Polling data from war-torn Chechnya should be treated with caution. For that very reason, it is noteworthy that two-thirds (68 percent) of eligible voters recently surveyed by the Validata Institute were bold enough to answer that they believe the presidential election will be neither free... MORE

In a surprising announcement, Khusein Dzhabrailov has withdrawn his candidacy for the presidency of Chechnya. The Moscow businessman, who had managed to win such potent endorsements as those of Bislan Gantemirov and Ruslan Khasbulatov, failed to give any substantive explanation for his decision. As reported... MORE

Concerns are mounting over the humanitarian crisis in Ingushetia, triggered by continuing reports that the Russian and Ingush authorities are forcing refugees to return to Chechnya against their will. A newer but no less alarming development is that state-sanctioned kidnappings of civilians, long familiar in... MORE

According to journalist Anna Politkovskaya's sources in Grozny, the role of Ramzan Kadyrov in his father's administration is in some ways reminiscent of that played in the 1990s by Boris Yeltsin's chief bodyguard, Aleksandr Korzhakov. In both cases, Politkovskaya writes, the head of the president's... MORE

One of the bodyguards of presidential candidate Malik Saidullaev claims that he was kidnapped last month by the Kadyrov administration's gunmen, who then tortured him until he pretended to agree to murder his own boss. The bodyguard gave a long interview to Anna Politkovskaya, who... MORE

By September 1, the final day for rebel guerrillas to surrender voluntarily under the amnesty proclaimed in June, it was abundantly clear that the amnesty program was a failure. The daily Kommersant reported on September 2 that, according to Sergei Fridinsky, head of the northern... MORE

September 1 marked the final, formal transition in the leadership of federal operations against the guerrillas in Chechnya from the FSB to the Interior Ministry. Nikolai Patrushev, head of the FSB, boasted a few days earlier that his agency and the other federal forces had... MORE

The parents and siblings of a Chechen girl murdered by a Russian tank officer have reluctantly become refugees in Norway. Fearing retaliation from ex-Colonel Yury Budanov's supporters, the Kungaev family recalled to Lydia Grafova of Novaya gazeta how Budanov said to them after being found... MORE

Unofficial estimates put the number of drug users in Chechnya at about 20,000, according to the August 28 Caucasus News Update of the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (see the organization's website at www.iwpr.net). That is a huge number for a country that... MORE

Writing in the August 28 issue of Novaya gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya envisioned a scenario in which rival federal security agencies might end up backing rival presidential candidates--with the FSB behind Kadyrov and the GRU signaling a possible switch to another contender. According to Politkovskaya's sources,... MORE