The basic mass of Chechen refugees are prepared to return from Ingushetia to their homes [in Chechnya]," the Russian minister for the socioeconomic sphere of the Chechen Republic, Vladimir Elagin, affirmed at a Moscow press conference on June 3 devoted to the results of his... MORE

In an episode recalling the well-known "Yury Budanov case," Chechenpress.com reported on June 5 that Sveta Muradova, a 26-year-old Chechen teacher at one of the secondary schools in Argun, who had been abducted from her home by Russian soldiers on May 22, had at last... MORE

On June 6, the human rights organization Memorial issued a report entitled "Examples of the Malicious Non-Observance of Order No. 80 of the Commander of the [Russian] Combined Group of Forces during May of 2002" (Memo.ru, June 6). Among the several events described in this... MORE

All week," the online daily Gazeta.ru wrote on June 7, "large detachments of rebels have been making attacks on representatives of the [pro-Moscow] authorities in Chechnya. This past night they attacked the house of the head of administration of the village of Shalashki and abducted... MORE

On June 5, the website Utro.ru, which frequently airs the opinions of the Russian FSB operating in Chechnya headed up by General Babkin, published a no-holds-barred attack, entitled "The Gray Cardinal of Chechnya," directed against Yan (Yakov) Sergunin, chief-of-staff of the pro-Moscow head of administration... MORE

In an address entitled "U.S.-Russian Relations in the Post-Post-Cold War World," delivered on June 1 to the RAND Business Leaders' Forum held at the Mark Hotel in New York City, Ambassador Richard N. Haas, director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of... MORE

On June 5 in Strasbourg, the deputy premier of the separatist government of the Chechen Republic-Ichkeria, Akhmed Zakaev, met with the general secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Bruno Haller. Zakaev discussed in detail current military-political developments in the republic and... MORE

On June 1, Kommersant reported that, on the previous day in Petersburg, Aleksandr Prokhanov, chief editor of the neo-fascist weekly Zavtra, had been announced as the winner of this year's "National Bestseller" prize for literature. Prokhanov received the prize for his 474-page novel Mister Hexogen... MORE

The no. 38 (30 May) issue of the perhaps now-suppressed newspaper Novaya Gazeta contains an article by leading war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya concerning the recent travails of a Russian "democrat" and strong opponent of the war in Chechnya, Sergei Val'kov. A resident of the central... MORE