Chechen President Alu Alkhanov announced on June 26 that he would personally take over responsibility for the situation in the Shelkovskoi district village Borozdinovskaya, from which several hundred villagers fled after a June 4 zachistka, or cleansing operation, in which several homes were burned and... MORE

The Memorial human rights group reconstructed what happened on June 4 in a report that was posted on the Prava cheloveka v Rossii (Human Rights in Russia) website, Hro.org, on June 22. In sum, the report describes what appears to have been an act of... MORE

Not surprisingly, Vostok battalion commander Suliman Yamadaev denied that his subordinates were directly or indirectly involved in the June 4 raid. In an interview with Kommersant published on June 28, Yamadaev said that members of his unit had been in Borozdinovskaya on June 3 for... MORE

Apparently hoping to take advantage of the Borozdinovskaya situation, Dagestan's opposition plans to hold a protest rally in Makhachkala on July 5. Nezavisimaya gazeta on June 27 quoted Khadzhimurad Kamalov, chief editor of the Dagestani newspaper Chernovik, as saying that the Borozdinovskaya refugees and their... MORE

On June 25, Chechnya officially celebrated the conferring of the Hero of Russia award on the republic's first deputy prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on June 27. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree conferring the title on Kadyrov last December 30. According to... MORE

The head of the commission set up by the North Ossetian parliament to investigate last September's Beslan hostage tragedy, Stanislav Kesaev, suggested in an interview with Vremya novostei published on June 28 that it was possible the Russian authorities provoked a violent denouement to the... MORE

On May 25, President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Russian Cossack leaders in Rostov-on-Don, the political center of southern Russia. During the meeting, the Cossacks expressed to the president their concern about the current situation in the North Caucasus, especially the continuing violence in... MORE

The level of terrorist violence in Dagestan, which was already high, increased precipitously over the last week with a series of large-scale bombings and assassinations. The authorities, however, scored an apparent success on July 6, when security forces reportedly killed the leader of the republic's... MORE

The Sharia Jamaat also claimed responsibility for the murder of Magomedzagid Varisov. On June 28, Magomedzagid Varisov, a well-known political scientist and journalist, was shot to death as he pulled up to his home in Makhachkala. His driver was wounded while his wife, who was... MORE

The Defense Ministry's website reported on June 30 that ten Defense Ministry servicemen died in Chechnya in May, Interfax reported. According to the ministry, seven of the deaths were combat-related and three were non-combat. The ministry also reported that 28 soldiers were killed in Chechnya... MORE