On December 22, Human Rights Watch sharply criticized the recent murder of 44-year-old Luiza Betegirieva of the Russo-Chechen Friendship Society, who was shot to death near a Russian military checkpoint outside of Argun, Chechnya on December 13. "The killing would appear to be a horrifying... MORE

On December 28, the president of the autonomous republic of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, announced that he was stepping down as president. He said that he was taking this act "for the sake of preserving stability in the republic." The next presidential elections in Ingushetia are... MORE

The well-known award-winning Russian war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya has returned to Russia after being ordered by her editors to take refuge abroad for several months in the face of serious threats made against her life. The December 27 (nos. 94-95) issue of Novaya Gazeta contains... MORE

During the past several weeks, there have echoed serious warnings concerning the rapidly worsening condition of Chechen refugees located both in their home republic and in the adjacent republic of Ingushetia. On December 13 Lord Russell-Johnston, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of... MORE

On January 11, Reuters reported that U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had criticized Moscow for "a continuation of human rights violations and the use of overwhelming force against civilian targets" in Chechnya. Reuters commented that Boucher's statement had effectively ended "a post-September 11 trend... MORE

On January 10, the official Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that a delegation led by Tadeusz Iwinksi of Poland, a co-rapporteur of the Commission on Migration, Refugees and Demography of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was due to arrive in Moscow... MORE

Agence France Press reported on January 3 that eight unarmed observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had arrived at a section of the Georgian border abutting "the sensitive border between Chechnya and the Russian republic of Ingushetia." The observers proceeded... MORE

Interviewed by Russian state television on January 10, Russian military chief of staff Anatoly Kvashnin affirmed that there are no longer any large "bandit groups" left in Chechnya and said that the federal forces are now being opposed only by individual groups of rebels who... MORE

Writing in the no. 52, 2001 issue of the weekly Moskovskie Novosti, journalist Sanobar Shermatova reported: "According to information obtained by Moskovskie Novosti, which has also been confirmed by the [Azerbaijani] press agency Turan, Moscow proposed to the adherents of Aslan Maskhadov a variant under... MORE