"The current hunt for Maskhadov began immediately after he announced that he plans to bring Basaev to judgment for his crimes and that if negotiations take place he is prepared to accept any Russian conditions for the sake of peace. Maskhadov is not demanding the... MORE

The "local" vigilantes whose gunfire helped cause the Beslan hostage standoff to explode out of control on September 3 included visitors who were not local at all, according to a respected Chechen journalist who was at the scene as a researcher/producer for a Japanese television... MORE

Were the Beslan explosions and gunbattle of September 3 accidental? Eyewitness Rustam Kaliev told Chechnya Weekly that in his view the terrorists must have studied carefully the Nord-Ost experience of 2002, and therefore determined to thwart a surprise assault by planning in advance that each... MORE

Evasion of responsibility by Russia's highest officials continues to be a theme in the study of the Beslan disaster. Rustam Kaliev stressed to Chechnya Weekly that none of the federal ministers, such as the heads of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Interior Ministry,... MORE

Ruslan Aushev, former president of Ingushetia, continued to contradict the official version of the Beslan atrocity in an interview with the Interfax news agency published on September 28. Aushev said that the terrorists did indeed present written demands—on a sheet from a school notebook. Among... MORE

Many of the experts who spoke to Chechnya Weekly, including those sympathetic to Aslan Maskhadov, have now concluded that his political strength among his fellow Chechens has fallen sharply. Svetlana Gannushkina of Memorial said that "for a long time now Maskhadov has not had much... MORE

Is Alu Alkhanov just a temporary president of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, waiting for Ramzan Kadyrov to reach the age when he can take over? Not in the view of Svetlana Gannushkina of Memorial, who told Chechnya Weekly that Alkhanov "will have to move slowly, but... MORE

Svetlana Gannushkina of Memorial said that feelings of despair are now running so high among Chechens that her own organization was finding it difficult to persuade its Chechen employees to take part in the international human-rights conference scheduled for late September. "They see the situation... MORE

Russia's "anti-terrorist operation" in Chechnya is nominally conducted by a combined force reporting to the federal Interior Ministry. But an analysis recently published by the Agentura.ru website provides further evidence that it is the FSB that is really in charge. The head of the ROSh... MORE

An interview with Vladislav Surkov, President Putin's deputy chief of staff, published by Komsomolskaya pravda on October 1 provides a glimpse of the dark new political climate now facing Russia. Asked why it is Russia that should have fallen victim to the recent terrorist attacks,... MORE