Some of the most suggestive findings and reflections yet published on the phenomenon of kidnapping in Chechnya can be found in a long interview given by Oleg Orlov of the Russian human rights center Memorial to Andrei Riskin of Nezavisimaya gazeta. The full text is... MORE

Russia's efforts to increase its bargaining power in a dispute with Qatar over two Russian intelligence officers imprisoned in the Persian Gulf Sheikhdom seem to have turned into a clumsy farce. On February 28, Russian police arrested two Olympic athletes from Qatar at Moscow's Sheremetevo... MORE

The sixtieth anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people on February 23 was widely commemorated and discussed in Europe. Thousands of people in Warsaw, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, in Italy and France, and in Riga expressed their support for the Chechens. They tried... MORE

As of March 1, the federal and Ingush authorities had not fully succeeded in their campaign to close all the refugee camps in Ingushetia by that date. But they were getting closer. An official of the Kadyrov administration told Interfax on March 1 that the... MORE

Akhmad Kadyrov for the first time confirmed publicly on February 16 what many Chechnya-watchers already had considered obvious: Anatoly Popov will not be returning to his post as the Kadyrov administration's prime minister. According to a February 17 article on the Gazeta.ru website, Kadyrov revealed... MORE

Muradov also spoke skeptically of reports in some American media last week that as many as 2,000 separatist guerrillas might leave Chechnya in the near future to fight U.S. forces in Iraq. The only fighters who might possibly leave Chechnya to wage war elsewhere, he... MORE

Russian and Ingush authorities have become increasingly brazen this month in using utilities cut-offs to pressure refugees in Ingushetia to return to Chechnya. On February 20 the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued a statement protesting the elimination of gas supplies for ten refugee settlements.... MORE

The masked gunmen who conduct state sanctioned kidnappings in Chechnya often arrive in armored vehicles; this has been considered to be proof that they are federal servicemen. But according to an article in last week's Moskovskie novosti, the members of Akhmad Kadyrov's private army who... MORE

Naidenov also brought back from Grozny some revealing comments on the degree of "normalization" in that city. The city's streets are still deserted after dark, except for the brand new vehicles, with no license plates or other identifying marks, that roam freely. When people see... MORE

This week marked the 60th anniversary of the Chechen people's deportation to Kazakhstan--one of the most atrocious acts of one of history's most atrocious governments. Even if the two Chechen wars of the last decade had not taken place, the events of February 1944 would... MORE