On January 9, the appointed representative of Chechnya's pro-Moscow civilian administration to the Russian Federation Council, Akhmad Zavgaev, told Interfax that Chechnya's new constitution, which will be formally unveiled for public debate after being approved by legal experts, envisages a presidential and not a parliamentary... MORE

On January 10, the Moscow Times reported that Ingushetia's parliament had announced that the republic is to hold a new presidential election on April 7 of this year. The election had previously been scheduled for March of 2003 but had been moved up following Ingush... MORE

The Times of London reported on January 11 that, "In a shift of policy, Turkey, formally sympathetic to the separatists in Chechnya, yesterday requested the [Russian extradition] dossier against [Movladi] Udugov." Udugov, a one-time separatist first deputy prime minister, left Chechnya before the inception of... MORE

On January 11, the online daily Gazeta.ru reported that Russian oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky had announced during an interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio that he is preparing "a packet of materials which will prove to everyone that precisely the Russian special services blew up the [apartment]... MORE

Commenting on the state of the current war in Chechnya, leading Russian military journalist Pavel Felgenhauer wrote in the January 10 issue of the Moscow Times: "Victory in Chechnya now seems as far off as ever. Russian troops are still mopping up and 'cleansing' the... MORE

"Today," the newspaper Novye Izvestia observed on January 10, "when the ransom of persons who have been arrested and the trade in the corpses of people who have been killed, which is being conducted by several representatives of the federal Group [in Chechnya], is acquiring... MORE

On January 13, Agence France Presse reported that General Vladimir Moltenskoi, commander of the Russian Combined Group of Forces operating in Chechnya, had refused a demand by Memorial and by other Russian human rights groups that he halt so-called "mopping up operations" in the republic... MORE

On January 9, Prime News in Tbilisi reported that Khizri Aldamov, the separatist representative of Chechnya to the Republic of Georgia had stated that among the Chechen refugees settled in the villages of the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, cases of hepatitis were becoming more and... MORE

As was noted in the most recent issue of this newsletter, the award-winning Russian war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya has returned to Russia after having been ordered by her editors to spend several months abroad due to serious death threats made against her by persons opposed... MORE