The United Nations Commission on Human Rights--which this year is chaired by the delegation from Libya--on April 16 defeated a resolution criticizing the Russian government for its policies in Chechnya. The vote was 15 in favor, 21 opposed, and 17 abstentions. The defeated resolution was... MORE

One of the crowd-pleasing gestures made by the Russian authorities just prior to the March 23 constitutional referendum was the announcement that they would begin reducing the number of checkpoints along Chechnya's main highways and intersections. It is widely agreed by both pro-Moscow and anti-Moscow... MORE

The website Vesti.ru reports that on April 14 a group of mothers of servicemen killed in Chechnya picketed the parliament of Nizhegorodsky Oblast. The women were protesting an oblast government decision that only those families whose incomes are below the poverty level would receive financial... MORE

The administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin and its allies in Grozny are clearly counting on a big win in Saturday's (March 22) referendum. Putin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said that "the appearance of voters in Chechnya is traditionally high," and the Russian media have been... MORE

In a March 16 television speech devoted entirely to this weekend's constitutional referendum in Chechnya, President Putin hinted at new concessions to Chechen public opinion. But he did it in such a way as to avoid making any detailed commitments. The state-controlled Russian television network... MORE

Someone is trying to get Chechens to think that Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has abruptly repudiated almost everything for which he has worked over the last decade, including independence for Chechnya. Gazeta.ru reports that leaflets have recently appeared in several Chechen towns, ostensibly over... MORE

The Moscow activist group "For Human Rights" announced on March 14 that it had learned that Russian authorities had detained three Chechen activists at a checkpoint in Ingushetia the previous day. One of the three, Sulumbek Tashtamirov, was already on a hunger strike to protest... MORE

The underground separatist government's Foreign Minister, Ilyas Akhmadov, presented a new peace proposal in Washington on March 18. Under this plan, Chechnya would temporarily be governed by the United Nations: UN police would be responsible for keeping order and a UN administration would run basic... MORE

Moscow journalist Anna Politkovskaya has made a stunning discovery in the suburbs of Chechnya, one comparable to the 1999 scandal in which secret police of Russia's Federal Security Service (the FSB, which is the renamed--but not reformed--KGB) were caught planting explosives in a Ryazan apartment... MORE

Russia's election officials were too ambitious for their own good on March 23. If they had reported that, say, 60 percent of Chechens had turned out to vote in that day's constitutional referendum and that 60 percent of those had voted 'Yes,' that would have... MORE