Russia's highest military award, the order of "Hero of Russia," has been bestowed on five people for their roles in the Dubrovka Theater hostage crisis of October 2002. But a member of the federal Duma learned that only two of these medals went to soldiers... MORE

The likely resignation of Lord Frank Judd, currently serving as rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, does not necessarily mean that Russia will now get a free ride in that body. The assembly's committee on legal affairs and human rights has... MORE

Moscow clearly wants Western observers to monitor the March 23 constitutional referendum in Chechnya as a symbol of its legitimacy, and also for those observers to concentrate on such purely technical questions as the physical preparation of polling stations, ballot papers and the like. And... MORE

Knowledgeable observers in both Moscow and Washington have been predicting for weeks that the U.S. State Department, under heavy lobbying from the Kremlin, would formally classify three Chechen organizations as terrorist groups subject to U.S. sanctions. But when the State Department's decision was finally announced... MORE

Political analyst Aleksei Makarkin suggested in a detailed commentary published on March 3 by the website Politcom.ru that the federal authorities are making conciliatory gestures toward the opponents of their own appointee in Grozny, Akhmad Kadyrov. Makarkin noted several indications that the Kremlin is going... MORE

"AUTONOMY" A MIRAGE? Yet another conciliatory gesture from Moscow was the recent promise made by Vladislav Surokov, President Putin's deputy chief of staff, that Chechnya would have "the broadest autonomy" once it adopts the constitution proposed in this month's referendum. "In the future a treaty... MORE

--REVERSAL ON VOTING RIGHTS FOR CHECHEN REFUGEES? In an apparent reversal, the head of the Moscow-appointed Chechen government told a Grozny press conference on February 25 that only voters physically present in Chechnya will be allowed to cast ballots in next month's constitutional referendum. Akhmad... MORE

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the state television channel Rossiya in an interview broadcast on February 21 that Washington would soon be formally adding three Chechen organizations to its official list of terrorist organizations. To put an organization into this category automatically triggers... MORE

A report signed by Russian officials confirms some of the charges made by human rights activists about the plight of Chechen refugees in Ingushetia. According to an Interfax news story on February 19, the authors of the report found that the refugees' "rights to choose... MORE

Akhmed Zakaev, who represents Aslan Maskhadov's separatist government in Western Europe, has confirmed that Salambek Maigov is indeed also a legitimate representative of that underground government. He told a correspondent of the pro-separatist Chechenpress in a February 19 interview that the appointment of Maigov to... MORE