On July 26, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Anatoly Kvashnin, vigorously refuted rumors circulating within Russia concerning the existence of "negotiations with the Chechen separatists." Kvashnin noted that he had met with Vladimir Putin just two days previously... MORE

Writing in the July 27 issue of the Washington Post, the newspaper's Moscow correspondent, Susan Glasser, observed: "Kremlin officials now compare [the present Chechen war] to decades-old conflicts such as Northern Island.... Inside the Kremlin, according to interviews with numerous officials and political observers, there... MORE

On July 25, Yelena Bonner, widow of the Nobel prize-winning human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, during a luncheon in her honor hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC, compared the silence regarding Moscow's war in the rebel republic of Chechnya to that... MORE

Writing in the July 27 issue of Moscow Times, the well-known military journalist Pavel Felgenhauer sharply criticized the G-7 nations for what he saw as their myopic behavior at the recent summit in Genoa: "Only two months ago," he wrote, "the Kremlin was in near... MORE

The July 28 issue of the Washington Times reported that the most recent public opinion survey taken by the Russian polling organization ROMIR found that "just 30.7 percent of Russians back Mr. Putin's aggressive war" while "40.9 percent said they thought Russia should either reduce... MORE

On July 26, a new crackdown on Russian and foreign journalists working in Chechnya was announced by Russian federal forces based in the republic. "The reason for the crackdown," the online daily Gazeta.ru commented, "is obviously the military's and the Kremlin's discontent with the journalists'... MORE

The online daily Gazeta.ru reported on July 27 that "President Putin has decided to give Akhmad Kadyrov, the [pro-Moscow] head of the Chechen Civil Administration, the lion's share of the money allocated for the restoration of the war-torn republic. Kadyrov is to receive some US$400... MORE

At a meeting of the Chechen Economic and Public Security Council of the pro-Moscow Kadyrov administration, a warning was issued that the republic "is on the verge of an environmental disaster." According to official reports "3.75 million tons of oil have burnt in flares over... MORE

On August 1, an estimated 150-200 Chechen refugees plan to begin a 2,000-kilometer-long peace march, expected to last seventy days, from the Chechen capital of Djohar (Grozny) to the Russian capital, Moscow. The peace march was announced on July 26 by the organizations "For Human... MORE