--NAZRAN POLICE CHIEF WOUNDED Nazran police chief Dzhabrail Kastoev and his driver were seriously wounded in a bombing on August 15. According to the Regnum news agency, an explosive device had been planted near the central city mosque in Nazran and was detonated as Kastoev's... MORE

--PUTIN DEFENDS HIS CHECHNYA POLICY President Putin rejected criticism over Chechnya during a meeting in the Kremlin with foreign political scientists and analysts on September 5. "We are coming under fire for our policy in Chechnya," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying. "Of course, we... MORE

--RUSSIA WANTS U.N. SANCTIONS AGAINST EXILED CHECHEN REBELS Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told Interfax on September 9 that Russia views the UN Security Council's anti-terrorist list as incomplete and wants Chechen extremists who have committed crimes against Russian citizens to be added. "Unfortunately,... MORE

--TREPASHKIN BACK IN JAIL Mikhail Trepashkin, the former Federal Security Service officer who investigated the alleged role of the FSB in the 1999 apartment building bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities and was jailed in October 2003 on charges of revealing state secrets, was... MORE

--ETHNIC BRAWL IN NALCHIKIHI Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel announced on September 24 that a criminal case had been launched in connection with clashes that took place in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, on September 22–23. According to Russian news reports, the violence began as... MORE

--REBELS AND COPS EXCHANGE FIRE IN DAGESTAN Dagestan's Interior Ministry announced on October 5 that it had captured two suspects believed responsible for the killing of a police lieutenant and the wounding of a police captain at a police post in the republic's Buinaksky district... MORE

--GEORGIA DENIES PANKISI CHARGES Georgia's Interior Ministry on October 12 rejected Russian claims that Chechen fighters are located in the Pankisi Gorge. Ministry spokesman Guram Donadze told RIA Novosti that the area is currently guarded as never before. "If [rebel] fighters get to Chechnya through... MORE

--TOP REBELS KILLED IN DAGESTAN Security forces in Dagestan killed two prominent Islamic militants and detained two others in a special operation against rebels at a dormitory on the outskirts of Khasavyurt, the Associated Press reported on October 19. One police officer was killed and... MORE

--EIGHT PARTIES REGISTERED FOR CHECHEN ELECTIONS The Chechen parliamentary campaign got underway on October 22, with eight political parties having registered candidates for the November 27 election. As the Moscow Times reported on October 24, the pro-Kremlin United Russia party placed three confidants of Chechen... MORE

--FSB OFFICER ASSASSINATED IN INGUSHETIA An FSB officer, Adam Gorzhkhanov, was shot to death on November 4 as he was driving on the Nazran-Karabulak highway in Ingushetia. Ingushetiya.ru reported that Gorzhkhanov's car was fired on with automatic weapons from another vehicle that had overtaken it.... MORE