On Sunday, November 18, the Russian and Chechen separatist sides held their first publicized person-to-person talks in the more than two years of the current war. Akhmed Zakaev, a deputy premier of the Chechen separatist government, and a special representative of President Aslan Maskhadov, arrived... MORE

On November 23, the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda carried an article that sharply assailed the small Assistance Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) located in the town of Znamenskoe in the northern part of Chechnya near the Terek River.... MORE

On November 26 in Strasbourg, a "roundtable" devoted to problems connected with the defense of human rights in Chechnya and sponsored by the Council of Europe got underway. Among those invited to participate in the roundtable were representatives of the human rights organizations Memorial and... MORE

On November 23, the Russian State Duma began parliamentary hearings devoted to "the beginning of the constitutional process in Chechnya." Organized by the Duma Commission on Chechnya, they attempted to bring together representatives of the Russian authorities and the authors of numerous drafts of a... MORE

The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on November 27 the words of Anatoly Khryachkov, the pro-Moscow military commissioner of the Chechen Republic, who stated that the Russian Armed Forces will have drafted 1,000 Chechen young men by the end of this autumn. "It is planned that... MORE

On November 18, as was reported in the most recent issue of Chechnya Weekly, Akhmed Zakaev, a special representative of Chechen separatist president Aslan Maskhadov, and retired General Viktor Kazantsev, President Putin's plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District, held a two-hour lunch in the... MORE

On December 6, while visiting the city of Yekaterinburg, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that Russia intends to crush Chechen separatist resistance with a winter offensive targeting the guerillas' military leadership. "Special operations are being conducted right now in Chechnya, practically on a permanent... MORE

Shortly before his scheduled December 9-11 visit to Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell granted an interview to the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Asked whether he would be discussing the situation in Chechnya during his visit to Russia, Powell responded: "As for Chechnya, we'll... MORE

Addressing the 9th session of the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov outlined Russia's current policy goals toward the OSCE. Summarizing Ivanov's statement, the pro-presidential Strana.ru wrote: "The problem of double standards is the... MORE