Gudermes Airport

The airport ceased civilian operations due to the outbreak of the First Chechen War. The conflict led to the destruction of its infrastructure and the complete collapse of civil aviation in the region. It was never reopened for civilian use and was later repurposed for military and special forces functions.

The site of the former airport has been completely redeveloped and is now the location of the prestigious Russian University of Spetsnaz (Российский университет спецназа), also known as the International Training Center for Special Forces. This is a large, modern, and internationally-recognized private training center for special forces from Russia and other countries. The facility makes use of the old runway for tactical driving and aviation-related drills, and the surrounding area is equipped with multiple shooting galleries, tactical training buildings, an aerodynamic wind tunnel for parachute training, and other advanced military training infrastructure. It is a high-security facility and is not accessible to the public.

During the Soviet era and up until its closure, Gudermes Airport was a small regional airfield. It primarily handled local passenger and cargo traffic, connecting Gudermes with Grozny and other cities in the North Caucasus. Operations were typically conducted using small, short-haul aircraft like the Antonov An-2, An-24, and possibly Yak-40. It served as a vital local transport link for the second-largest city in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR before the conflicts of the 1990s rendered it unusable.

There are no known plans or realistic prospects for reopening Gudermes Airport for civilian use. Its current strategic importance as a major special forces training center, combined with the proximity and full operational capacity of the modernized Grozny (Severny) Airport (IATA: GRV) approximately 40 km away, makes its conversion back to a civilian airfield highly improbable.