Are the Russian authorities lying about the number of casualties caused by the August 1 bombing of the military hospital in Mozdok? According to the official figures, widely disseminated in the Russian and western media, fifty occupants of the hospital complex died and eighty-two were... MORE

On July 29 the Russian authorities conducted a well-publicized ceremony--one that they had begun advertising months beforehand--marking the transfer of top command over the war in Chechnya from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to the federal Interior Ministry. The long planned transfer is part of... MORE

In an area that occupies less than 1 percent of Russia's territory, why have the federal forces not been able to track down Chechnya's separatist leaders--especially those who openly admit responsibility for terrorist attacks on Russian civilians? After all, in 1996 the Russians managed to... MORE

Akhmad Kadyrov's least surprising announcement of recent months was the one that finally came last week: He is now officially in the running to become president of Chechnya. It was also no surprise that Kadyrov used his official registration as a show of strength. Accompanying... MORE

On August 2 a 16-year-old Chechen girl, Elza Katsaeva, was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in the village of Samashki. Two days later about a thousand residents of the village, mostly women and children, blocked traffic on the area's main highway to protest the kidnapping and... MORE

A Russian marine died and two more were wounded in an August 3 firefight with rebel guerrillas, the news agency Interfax reported on August 4. The rebels ambushed the marines' convoy as it was returning to its base in the town of Dyshni-Vedeno in Chechnya's... MORE

SUPREME COURT SET TO CONSIDER "TERRORISM" CASE The Supreme Court of Russia is about to consider the case of Islam Khasukhanov. He was convicted of "terrorism" earlier this year by the Supreme Court of North Ossetia merely for having held an administrative position in the... MORE

INCIDENT ILLUSTRATES KADYROV'S CONTROL A recent episode in western Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan district seems to highlight both the strengths and the weaknesses of Chechen political culture--in which competing factions can quickly turn to violence, but can also quickly restore peace. As reported by Novaya gazeta, supporters... MORE

As Chechnya Weekly and others have already reported, not one Chechen is among the 600 prisoners being held by the U.S. government at its Guantanamo Bay naval base on suspicion of terrorism. Radio Liberty recently learned something equally interesting about two of the eight prisoners... MORE

A new opinion poll released on August 5 by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion found that only 28 percent of Russians support continuation of the war in Chechnya, while 57 percent prefer a negotiated settlement with the separatist rebels. Yury Levada,... MORE