As has often been said, the perception of power is a key component of power. After last week's cabinet shakeup, Akhmad Kadyrov is perceived as being more powerful than at any time since he was appointed as Moscow's man in Grozny, and therefore he is... MORE

By Zaindi Choltaev Akhmad Kadyrov is striving not only to concentrate in his own hands all power within Chechnya; he also wants the Kremlin to treat him as the head of all ethnic Chechens living anywhere in the Russian Federation. In return, he offers to... MORE

KADYROV'S SON IS ARRESTED Police officials from the Kadyrov administration took an emergency trip to the town of Kislovodsk in southern Russia this week to try to extricate a colleague from scandal. Zelikhman Kadyrov, the 29-year-old son of administration head Akhmad Kadyrov, was arrested during... MORE

During the period leading up to the March referendum in Chechnya, the Russian authorities repeatedly announced that they were starting to reduce the Russian military presence there. Russian television triumphantly broadcast film of troop withdrawals, ostensibly made possible by Vladimir Putin's and Akhmad Kadyrov's success... MORE

The Russian parliament gave final approval on June 6 to the Putin administration's amnesty decree, the formal text of which can be found on the website of Rossiskaya gazeta (the June 7 issue). Only 25 deputies voted against the proposal, while 352 voted in favor.... MORE

Of the eighteen servicemen and civilian employees of the federal air force killed by a female suicide bomber on June 5 in the southern Russian city of Mozdok, twelve were women. According to a report by Dmitry Balburov in the June 10 issue of the... MORE

A June 5 report by Grozny journalist Liza Abdurashidova for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting discussed the ecological damage that Chechnya has suffered during a decade of upheaval, war, terrorism, illicit oil-drilling and pilferage of radioactive substances. Maksim Yakovenko, deputy minister of... MORE

On June 6 listeners of Radio Liberty heard a dramatic broadcast of a recording made by a now-dead member of the Russian Duma who may have been assassinated by his political enemies. The taped lecture by the late deputy Sergei Yushenkov, delivered a year ago... MORE

Last week the separatist rebels showed that they are still capable of waging not just hit-and-run ambushes of federal forces, but set-piece battles lasting as long as two days. Federal officials confirmed that a battle that began on June 6 with the ambush of a... MORE

The European Union issued its flabbiest statement yet on Chechnya during last weekend's EU-Russia summit meeting in St. Petersburg. Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said that the EU "will continue to support the efforts of Russian leaders... MORE