The chairman of the Russian State Duma's defense committee, retired Colonel General Eduard Voro'bev, recently voiced his opinion that the Russian government should enter into settlement talks with Chechen rebel commanders who "are not criminals." Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen president, was identified as one leader... MORE

On January 2, the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response released a lengthy report concerning the situation in Chechnya. The organization had organized a roundtable, held in Piatigorsk on December 15-16, which was attended by leaders of Chechen communities in Russia as well as... MORE

On December 31, journalist Maura Reynolds published a report in the Los Angeles Times which underscored that the war in Chechnya has been seriously depleting Russia's military stockpiles. "During its blitzkrieg artillery attacks [in 1999]," she wrote, "Russia depleted its massive reserves of ammunition, originally... MORE

The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has announced that a new Cossack unit has been created within the 205th Mechanized Brigade. Henceforth, Terek Cossacks are to serve in the Shelkovsky, Naursky and Nadterechnyi districts of Chechnya. The Stavropol Krai security council, which put... MORE

As reported in the most recent issue of this publication, on December 23 Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right Forces faction in the State Duma, headed a group of Duma deputies which met in Ingushetia with a delegation of separatists who had been... MORE

On January 14, two monitors from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Lord Frank Judd of Great Britain and Rudolf Bindig of Germany, flew from Moscow to the North Caucasus region to assess Russia's human rights record in Chechnya. On January 22-26,... MORE

On January 9, Kenneth (Kenny) Gluck, age 38, an American citizen working for the North Caucasus mission of the Nobel-prize winning humanitarian organization Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF--Doctors without Borders) was kidnapped by three heavily armed masked men near the Chechen village of Starye Atagi as... MORE

In an interview published in the army newspaper Krasnaya zvezda on 10 January, Colonel General Gennady Troshev, commander of the North Caucasus Military District, asserted belligerently: "It is necessary to take a detailed look at who is living in the camps for forced migrants. There... MORE

The January 11 issue of the newspaper Moskovsky komsomolets carries a report by two journalists who recently visited both Djohar (Grozny) and the large Russian base located at Khankala on the outskirts of the city. The reporters note that, in general, the Russian media--both television... MORE