Subsidies from the central government in Moscow for the restoration of Chechnya's social and economic infrastructure are being used to pay suppliers and contractors without any competitive bidding process. A February 17 article by Viktor Semenov in Russky kurier quoted federal auditor Sergei Ryabukhin: "There... MORE

Dissident journalists in Russia have written a number of articles about federal soldiers being denied the combat pay to which they are legally entitled for having served in Chechnya and other “hot spots.” An April 15 article on the Grani.ru website confirmed that this abuse... MORE

A roundtable on Chechnya was held in Strasbourg under the auspices of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on March 21. The meeting, which was organized by Swiss parliamentarian Andreas Gross – with, according to Kommersant, "active help" from Russia's State Duma and... MORE

Yury Shchekochikhin, the antiwar journalist and Duma member who died last year under mysterious circumstances (see Chechnya Weekly, July 10, 2003), preserved this haunting quotation from a conversation of his with Chechen diplomat Akhmed Zakaev. It may be found in Shchekochikhin's book, Forgotten Chechnya, Moscow,... MORE

The International Helsinki Group has called on the Russian authorities to annul the results of last October's presidential election in Chechnya. According to a February 24 report on the website Grani.ru, the human rights organization cited the "flagrant violations" of free and fair procedures which... MORE

A detention center in the south Russian town of Mineralnye vody is the new home of seven Russian citizens. The seven, transferred on February 28 to the custody of the Russian government, had been held at Guantanamo Bay with other alleged terrorists captured in Afghanistan.... MORE

In the southern Volga Saratov region, parents of soldiers serving with the federal forces in Chechnya have formed a committee to monitor the difficulties that their sons face. According to a March 1 article in Russky kurier, letters written by the soldiers to their parents... MORE

Some of the most suggestive findings and reflections yet published on the phenomenon of kidnapping in Chechnya can be found in a long interview given by Oleg Orlov of the Russian human rights center Memorial to Andrei Riskin of Nezavisimaya gazeta. The full text is... MORE

Russia's efforts to increase its bargaining power in a dispute with Qatar over two Russian intelligence officers imprisoned in the Persian Gulf Sheikhdom seem to have turned into a clumsy farce. On February 28, Russian police arrested two Olympic athletes from Qatar at Moscow's Sheremetevo... MORE

The sixtieth anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people on February 23 was widely commemorated and discussed in Europe. Thousands of people in Warsaw, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, in Italy and France, and in Riga expressed their support for the Chechens. They tried... MORE