Akhmad Kadyrov continues to pursue the transfer of command authority from the Russian military to himself. According to a February 17 article by Vladlen Maksimov in Novye izvestia, Kadyrov told a Grozny press conference the previous day that leadership of the “anti-terrorist operation” in the... MORE

Was it the Russian secret services who assassinated the former acting president of Chechnya’s separatist government in his Persian Gulf refuge, or his former allies in the separatist movement? Each side blames the other for the February 13 murder of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev in Qatar. As... MORE

Some would like to dismiss Anna Politkovskaya’s hard hitting reports from Chechnya as merely anecdotal rather than statistical. But for obvious reasons we have no rigorous, reliable statistics about state-sponsored kidnappings and other atrocities. The conclusions of this veteran correspondent for Novaya gazeta are based... MORE

Chechnya Weekly readers whose primary language is Russian—or who at least read Russian better than English—will be interested to know that John Dunlop’s long, provocative analysis of the October 2002 Dubrovka tragedy (see Chechnya Weekly, January 21) is now available on-line in that language. For... MORE

—POPOV TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR? A new job outside Chechnya may have been lined up for Anatoly Popov, now clearly on his way out as the Kadyrov administration’s prime minister (see Chechnya Weekly, January 14). According to a February 11 article in Moskovskie novosti, Popov... MORE

Last week's terrorist atrocity on the Moscow subway system, in addition to killing dozens of unsuspecting civilians, underlined an ugly reality of Russian politics. The Putin administration has now created, or at least thinks it has created, an emotional atmosphere such that it can blame... MORE

Several reports in the Russian media have suggested another parallel between Friday's subway bombing and the 2002 Dubrovka tragedy--disinformation about casualties. The official figure, which remained unchanged over the weekend, was thirty-nine deaths. But as the website Grani.ru observed on February 9, several eyewitnesses are... MORE

The Chechnya to which Russian authorities want Chechen refugees to return is still in a profound humanitarian crisis. That is the belief of a high ranking United Nations official who visited Chechnya and Ingushetia in late January. Jan Egeland, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs,... MORE

The Russians most pessimistic about the prospects for real peace in Chechnya are those with the highest incomes and educations--and also, strikingly, soldiers. Novye izvestia reported on February 3 the results of a poll conducted by ROMIR Monitoring in late January. Of the 1,630 Russians... MORE

Most male civilians abducted by federal forces in Chechnya are now taken to pits located at military bases, according to a February 5 report by Chechen journalist Murad Magomadov for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (available via its website www.iwpr.net). "Few get... MORE