In an article appearing in the 18-24 issue of The Russia Journal, the well-known political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky discussed a "pamphlet-novel" issued last year by a leading conservative Russian writer, Aleksandr Prokhanov, chief editor of the weekly Zavtra. In the novel, entitled "Mr. Hexogen [Gospodin... MORE

Writing in the January issue 16 of the Los Angeles Times, journalist Maura Reynolds reported that Russia's leading human rights organization, Memorial, has "documented the apparent killing of three men and the disappearance of six others during a Russian 'special operation' in Chechnya over the... MORE

On January 17, Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Russian Council of Federation, the non-elected upper chamber of the Russian parliament, asserted following a meeting with Lubbers that the high commissioner believed that negotiations between Russia and Chechen separatist President Aslan Maskhadov were "not very... MORE

On January 17, a State Duma deputy and leading "democrat," Sergei Yushenkov, announced to members of the press in Moscow that Aslan Maskhadov had expressed approval of a peace plan for Chechnya drafted by the Russian Public Antiwar Committee, of which Yushenkov is a member.... MORE

Chechnya Will Join the Union of Russia and Belorussia," read the headline of an item appearing in a January 17 entry appearing on the website Apn.ru. A plan to provide Chechnya with the same status that Belarus will enjoy under the Union State project is... MORE

The no. 2 (January 14) issue of the pro-democracy weekly Novaya Gazeta contains an incisive analysis of the reasons for the present impasse in Chechnya by the well-known political commentator Boris Kagarlitsky. Kagarlitsky begins by examining trends revealed in Russian public opinion surveys since the... MORE

On January 11, Reuters reported that U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had criticized Moscow for "a continuation of human rights violations and the use of overwhelming force against civilian targets" in Chechnya. Reuters commented that Boucher's statement had effectively ended "a post-September 11 trend... MORE

On January 10, the official Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that a delegation led by Tadeusz Iwinksi of Poland, a co-rapporteur of the Commission on Migration, Refugees and Demography of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was due to arrive in Moscow... MORE

Agence France Press reported on January 3 that eight unarmed observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had arrived at a section of the Georgian border abutting "the sensitive border between Chechnya and the Russian republic of Ingushetia." The observers proceeded... MORE