This view is disputed by authors, such as Russian economists Boris Lvin and Andrei Illarionov, who argue that Russian emigration from the area was no more intense than in other regions of Russia at the time. According to this view of the ethnic situation in Ichkeria, the primary cause of Russian emigration was the extensive bombing of Grozny (where 4 out of 5, or nearly 200,000 Russians in Chechnya lived before the war) by the Russian military during the First Chechen War.