In a path-breaking article appearing in the no. 44 (October 30) issue of the weekly Moskovskie Novosti, a leading journalist and specialist on the North Caucasus region, Sanobar Shermatova, wrote that the Kremlin now appears to be pursuing "a plan for peaceful regulation [in Chechnya]... MORE

At a October 22 meeting of the pro-Moscow Chechen government in Djohar (Grozny), Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi, the newly named commander of the Combined Group of Russian Forces in Chechnya, reported that over sixty checkpoints manned by Russian military and police personnel had recently been... MORE

On October 23, Moltenskoi stated over the state-run ORT television network that "the plan to withdraw troops from Chechnya is being implemented to the full extent." He emphasized that President Putin's order concerning a withdrawal from Chechnya would be completed by April 2002. Moltenskoi did... MORE

On October 25, Colonel General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, commander of the internal troops of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, told Interfax that presently the largest centers of resistance of the Chechen separatists are in Vedeno, Nozhai-Yurt, and Kurchaloi districts, and also in the Chechen capital... MORE

On October 22, the pro-Moscow chief of the civilian administration in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, summoned three high-ranking officials of the Chechen government, presently headed by Premier Stanislav Il'yasov, onto the carpet to give reports concerning their activities. The three officials were: Deputy Premier Zina Batysheva,... MORE

In an article entitled "The Chechen-Bermuda Triangle," appearing in the October 26 issue of Kommersant, the paper took note of the fact that the Chechen Republic was fast emerging as "the Klondike of the twenty-first century." A Russian deputy minister of finance, Aleksei Ulyukaev, was... MORE

Writing in the no. 43 (October 25) issue of Obshchaya Gazeta, a well-known Russian political analyst, Dmitry Furman, offered some tongue-in-cheek comments about the present state of Russian-Georgian relations, especially as they relate to the conflict in Chechnya. "The Russian elite," Furman observed, "does not... MORE

During a visit to Baku on October 23, Russian Minister of the Interior Boris Gryzlov called upon the leadership of Azerbaijan to extradite all Chechen refugees currently living in that state back to Russia. Gryzlov termed Chechnya "a den of terror." "If we agreed on... MORE

With the process of "Chechenization" spearheaded by the pro-Moscow head of the Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, moving vigorously forward, it appeared that the Kremlin had taken a reasonably firm decision to downgrade the just-commenced negotiations with the Chechen separatists, in effect relegating them to a... MORE