Agence France Presse reported on January 24 that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has abandoned efforts to try to persuade Moscow to admit OSCE human rights monitors back into Chechnya. A European delegate to the OSCE council reportedly said that the mission... MORE

Recent months have seen a significant change in the Russian forces' tactics in Chechnya, according to one of Russia's most respected human rights organizations. Eliza Musaeva, who heads the office of Memorial in Ingushetia, told Radio Liberty that "the military has stopped their massive 'mopping-up'... MORE

The Russian government is continuing to lobby the U.S. State Department to classify the Chechen separatist movement as "terrorist." Last week the Russian news media highlighted remarks by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who said in a January 23 interview with the radio... MORE

Lord Frank Judd, chief rapporteur for Chechnya of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), kept his counsel until returning from his recent visit to Chechnya. Before flying south from Moscow he even made some statements that must have been welcome to the... MORE

It would seem that Akhmad Kadyrov now has the upper hand over Mikhail Babich in the power struggle within the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration. The Itar-Tass news agency reported on January 23 that Prime Minister Babich has suddenly left for vacation. In mid-January Babich had vigorously... MORE

A SOLDIER'S VIEW Three years ago, Vadim Rechkalov of the Moscow daily Izvestia interviewed two Russian soldiers who were convalescing in a hospital in the Moscow suburbs their wounds suffered in Chechnya. The two veterans insisted that their conversation must be entirely off the record--but... MORE

Mission suspended* News briefs

power struggle between Chechnya's two top pro-Moscow officials burst into the open last week, with signs that neither of the two has the federal government's total support. With both Chechen administration head Akhmad Kadyrov and Prime Minister Mikhail Babich launching increasingly strident verbal assaults on... MORE

After a surge of hawkish passions in the wake of October's hostagetaking raid on a Moscow theater, Russian public opinion has swung back to its previous pattern of favoring peace negotiations in Chechnya. A December poll by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM)... MORE

In what may be remembered as a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights has agreed for the first time to consider legal cases accusing Russian authorities of atrocities in Chechnya. All six cases were brought by Chechens now living as refugees in Ingushetia... MORE