On March 26, the separatist foreign minister of Chechnya, Il'yas Akhmadov, was scheduled to have a meeting with John Beryle, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Newly Independent States. The announcement last week by Marc Grossman, President Bush's nominee for undersecretary... MORE

Two high-ranking envoys from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Lord Frank Judd of Britain and Rudolf Bindig of Germany, visited Moscow from March 20 to March 22. While their conversations with Russian officials focused on the situation in Chechnya, the two... MORE

The already poor state of Russian-Chechen relations took a precipitous nosedive last week when the bodies of ten to twelve persons, most of them ethnic Russians, were reported to have been discovered in the Chechen capital of Djohar. During talks held with Lord Frank Judd... MORE

In recent months," journalist Maura Reynolds concluded grimly in the March 14 issue of the Los Angeles Times, "bodies have been turning up all over separatist Chechnya. Sometimes they are found in pairs, sometimes half a dozen or more at a time. Usually the victims... MORE

In mid-March, there were a flurry of announcements in the Russian press that Russia had begun reducing the size of its military force in Chechnya. The Associated Press reported: "Russia began a series of widely televised ceremonies marking a limited withdrawal from Chechnya on March... MORE

On March 13, leading separatist field commander Shamil Basaev made public on the web-site Kavkaz.org the text of an apology, dated January 27, which he had written to U.S. aid worker Kenneth Gluck. In the letter, Basaev admitted that Gluck had been kidnapped by "a... MORE

On March 16, Saudi commandos stormed a Vnukovo Airlines jet sitting on the tarmac in Medina which had been hijacked the previous day by three knife-wielding Chechens while en route from Istanbul to Moscow. Some 162 passengers and twelve crewmembers were on board. A Russian... MORE

On March 13 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called for an end to abuses by both sides in the fighting between Russian forces and the Chechen separatists. She referred to reports of serious human rights violations being carried out by the... MORE