On April 26, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed an instruction mandating the conducting of a population census in the Chechen Republic this coming fall. This states that the government of Russia has adopted a proposal made by the State Statistics Committee (Goskomstat) of the... MORE

On April 24, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, unanimously passed a resolution asserting that another resolution passed earlier this month by the European Parliament which advocated a negotiated end to the war in Chechnya and claimed that Russian officials had... MORE

On April 19, at a session of the Russian State Duma, deputy Viktor Alksnis of the "Regions of Russia" faction moved that the Duma create a parliamentary commission to investigate the September 1999 explosions of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, events that served to... MORE

Agence France Presse noted on April 22 that the number of Chechen refugees remaining in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge had fallen sharply over the past year. "While there were nearly 7,000 refugees in the area a year ago," the press service wrote, "there are now just... MORE

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher observed on April 22 that the United States had been disappointed that the UN Human Rights Commission at its recent annual meeting in Geneva had failed to censure Iran, Russia and Zimbabwe for significant human rights abuses. On April 19,... MORE

On April 24, the American premiere of the Berezovsky-sponsored film "Assassination [attempt] against Russia," which focuses on the so-called Ryazan episode of September 1999, was held at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Following this showing, others were then held... MORE

The April 24 issue of the weekly Moskovskie Novosti carries an article by well-known military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, who sees Chechnya as representing Russia's Algeria. In his recent State-of-the-Nation address to the Russian parliament, Felgenhauer recalls, President Putin asserted that it was no longer important... MORE

Over the past week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made two major statements concerning the conflict in Chechnya. In his annual State-of-the-Nation address to the Russian parliament, delivered on April 18 over Russian state television, Putin announced: "The military phase of the conflict may be considered... MORE

On the day preceding his State-of-the-Nation speech, Putin held an approximately three-hour-long meeting with representatives of the Chechen diaspora residing in Moscow, as well as with key pro-Moscow Chechen officials from Djohar (Grozny). Among those present at the meeting were Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the... MORE