The online daily Gazeta.ru reported on December 20 that the Russian State Duma has voted to introduce new changes into the Russian law on the mass media that flatly prohibit Russian media from publishing interviews with Chechen separatists. "It is no secret," Gazeta.ru underscored, "that... MORE

On December 22, Human Rights Watch sharply criticized the recent murder of 44-year-old Luiza Betegirieva of the Russo-Chechen Friendship Society, who was shot to death near a Russian military checkpoint outside of Argun, Chechnya on December 13. "The killing would appear to be a horrifying... MORE

On December 28, the president of the autonomous republic of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, announced that he was stepping down as president. He said that he was taking this act "for the sake of preserving stability in the republic." The next presidential elections in Ingushetia are... MORE

The well-known award-winning Russian war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya has returned to Russia after being ordered by her editors to take refuge abroad for several months in the face of serious threats made against her life. The December 27 (nos. 94-95) issue of Novaya Gazeta contains... MORE

During the past several weeks, there have echoed serious warnings concerning the rapidly worsening condition of Chechen refugees located both in their home republic and in the adjacent republic of Ingushetia. On December 13 Lord Russell-Johnston, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of... MORE

On December 17, the Financial Times published the text of an interview conducted with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. A number of Putin's comments touched on the war in Chechnya. "In 1996," Putin recalled, "Russia withdrew all its military and law enforcement forces from the... MORE

In a statement issued over Ekho Moskvy Radio, the Russian presidential spokesman for issues relating to Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, underscored his belief that the current winter will be the last for the resistance in Chechnya. "The affair is coming to an end," Yastrzhembsky asserted. The... MORE

In an interview with the weekly Obshchaya Gazeta (no. 50, December 13), Adlan Magomedov, the official representative of the pro-Moscow Chechen civilian administration to Moscow, observed: "The situation in the republic can calm down within three months' time, but only if the whole plenitude of... MORE

While Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen official spokesmen were predicting a speedy end to the present conflict, events in the town of Argun suggested that the separatists still had considerable fight left in them. According to the online daily Gazeta.ru: "After several days of fierce clashes... MORE