In an area that occupies less than 1 percent of Russia's territory, why have the federal forces not been able to track down Chechnya's separatist leaders--especially those who openly admit responsibility for terrorist attacks on Russian civilians? After all, in 1996 the Russians managed to... MORE

Akhmad Kadyrov's least surprising announcement of recent months was the one that finally came last week: He is now officially in the running to become president of Chechnya. It was also no surprise that Kadyrov used his official registration as a show of strength. Accompanying... MORE

On August 2 a 16-year-old Chechen girl, Elza Katsaeva, was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in the village of Samashki. Two days later about a thousand residents of the village, mostly women and children, blocked traffic on the area's main highway to protest the kidnapping and... MORE

A Russian marine died and two more were wounded in an August 3 firefight with rebel guerrillas, the news agency Interfax reported on August 4. The rebels ambushed the marines' convoy as it was returning to its base in the town of Dyshni-Vedeno in Chechnya's... MORE

SUPREME COURT SET TO CONSIDER "TERRORISM" CASE The Supreme Court of Russia is about to consider the case of Islam Khasukhanov. He was convicted of "terrorism" earlier this year by the Supreme Court of North Ossetia merely for having held an administrative position in the... MORE

INCIDENT ILLUSTRATES KADYROV'S CONTROL A recent episode in western Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan district seems to highlight both the strengths and the weaknesses of Chechen political culture--in which competing factions can quickly turn to violence, but can also quickly restore peace. As reported by Novaya gazeta, supporters... MORE

As Chechnya Weekly and others have already reported, not one Chechen is among the 600 prisoners being held by the U.S. government at its Guantanamo Bay naval base on suspicion of terrorism. Radio Liberty recently learned something equally interesting about two of the eight prisoners... MORE

A new opinion poll released on August 5 by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion found that only 28 percent of Russians support continuation of the war in Chechnya, while 57 percent prefer a negotiated settlement with the separatist rebels. Yury Levada,... MORE

Russia's secret police tortured Chechen prisoner Dukh-Bakha Dushuev to make him help fabricate a phony criminal case against a Chechen diplomat, Dushuev charged in a July 24 appearance before a London court. The administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been using Dushuev's "confession," which... MORE

After hearing Dushuev, Judge Workman called the situation "extraordinary" and "dramatic." He noted that in the text presented by the Russian authorities, the name of the witness (who was described as Zakaev's "bodyguard") was blacked out. Workman ordered the Russian authorities to produce the full... MORE