An article published in the January 31 edition of Kommersant has triggered speculation that Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov is poised to replace Sergei Abramov as Chechnya’s prime minister. Citing unnamed sources in Grozny, the newspaper reported that Abramov, who is in Moscow recovering... MORE

Agency France-Presse reported on February 1 that four Russian soldiers had been killed and six injured in fighting around Chechnya over the previous 24 hours. AFP reported on January 30 that fighting between federal forces and Chechen rebels had left five Russian soldiers dead and... MORE

Amnesty International on January 26 issued a press release concerning Rasul Kudaev, the former prisoner in the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was arrested by the authorities in Kabardino-Balkaria for alleged involvement in the rebel raid on the republic’s capital last October... MORE

On January 31, President Vladimir Putin held a large press conference in the Kremlin during which he answered questions from Russian and foreign journalists. He touched on almost all issues of current concern to the country, and, of course, could not help talking about Chechnya.... MORE

Responding to the controversy surrounding a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed, acting Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov announced to journalists in Moscow that Chechnya would not admit "anything that comes out of Denmark"—including non-governmental organizations. "They (the Danes) play on the... MORE

Responding to the printing of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed by a Danish newspaper and other publications, the imam of the main mosque in Makhachkala, Dagestan, offered a special prayer "recited only on the eve of war, social explosion, or other serious disturbance," Gazeta reported... MORE

The Emergency Situations Ministry reported on February 8 that 13 people were killed and more than 20 injured in an explosion at a two-story military barracks of the Vostok Battalion of the federal Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in the village of Kurchaloi, some... MORE

A Nizhny Novgorod court on February 3 found Stanislav Dmitrievsky, head of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and gave him a two-year suspended sentence, the Associated Press reported. Dmitrievsky was convicted for publishing two peace appeals by Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmed... MORE

President Vladimir Putin said February 7 that he was open to the possibility of "a dialogue" with Chechen rebels if they first rejected violence and surrendered their weapons. "If one or another [terrorist] structure laid down [its] arms and firmly stated that it had rejected... MORE

A message signed by someone named Khuzayf, who identified himself as deputy to the emir Saad, commander of an armed jamaat in North Ossetia, claimed responsibility for the February 2 bombings of gambling establishments in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia's capital. The Associated Press quoted Boris Dzgoev,... MORE