Agence France Presse noted on April 22 that the number of Chechen refugees remaining in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge had fallen sharply over the past year. "While there were nearly 7,000 refugees in the area a year ago," the press service wrote, "there are now just... MORE

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher observed on April 22 that the United States had been disappointed that the UN Human Rights Commission at its recent annual meeting in Geneva had failed to censure Iran, Russia and Zimbabwe for significant human rights abuses. On April 19,... MORE

On April 24, the American premiere of the Berezovsky-sponsored film "Assassination [attempt] against Russia," which focuses on the so-called Ryazan episode of September 1999, was held at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Following this showing, others were then held... MORE

The April 24 issue of the weekly Moskovskie Novosti carries an article by well-known military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, who sees Chechnya as representing Russia's Algeria. In his recent State-of-the-Nation address to the Russian parliament, Felgenhauer recalls, President Putin asserted that it was no longer important... MORE

Over the past week-and-a-half, the Putin leadership seems to have moved from an advocacy of the need for "Chechenization" of the conflict to a retreat from it. On April 30, speaking at a session of the Russian Security Council, the Russian president made it clear... MORE

By the time he held a meeting with FSB director Nikolai Patrushev and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in the Kremlin on May 6, however, Putin's commitment to Chechenization was noticeably on the wane. The previous day, which had happened to be the Russian Orthodox Easter,... MORE

On May 8, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov underlined that Russia would never withdraw its armed forces from Chechnya. "The 42nd division," he declared, "will be here [in Chechnya] forever" (Interfax, May 8).

What has been the practical effect of the much-touted Order No. 80, which was issued on March 27 by General Vladimir Moltenskoi, commander of the Russian Combined Group of Forces operating in Chechnya? The stated goal was to ensure that Russian military and police personnel... MORE

In an essay entitled "Chechnya After Order No. 80," appearing in the No. 31 (April 30) issue of Novaya Gazeta, the award-winning war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya probed the extent to which Moltenskoi's order had been observed in the month since it was issued, taking as... MORE