Another sign that the pro-Kadyrov faction within the Putin administration continues to enjoy the upper hand over the ever-grumbling anti-Kadyrov faction came in the January 30 issue of Nezavisimaya gazeta. Anatoly Popov, recently eased out as the Kadyrov administration's prime minister, told a correspondent from... MORE

Frustrated though the Putin administration's anti-Kadyrovites may be at present, they are still working to build the case for major changes in Moscow's Chechnya policy. In the near future the most likely change is not a peace deal with the separatists: That would be a... MORE

In last week's issue of Moskovskie novosti, Sanobar Shermatova provided sketches of Chechnya's new representatives in the federal parliament. Chechnya Weekly has already described the careers of Akhmar Zavgaev and Umar Dzhabrailov (see our October 23, 2003, and January 7, 2004, issues); Shermatova's article adds... MORE

Vladimir Putin is genuinely popular among Russia's voters, often not because of his policies but in spite of them. Opinion pollsters have noted a recurring pattern: Russians are discontented about the state of the country and distrustful of its government, but they nevertheless love Putin.... MORE

The January 30 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education (website https://chronicle.com/) has an article by Byron MacWilliams on the struggle to keep university studies alive in Grozny. In a city where students still risk their lives simply by coming to class every day, he... MORE

Because of an editorial error, the meaning of a sentence that appeared in last week's Chechnya Weekly was significantly and improperly altered. The error occurred in the penultimate paragraph of the edition's final article (entitled "Thoughts on Dubrovka"). The paragraph should have read as follows:... MORE

UN-watchers now have a new reason to wonder whether UNESCO--the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization--is making good use of the funds collected from the taxpayers of its member states. According to a January 23 report from the BBC, UNESCO is planning to spend... MORE

Human rights activists are increasingly pessimistic about the chances of stopping the federal, Chechen and Ingush authorities from closing Ingushetia's camps for Chechen refugees. In a January 26 article for Russky kurier, Timur Aliev predicted that the "war of the tents" is nearing its end,... MORE

During a single press conference in Moscow on January 19, Akhmad Kadyrov publicly called for two sweeping constitutional changes, either of which would sharply accelerate the current authoritarian trend in Russia. Especially noteworthy is that each of these proposals applies not to Chechnya but to... MORE

Was the Kadyrov expedition to Saudi Arabia a sudden breakthrough, or simply the formal confirmation of a long-ripening rapprochement between the desert kingdom and Moscow? In a January 21 article for Moskovskie novosti, Sanobar Shermatova and Bakhtiyar Mirkasymov discussed several aspects of Russian-Saudi relations that... MORE