In the no. 17 (March 12) and no. 18 (March 15) issues of the pro-democracy weekly, Novaya gazeta, award-winning Russian war correspondent Anna Politkovskaya described crimes committed by members of the Russian military against their fellow soldiers. Today ethnic Russians, she observes in her essay... MORE

On March 22, four leading Russian dailies--Izvestia, Komsomol'skaya pravda, Moskovsky Komsomolets and Trud--published the transcript of a lengthy interview with President Putin conducted by the chief editors of those newspapers. During the course of the interview, the Russian president suggested that the conflict in Chechnya... MORE

On March 22, General Aleksandr Zdanovich, chief spokesman of the FSB for issues relating to the war in Chechnya, said that, in the period since the FSB had received the responsibility to head up the counterterrorist operation in Chechnya, there had been a change in... MORE

On March 19, President Putin signed a decree creating a new presidential Information Department, which is to be integrated into the Kremlin administration. Receiving a promotion to be the head of this new department was the Kremlin's chief spokesman for issues relating to Chechnya, Sergei... MORE

Vnukovo Airlines flight attendant Yulia Fomina, who was accidentally killed by Saudi commandos when they stormed a Russian plane sitting on the tarmac in Medina which had been hijacked by three Chechens armed with a single kitchen knife and a cell phone which they said... MORE

The well-known military journalist Pavel Felgenhauer recently suggested that there might be less to the announced withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya than meets the eye. According to official sources, he noted, there are now approximately 80,000 Russian troops in Chechnya, about 40,000 of which... MORE

The latest report of the Lam Center for Pluralism, a human rights organization based in Djohar (Grozny) and Nazran, Ingushetia which works closely with the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, describes in its latest report conditions in the mountain region of Chechnya. Living conditions... MORE

On March 26, the separatist foreign minister of Chechnya, Il'yas Akhmadov, was scheduled to have a meeting with John Beryle, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Newly Independent States. The announcement last week by Marc Grossman, President Bush's nominee for undersecretary... MORE

Two high-ranking envoys from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Lord Frank Judd of Britain and Rudolf Bindig of Germany, visited Moscow from March 20 to March 22. While their conversations with Russian officials focused on the situation in Chechnya, the two... MORE