--POLL SHOWS SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN PULLOUT AND U.N. PEACEKEEPERS The Caucasus Times reported on March 21 that in a poll of Grozny residents conducted in partnership with Prague Watchdog over March 11-15, 43% of respondents said "the withdrawal of the Russian military from Chechnya" would... MORE

--WEEKLY RESUMES ITS CRITICISM OF KREMLIN'S CHECHNYA POLICY Though Russia's electronic broadcast media are increasingly timid about Chechnya, the reformist weekly Novoye Vremya is back in action after an ownership dispute forced it to suspend publication—and is once again publishing severely critical articles about the... MORE

--TWELVE RUSSIAN SERVICEMEN KILLED OVER 24-HOUR PERIOD Lending further credence to claims by separatist president Maskhadov that the rebel guerrillas have stepped up their activity in recent weeks, an official of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration anonymously told the Associate Press on June 20 that twelve... MORE

--EX-JUDGE SAYS INGUSHETIA ATTACKS STEM FROM FSB DEPREDATIONS Boris Ozdoyev, the retired Ingush judge whose son Rashid was apparently kidnapped by the FSB after he tried to warn his colleagues in the Ingush procuracy and higher officials in Moscow of federal atrocities against civilians in... MORE

--SOME INGUSHETIA RAIDERS HAD GRU DOCUMENTS According to the brother of an FSB officer slain in the late-June raid on Ingushetia, at least some of the guerrilla raiders were equipped with identification documents from the GRU, the federal military-intelligence agency, Polit.ru reported on July 2.... MORE

--INGUSHETIAN AUTHORITIES FORCING OUT CHECHEN REFUGEES A July 5 report on the Caucasian Knot website provided further evidence that the federal and Ingushetian authorities are successfully exploiting last month's guerilla raid as a justification for intensifying pressures on Chechen refugees to return home from Ingushetia.... MORE

--OSCE WILL NOT MONITOR CHECHEN ELECTION The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has decided not to send official observers to monitor the August 29 election. In a July 15 interview with RIA Novosti, the head of the OSCE's bureau for democracy and human... MORE

--DAGESTANI POLICE REMAIN IN THE CROSSHAIRS A bridge over the Aktash River in Dagestan's Khasavyurtovsky district was partially blown up by unknown perpetrators on March 29, Itar-Tass reported. Police officials told the news agency that no one was hurt in the incident. On March 28,... MORE

--MORE SHOOTOUTS IN DAGESTAN The interior ministries of Dagestan and Chechnya carried out a joint special operation in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt on April 5, during which two rebels and a three-year-old child were killed. Colonel Aitemir Salimgireyev, head of the Interior Ministry's Khasavyurt... MORE

--RUSSIAN-CHECHEN TREATY TO BE SIGNED IN JUNE? Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said on April 14 that the treaty on delimitation of powers between the federal center and Chechnya will be signed in June. Details about the treaty remain sketchy: Novye izvestia on April 15 quoted... MORE