On Sunday, November 18, the Russian and Chechen separatist sides held their first publicized person-to-person talks in the more than two years of the current war. Akhmed Zakaev, a deputy premier of the Chechen separatist government, and a special representative of President Aslan Maskhadov, arrived... MORE

On November 10, President Vladimir Putin held a meeting in the Kremlin with representatives of leading U.S. media, a verbatim transcript of which was published in the November 12 issue of Kommersant. In addressing the American journalists, Putin said, among other things, this on the... MORE

On November 1, "Russia Votes," a joint public opinion survey project of the Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research (VCIOM) and of the University of Strathclyde in Great Britain issued a report concerning the results of polling done during the month of October.... MORE

On November 5, Putin visited the headquarters of Russian military intelligence (the GRU) in Moscow. While there, he commented that, "the spetsnaz [special forces] of the GRU has rather effectively recommended itself in Chechnya." He went on to add that "the effectiveness of all units... MORE

During the first week of November, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's chief spokesman for issues relating to Chechnya, was in New York City where, together with officials of the Russian Ministry of Culture, he received from a leading Russian emigre, Aleksei Shcherbatov, several letters that had been... MORE

It has been announced that, beginning with the November 15, the trial of Salman Raduev, the titular leader of a Chechen raid on the town of Kizlyar in Dagestan in January of 1996, which cost forty-three lives, will begin in the city of Makhachkala. Three... MORE

On November 5, the newspaper Kommersant reported that the FSB of Chechnya had begun a major operation in the struggle with corruption in the republic called Operation "Clean Hands." Its principal goal was said to be to punish Russian police for their violations of the... MORE

In an article entitled "Anarchy under the 'Roof' of a Military Commandant's Office," which appeared in the November 6 issue of Novye Izvestia, journalist Zoya Svetova wrote that, "The residents of the village of Alkhazurovo, in the Urus-Martan District of Chechnya, have written a letter... MORE

Russian expert," who was not named, complained to the official Itar-Tass news agency on November 6 that the Assistance Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which resumed its activities in Chechnya five months ago, "has failed to play a constructive... MORE