Indications are multiplying that the federal troops in Beslan during last month's crisis used grossly inappropriate weaponry, increasing the dangers to the schoolchildren and others taken hostage by terrorists. According to an October 24 article in Britain's Independent by Andrew Osborn, the paper's Moscow correspondent,... MORE

Last weekend, Moscow's Pushkin Square witnessed the largest anti-war demonstration in many years, with almost 10 times as many participants as in such demonstrations in the recent past. The demonstration had been planned to observe the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the second post-Soviet... MORE

The war in the North Caucasus is about to lose one of its most intrepid front-line reporters as Anne Nivat prepares to end her long residence in Moscow and return to her native France. It is unfortunate that her second book on Chechnya (La guerre... MORE

--NORTH OSSETIA-INGUSHETIA SITUATION SIMMERS Tensions are continuing to run high along the border between North Ossetia and Ingushetia, where a group of North Ossetian vigilantes temporarily seized a checkpoint last weekend. The vigilantes, said to include relatives of Beslan hostages, demanded that the authorities bar... MORE

The federal government has no visible long-term strategy for handling the crisis in the North Caucasus, one of Russia's leading specialists in the region told correspondent Dmitry Taratorin of Novye izvestia in an interview published on October 15. "The federal center's policy for the Caucasus... MORE

Shamil Basaev has achieved the goal of his Beslan operation, concluded Sanobar Shermatova in an October 15 article for the weekly Moskovskie novosti. "After Beslan the peoples of the Caucasus have not united in a fight against terror, but on the contrary have once again... MORE

Belying the authorities' denials of continuing human-rights abuses in Chechnya, a massive zachistka security sweep paralyzed the town of Novye Atagi southeast of Grozny last week. According to an October 16 report on the Newsru.com website, the town's mayor Abdula Datsaev said that its 8,000... MORE

Chechen refugees now constitute the largest national group seeking asylum in the European Union, according to an October 15 report in the Irish Times—far outstripping those fleeing wars in more populous places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Most of these Chechens, wrote Irish Times... MORE

A mysterious arson attack caused minor damage last week to the home of Chechen diplomat Akhmed Zakaev, London representative of the underground Maskhadov government. The Reuters news service reported on October 16 that the Zakaev residence suffered minor fire damage. British police said they were... MORE

Yet more information has emerged contradicting last month's attempts to create the impression that the Beslan terrorists did not have a clear set of negotiating demands. Putin aide Aslanbek Aslakhanov was quoted in an October 13 news broadcast from Channel Four in the United Kingdom... MORE