On September 17, Chechen separatists announced that they had launched their largest-scale offensive in months "with a series of coordinated attacks across the Russian rebel region's lowlands, seizing buildings and shooting down a helicopter." Russian officials confirmed that a surge in fighting was under way.... MORE

The no. 36 (September 11) issue of Kommersant-Vlast contains a detailed report on the current situation in the Chechen refugee tent camps located in Ingushetia by journalist Elena Samoilova, who had just spent a week living in the camps (including sleeping there overnight). According to... MORE

On September 12, a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), headed by Lord Frank Judd of Britain, arrived in Moscow. Judd was accompanied by the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles. The purpose of their visit was... MORE

On September 7, a ten-day recess was announced in the closed trial of five citizens from the North Caucasus autonomous republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia who are charged with having bombed two large apartment complexes in Moscow in September 1999, killing an estimated 220-250 persons, infamous events... MORE

The September 6 issue of Izvestia carried comments by the well-known polling specialist Yury Levada of the All Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) concerning Russian attitudes toward the secession of Chechnya. "From time to time," Levada observed, "we ask people how... MORE

On September 6, the tenth anniversary of the day celebrated by Chechen separatists as Independence Day, the online daily Gazeta.ru reported that extra-tight security measures were in effect in the capital, Djohar (Grozny), after the explosion of a bomb on September 3 in the office... MORE

On September 3, Anatoly Khryachkov, the pro-Moscow military commissioner of Chechnya, reported to an expanded session of the Chechen government that it is planned to draft 500 Chechen youths to serve in a special railway troop battalion to be established to restore the railways in... MORE

The no. 36 (September 6) issue of the weekly Obshchaya Gazeta contains an article by journalist Irina Dement'eva, entitled "The Obvious Is Becoming Secret," in which she discusses the strained relations that have developed between FSB director Nikolai Patrushev and journalist Valery Yakov of the... MORE

senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity stated in Washington DC on September 5 that the Bush administration is deeply concerned about the situation in Chechnya and is planning to send its new ambassador to Moscow to that breakaway republic within the "next month-and-a-half,"... MORE