An article by Andrei Smirnov on a website for peace activists (https://viktorpopkov.narod.ru) described that writer's own past encounters with Terkibaev. Smirnov wrote that in March of 2002 the mysterious Chechen had agreed to meet him in order provide videos of speeches by separatist President Aslan... MORE

Despite mounting pressures from both provincial and federal officials, more than 98 percent of Chechen refugee families now living in tent camps in Ingushetia do not want to return to Chechnya. That is the finding of a survey released on May 6 by Medecins sans... MORE

As of the morning of May 14, the number of confirmed dead in the May 12 truck bombing of the district-administration headquarters in the north Chechen town of Znamenskoe had reached fifty-nine. Most of the victims were civilians, and included ordinary citizens visiting government offices... MORE

Roman Shleinov of Novaya gazeta recounted in that newspaper's May 12 issue an anonymous conversation with two officers of the Moscow OMON special police about their service in Chechnya. One of the officers said that true casualty figures among Russian servicemen "are as different from... MORE

According to the deputy head of Russia's federal procuracy, some 110 bodies found in mass graves in Chechnya are those of Russian servicemen. The Interfax news agency quoted Mikhail Fridinksy on May 10 as calling "absolutely baseless" allegations that the bodies were in fact those... MORE

The Czech Republic is considering a plan to repatriate several hundred Chechen refugees who have entered the republic from Poland in recent months, the human rights group Prague Watchdog reported on May 9. Though the Czech Interior Ministry has stated that the repatriation will be... MORE

The May 12 issue of Novaya gazeta includes a letter from anonymous servicemen of Russia's elite Alpha commando force to Yury Shchekochikhin. He is the newspaper's deputy editor and is also a member of the federal Duma. The letter reinforces previous complaints about the Russian... MORE

In addition to the May 12 truck bombing in Znamenskoe, other attacks in Chechnya over the last week included a bomb explosion at Grozny's Dinamo stadium on May 9. The blast killed two policemen and injured one other. The incident forced cancellation of the local... MORE

The federal authorities in Moscow have continued to avoid any public comment on Anna Politkovskaya's dramatic article in the April 28 issue of Novaya gazeta. The piece identified a Chechen hostage-taker, Khanpash Terkibaev, as an agent of the Russian government. A May 5 article by... MORE

...AMID SPECULATION OF LINK TO DEPUTY'S MURDER The militant separatist website "kavakazcenter" published a statement last week that it said it had received on April 25 from Shamil Basaev (under his nom de guerre, Abdullakh Shamil Abu-Idris), The statement commented on the murder of Duma... MORE