On February 7, just four days after the Chechen separatist Kavkazcenter website reported that Aslan Maskhadov had ordered rebel fighters to lay down their weapons for one month, Kommersant published an interview with the separatist leader. The newspaper reported that it had transmitted its questions... MORE

Reuters on February 6 quoted a source in Chechnya's pro-Moscow police as saying that the ceasefire ordered by separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov was holding and that rebel fighters had not attacked Russian forces for three days. On February 3, the separatist Kavkazcenter website reported that... MORE

Researchers from the Memorial human rights center and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) on February 7 presented their findings concerning human rights violations in Chechnya last year. The IHF's Aleksandr Mnatsakanyan said that the human rights situation in the republic has changed... MORE

On February 5, two servicemen were killed in a shoot-out with three militants in Dagestan. The shoot-out occurred as Dagestani OMON police commandos and subunits of the 102nd Brigade of the Russian Interior Ministry's special purpose troops carried out a special operation on the outskirts... MORE

The most serious incident in Dagestan last week was the murder of Magomed Omarov, the republic's deputy Interior Minister, and three of his bodyguards on February 2. Omarov and his guards died when the two cars in which they were driving came under fire in... MORE

The attacks by Jennet/ Sharia in Dagestan, along with the attacks by other jamaats like "Yarmuk" in Kabardino-Balkaria and "Khalifat" in Ingushetia, have increased concerns that violence by Islamic militants is on the rise in the North Caucasus. Nezavisimaya gazeta wrote on February 4 that... MORE

Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov's ceasefire order has forced the Russian authorities to change their information policy. Almost immediately after the news of the ceasefire order was made public, security officials who usually insist that there has been no war in Chechnya for a long... MORE

--TYCOON: CHECHENS TRIED TO SELL ME A NUKE Boris Berezovsky has claimed that Chechens once offered to sell him a nuclear bomb. The exiled tycoon, who first made the claim in an interview published in Komsomolskaya pravda on February 8, later told the Associated Press... MORE

Vladimir Kravchenko, the Chechen Republic's Prosecutor, announced on January 31 that his office had on January 27 opened eight criminal cases related to the kidnapping of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov's relatives, Interfax reported. Kravchenko stressed that the cases were launched by the law-enforcement agencies... MORE

In what may be a first step toward limiting the power of Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, Vladimir Savchenko, head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate in the Southern Federal District, announced on January 27 that a new... MORE