On August 1, the organization Medecins du Monde [Doctors of the World], which has been working in Chechnya and Ingushetia since March of 1995, issued a formal warning that Chechen civilians could be in acute danger. The organization condemned the Russian Federation's "multiplying [of] the... MORE

At a meeting of leaders of the "antiterrorist operation," held in the town of Essentuki, Stavropol Krai, the newly reappointed head of the Russian Combined Group of Forces, General Valery Baranov, proposed that elements of emergency rule should be introduced into Chechnya. It was necessary,... MORE

The organization "Common Action," which was founded in 1997 at the initiative of Yelena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, has sent an open letter, dated July 2001, to Gumer Bruger, chairman of the Subcommittee for Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize, nominating President Ruslan Aushev... MORE

The no. 31 (July 31-August 6) issue of the weekly Moskovskie Novosti contains a report, entitled "They Showed Us How They Hate Us," by the well-known Russian writer Lidiya Grafova, who is the head of the "Migration" Information Agency, concerning a recent fact-finding visit which... MORE

On September 3, a powerful bomb ripped through the main Russian government building in Djohar (Grozny), killing one woman who worked there. Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow head of administration, had been conducting a meeting of his government on the third floor of the building... MORE

On September 1, the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported comments President Vladimir Putin made concerning Chechnya during an interview given to the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. In Putin's opinion, Chechnya had, even before the current conflict, been turned into a criminal enclave because... MORE

Friday, August 31 marked the fifth anniversary of the Khasavyurt Accords that had put an end to the "first" Russo-Chechen war of 1994-1996. On that day, the Russian newspaper Kommersant published an interview with the separatist president of Chechnya, Aslan Maskhadov. In late August of... MORE

The no. 61 (August 27) issue of Novaya Gazeta contains the full text of a new book, entitled "The FSB Is Blowing Up Russia," co-authored by Aleksandr Litvinenko and Yury Fel'shtinsky. From 1988-1998, Litvinenko served as an officer in the counterintelligence organs of the FSB.... MORE