--GENERAL ADMITS CONTINUING DIFFICULTIES Less than two weeks after Putin's triumphant reelection, a key Russian general in effect admitted that the military situation in Chechnya is not nearly as hopeful as the Russian electorate has been told. General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, head of the internal forces... MORE

--STUDY HIGHLIGHTS ETHNIC PREJUDICES A Russian citizen who specializes in studying the country's ethnic minorities has found disturbing new evidence of ethnic-Russian chauvinism even in the country's mainstream news media. Suliyeta Kusova, head of the Association on Ethnic Problems, found that crossword puzzles in the... MORE

--REBELS ARMS THEMSELVES An April 15 report by Umalt Dudayev for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (website www.iwpr.net ) shed light on the use of cheap, homemade but nevertheless highly deadly weapons by the rebel guerrillas in Chechnya. Dudayev concluded that “even... MORE

--LAST REFUGEE CAMP BEING DISMANTLED The long foreseen and feared dismantling of the last refugee camp in Ingushetia has now begun. According to an April 21 report from Prava cheloveka v Rossii ("Human Rights in Russia"), the Satsita camp still had, as of that day,... MORE

--DISAGREEMENT OVER HUMAN RIGHTS POST Vladimir Lukin, the Putin administration's new human rights chief (who is also a former ambassador to Washington), recently recommended that Moscow revive the position of human rights representative for Chechnya that it had abolished several months earlier. The Kadyrov administration... MORE

--RUSSIAN MOTHERS GROUP IS RECOGNIZED The Organization of Soldiers' Mothers is to receive an Aachen Peace Prize on September 1 for its work in defending the human rights of Russian soldiers, the organizers of the prize announced on May 7. Alfred Steinbicker of the committee... MORE

--LAWYERS FOR MURDERED CHECHENS WILL APPEAL ACQUITTAL OF ACCUSED As expected, the recent not-guilty verdict for four officers of Russia's military intelligence accused of murdering six Chechen civilians (see Chechnya Weekly, May 5) will be appealed. Magomed Gandaur-Egui, lawyer for the slain Chechens' families, told... MORE

-- THE PROS AND CONS OF STRONGMAN RULE IN CHECHNYA "In the economic context Russia has no interest in seeing the emergence in Chechnya of a strong new leader [who would embezzle still more federal subsidies], but on the level of politics some such figure... MORE

--MILITARY REINFORCEMENTS REPORTEDLY SENT TO CHECHNYA Is the number of new Russian reinforcements in Chechnya even greater than acknowledged by the Kremlin? In addition to new Chechen gunmen for the Kadyrov family’s private army, it would seem that substantial new forces of Russian troops are... MORE

--WHILE FEWER THAN EVER ARE WILLING TO SERVE… As in other recent years, this spring’s Russian military call-up is seeing massive draft evasion. According to a report broadcast on Radio Netherlands last week filed by its Moscow correspondent, Geert Groot Koerkamp, only 5,000 young men... MORE