civilians died from a week-long series of air raids and artillery bombardments in the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the destruction of Dresden.