On May 7, the heavily publicized trial of Colonel Yury Budanov, accused of having murdered a young Chechen woman, El'za Kungaeva, in March 2000, resumed in Rostov-on-Don. Budanov once again had to receive medical attention for his high blood pressure. On May 8, his prospects... MORE

Anna Politkovskaya, the well-known war correspondent for the pro-democracy weekly, Novaya Gazeta, was awarded the prize "For Courage in Journalism" by the International Pen Club of America in Washington, DC in early May (Novaya Gazeta, May 7).

Leading Russian human rights worker Viktor Popkov, who was severely wounded on April 18 in Chechnya by an attacker employing an automatic weapon, emerged from a comatose condition on May 3 and two days later was transferred to a special clinic in Moscow. A plane... MORE

After the May 5 meeting of the Russian power ministers and the heads of regions in the Southern Federal District had concluded, the chairman of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, and his prime minister, Stanislav Il'yasov, left for Chechnya. Following their departure, the director... MORE

The May 5 issue of Izvestia featured the text of a recent interview granted to the newspaper by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. One of the questions put to the new secretary concerned the U.S. position on human rights, "especially as it concerns Chechnya."... MORE

The Russian human rights organization Memorial recently revealed to journalist Yevgenia Borisova that "it knows where there are at least three more suspected mass graves in the Chechen capital but is wary of making the information public." According to Lipkhan Bazaeva of Memorial's office in... MORE

On May 4, several hundred Chechen women blocked a bridge in the city of Argun which connects the main Djohar-Makhachkala (Dagestan) highway. The women were protesting against the arrest of a woman teacher at one of the local schools. They also demanded the release of... MORE

On May 2 the Turan News Agency in Baku, Azerbaijan released a lengthy summary of a recent interview conducted with the Chechen separatist president of Chechnya, Aslan Maskhadov. The interview was translated into English by BBC Monitoring and posted on May 3. As spring has... MORE