Russia's secret police won a court battle on April 2, one that allows them to continue covering up their role in the mysterious 1999 terrorist bombings that laid the groundwork for the current war in Chechnya. A Moscow court refused to order the FSB to... MORE

The constitutional referendum has not brought peace to Chechnya. Eight civilians were killed on April 3 when a passenger bus was destroyed by a remote controlled mine. The mine was apparently intended for another bus carrying Chechen policemen. On the next day another explosion wounded... MORE

The news agency Interfax reported on April 8 that three pits containing the bodies of murdered and dismembered men were found in Chechnya within just twenty-four hours of each other. The heads and arms were missing from the bodies in two of these pits. As... MORE

Add one more to the list of independent eyewitnesses who flatly deny Russian claims of a huge turnout for Chechnya's March 23 constitutional referendum. Nathalie Nougayrede of Le Monde told Radio Radicale on March 25 that she saw no long lines at polling stations in... MORE

A fact-finding team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which visited Chechnya on referendum day, found several "irregularities" in voting procedures, according to a confidential OSCE report. Though the OSCE has not issued any public statement about that visit, Jamestown obtained... MORE

In a live interview with Akhmad Kadyrov aired on March 26, Vladimir Varfolomeyev of the radio station Ekho Moskvy made a crucial distinction--one that has rarely been made either before or since the referendum. Varfolomeyev asked Kadyrov if it had been possible for Chechens who... MORE

Police harassment of ethnic Chechens living in Moscow has significantly increased since the October hostage crisis, according to a briefing paper from Human Rights Watch. The paper, available via the Human Rights Watch website (https://www.hrw.org/), concludes that "although Russia's President Vladimir Putin to his credit... MORE

The Russian delegation to the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly received another reminder on March 31 that at least some members of that body will continue asking tough questions about human rights in Chechnya despite the recent resignation of Britain's Lord Judd. Germany's Rudolf Bindig,... MORE

The much publicized, though vague, suggestions about amnesty in Chechnya that President Putin and others floated during the days just before the referendum may turn out to have a hidden side: They may include criminal immunity for Russian servicemen who have committed atrocities against Chechen... MORE

Moscow journalist Anna Politkovskaya has made a stunning discovery in the suburbs of Chechnya, one comparable to the 1999 scandal in which secret police of Russia's Federal Security Service (the FSB, which is the renamed--but not reformed--KGB) were caught planting explosives in a Ryazan apartment... MORE