A representative of the “Jamaat Kataib al Khoul” in North Ossetia on April 13 claimed responsibility for an armed robbery in Vladikavkaz the previous day, during which a policeman was shot to death. RIA Novosti reported on April 12 that the incident took place at... MORE

Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled on April 6 that grave crimes commmited by the military in Chechnya would be tried by military tribunals until the use of juries is introduced there, the Moscow Times reported on April 7. The ruling came in response to an appeal... MORE

Interfax-Urals reported on April 6 that Mikhail Trepashkin, the defense attorney and former FSB colonel who is serving a four-year prison term in a low-security prison in Nizhny Tagil in Sverdlovsk region on charges of disclosing state secrets, ended a dry hunger strike on April... MORE

On January 31, President Vladimir Putin declared the end of the so-called anti-terrorist operation, the official name of the second Chechen war. “I think we can rightly speak about the end of the anti-terrorist operation with the understanding that the law enforcement agencies of Chechnya... MORE

The Financial Times reported on April 19 that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak had lodged a formal protest with the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, William Burns, the previous day over The Jamestown Foundation-sponsored conference held in Washington on April 14 entitled “Sadullaev’s Caucasian Front:... MORE

The Civil Support Committee released information on April 19 concerning new abductions in Chechnya. According to Kavkazky Uzel, the committee reported that on April 18 in the Nozhai-Yurt district settlement of Sayasan, fighters from a unit called “Groza” (the unit’s affiliation was not identified) abducted... MORE

During a meeting of the Chechen branch of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party held in Gudermes on April 15, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov accused members of the operational investigation bureau (ORB-2) of the federal Interior Ministry’s Main Administration for the Southern Federal District stationed... MORE

In a videotaped message posted on the separatist Daymohk, Kavkazcenter and Chechenpress websites on April 19, Shamil Basaev declared: “Today, by the grace of Allah, our jihad intensively continues!” The tape was apparently several months old: on it, Basaev said that the date is February... MORE

The constant stream of “small bad news” from Chechnya and the North Caucasus creates the impression of a stagnant local war and a region-wide condition of “stable instability,” with smoldering tensions only occasionally bursting into open hostilities—as in Nalchik in October 2005. This impression underpins... MORE

The speaker of Chechnya’s parliament has called for the unification of Chechnya and Ingushetia—and, possibly, Dagestan. In an interview with Interfax on April 24, Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov called the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic in June 1992 a historical mistake. “I am firmly convinced that... MORE