Is Russia laying the groundwork for the future destabilization of Ukraine? Russian nationalists will find ample justification in a July 17 article in Izvestia, which claims that the Crimea has become a stronghold of Chechen rebels and Islamic extremists. The article by Yanina Sokolovskaya consists... MORE

Students from Chechnya have to pay even higher bribes than others for admission to Russia's universities, charged a former Chechen official now living in Moscow. Ex-foreign minister Shamil Beno told Ekho Moskvy on July 17 that $US500 is the minimum payment for a candidate from... MORE

Government officials in Moscow, London and Washington constantly repeat the claim that the Chechen separatist movement cooperates with global terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda. The mainstream media often repeat this theme uncritically--much as they repeat the assertion that the Chechen people overwhelmingly endorsed the... MORE

An April 26 article in the Washington Post quoted Rohan Gunaratna of St. Andrews University in Scotland as saying that after the fall of the Taliban regime, "Chechnya and the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia partially replaced Afghanistan as a center for terrorist training...The initial wave... MORE

The latest bombing in Moscow is one of the most puzzling to occur so far. Like the previous week's attack on a suburban rock concert, the apparent target of this bomb, which exploded outside a cafe in the heart of the city during the night... MORE

In a July 10 column for the English-language Moscow Times, the noted military affairs analyst Pavel Felgenhauer cast further doubt on the theory that the July 5 bombing of the rock concert in suburban Tushino was the work of Chechen rebels. The official theory, as... MORE

If you were a Chechen who had been swept up by federal forces in one of their "zachistka" security sweeps--and if they did not simply kill you immediately--where would you least like them to take you? According to a report published on July 10 by... MORE

In an article for the Caucasus Reporting Service of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (www.iwpr.net), Timur Aliev wrote that Chechens crippled by military action cannot always be sure of getting help from the Kadyrov administration unless they pay bribes. Rabu Azdayeva, head of... MORE

As both Russian and local authorities continue to pressure Chechen refugees to return home from Ingushetia, a new survey by the Caucasus Times has found that the great majority of these refugees would prefer to stay where they are. According to a statement by Islam... MORE

The Kadyrov administration has been further consolidating its control over the middle and lower echelons of government in Chechnya. Krasnaya zvezda ("Red Star"), the Russian military newspaper, reported on June 2 that the newly appointed mayor of Grozny, Kadyrov loyalist Khozh-Akhmed Arsanov, had begun his... MORE