Two recent events sparked an apparent crisis in relations between the pro-Moscow Chechen administration and Russian military forces based in Chechnya. On June 4, the military conducted a "mopping up operation" in Djohar (Grozny) during which they halted at checkpoints the pro-Moscow heads of Chechen... MORE

Speaking at a hearing conducted by the Russian State Duma on June 4, Lord Frank Judd of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) confided that European parliamentarians had been "inspired" by the announced intention of the Russian authorities to reduce the number... MORE

In an interview published on June 4 in the newspaper Izvestia, General Gennady Troshev, commander of the North Caucasus Military District, called for the public execution of Chechen terrorists. "Yes, I am for the death penalty for Chechen rebels!" he exclaimed. "The most torturous execution... MORE

On June 3, NTV reported that humanitarian aid from both international and Russian charitable organizations is arriving in Djohar (Grozny) almost every day. Twice a week, the staff of the Russian military commandant's office in Leninsky District of the capital is assigned to escort these... MORE

International observers from the OSCE mission in Georgia have reopened their observation post in the Georgian mountain village of Girevi on the border with Chechnya. The post was temporarily closed for the winter. During the winter, only two monitoring posts were open on the Chechen... MORE

On June 6, at the Andrei Sakharov Museum in Moscow, the chairman of the Chechen Committee for National Salvation, Ruslan Badalov, handed an appeal signed by 10,000 Chechen refugees living in Ingushetia to Adam Shved, a representative of the OSCE. "Today," Badalov underlined in his... MORE

In testimony before the congressional U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, John Beyrle, acting special advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell for Russia and the other independent states of the former Soviet Union, affirmed that the issue of human rights in Russia... MORE

On June 2, Viktor Popkov, a leading Russian human rights activist, died in a military hospital outside of Moscow. Popkov had been severely wounded by an unidentified assailant firing an automatic weapon from a car near the settlement of Alkhan-Kala in Chechnya on April 18,... MORE

On June 4, the Russian State Duma held a hearing devoted to the problem of those individuals--both from the Russian military and MVD, and among Chechen civilians--who have disappeared without trace or have been kidnapped since August of 1999 on the territory of the Chechen... MORE