Yury Budanov, the former Russian tank commander found guilty on July 27 of murdering a Chechen girl (see Chechnya Weekly, July 31), may go free long before the end of his ten-year sentence. The Agenstvo politicheskikh novostei (Political News Agency) reported on August 12 that... MORE

The August 12 issue of Izvestia includes a long, detailed interview by correspondent Vadim Rechkalov with a former rebel guerrilla who accepted the Putin-Kadyrov amnesty two months ago. Aslan Elmurzaev, a member of the guerrilla band led by Ruslan Gelaev, claimed that he gave himself... MORE

Nearly 800 refugees at Ingushetia's Bella camp, near the border with Chechnya, sent an open letter on August 8 to Ingush President Murat Zyazikov. In it, the refugees protested a recent visit from Russian Interior Ministry officials, during which, they said, they had been "officially"... MORE

Medecins Sans Frontieres issued a strong protest on August 12 over the lack of progress in a case involving its kidnapped volunteer--Arjan Erkel. Dr. Morten Rostrup, head of MSF, called the failure to produce results a "scandal," one that he said "can only be attributed... MORE

Major General Yury Rozhin, head of the FSB's directorate for Chechnya, told Dmitry Semenov of the Kremlin-controlled website Strana.ru in an interview published on August 12 that although he considers the situation in Chechnya to be "stable," he nevertheless expects that it will continue to... MORE

The Russian authorities continue to assert that the conflict in Chechnya is being "normalized" and demilitarized; that is, they claim the conflict is being turned into a police operation rather than a war. But according to an August 12 report in Nezavisimaya gazeta, the number... MORE

The Moscow political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky wrote in an August 8 commentary for the Politcom.ru website that "Russia Has Lost the War in Chechnya," and that "the attitude of Russian society toward the Chechen war is highly irrational." He continued: "As a television product the... MORE

Six federal soldiers were killed and seven wounded on August 7 when their convoy was ambushed in Ingushetia, near the Chechen border, sources in the Russian military told the Associated Press. On the same day rebels shot down an MI-8 military helicopter. --THE TOTAL DEATH... MORE

Are the Russian authorities lying about the number of casualties caused by the August 1 bombing of the military hospital in Mozdok? According to the official figures, widely disseminated in the Russian and western media, fifty occupants of the hospital complex died and eighty-two were... MORE

On July 29 the Russian authorities conducted a well-publicized ceremony--one that they had begun advertising months beforehand--marking the transfer of top command over the war in Chechnya from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to the federal Interior Ministry. The long planned transfer is part of... MORE