On February 21, the online daily Lenta.ru reported that the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, headed by Akhmad Kadyrov, and Russian military and police units stationed in Chechnya were intending to take harsh steps to prevent any commemoration by the Chechen populace of the February 23, 1944... MORE

The respected polling organization, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VCIOM), has reported the results of polling conducted throughout Russia from January 18-22 concerning Russian popular attitudes toward the war in Chechnya. The latest polling data shows that popular support for the... MORE

The well-known Russian human rights organization "Memorial" has released documents concerning the charged situation in the Kurchaloevsk District of Chechnya. On January 9, the pro-Moscow chief of administration of the district, M. Taramov, and the chairman of the local Council of Elders, A. Ibliev, wrote... MORE

In an interview with Novaya Gazeta (no. 12, 2001), the newly appointed prime minister of Chechnya, Stanislav Il'yasov, made some unusually sympathetic comments about the sufferings of the Chechen populace. "The main thing," he observed, "is that if we say that it is time to... MORE

The Los Angeles Times (February 26) has reported that the bodies of dozens of Chechens, most of them men, were found on February 24 in a dumping site close to the large Russian military base at Khankala, near the Chechen capital of Djohar (Grozny). The... MORE

Is Doku Zavgaev making yet another political comeback? The former Communist Party first secretary of Checheno-Ingushetia under Mikhail Gorbachev, who was subsequently restored to power by Yeltsin in 1995, recently flew from Tanzania--where he serves as Russian ambassador--to Moscow in order to hold a heavily... MORE

It was announced on February 22 that the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, will pay an official visit to Russia from February 26 to March 2, following a request by the Council's Committee of Ministers. On February 27 and 28, Gil-Robles... MORE

On the subject of Colonel Budanov, who is scheduled to go on trial on February 28 for having strangled a young Chechen woman, General Gennady Troshev, commander of the North Caucasus Military District, recently recalled: "I met him several times. Budanov struck me as an... MORE

The Federal Security Service's (FSB) February 20 detention of an award-winning Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who had been covering the war in Chechnya for the pro-democracy weekly Novaya Gazeta, has generated a great deal of publicity in Russia. The background to her three-day detention was... MORE