Interfax, citing a Chechen Interior Ministry source, reported on December 31 that two militants had surrendered in Chechnya. According to the news agency, one of the two, a resident of the Groznensky district village of Tolstoi-Yurt, handed over a Kalashnikov assault rife, while the other... MORE

One rebel was killed and two detained on December 25 during a gunfight with security forces in Cherkessk, the capital of Karachaevo-Cherkessk, on December 25. The Associated Press reported that authorities surrounded the five-story apartment building where the four alleged militants were believed to be... MORE

On August 2 of last year, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree instructing the Russian military command to submit, by December 15, 2006, a plan for a stage-by-stage withdrawal of troops from Chechnya in 2007-2008 (Chechnya Weekly, August 10, 2006). However, continuing hostilities in the... MORE

Fresh on the heels of a series of attacks on police and a Muslim cleric in Dagestan during the second half of December and the first few days of January (Chechnya Weekly, January 4), security forces launched a special operation in the republican capital of... MORE

Several attacks reportedly took place in North Ossetia and Ingushetia this past week. A Russian army officer was wounded when a group of unknown persons attempted to penetrate a Russian military base on the outskirts of the village of Alkhan-Churt, located 15 kilometers from Vladikavkaz,... MORE

Servicemen from the “Vostok” battalion of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) fought with about five gunmen on the outskirts of the Dzhanei-Vedeno in the Vedeno district on January 9. A Chechen law-enforcement source told RIA Novosti that one of the rebels was... MORE

RIA Novosti reported on January 10 that a Rostov-on-Don military court had postponed hearings in the case of two Russian Interior Ministry officers charged with murdering civilians in Chechnya three years ago until January 16. Senior Lieutenant Yevgeny Khudyakov and Lieutenant Sergei Arakcheyev, are accused... MORE

Chechnya’s pro-Moscow government announced that it will erect a statue to Nikita Khrushchev in the center of Grozny this summer and will also name a school and a square in the center of the Chechen capital after the former Soviet leader, Newsru.com reported January 9.... MORE

In looking back on the events of 2006 in the Northern Caucasus, it is impossible not to notice the significant political and strategic changes that have affected the Chechen resistance movement. The tactics used by the previous leaders of the movement—Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev and Shamil Basaev—constantly... MORE

The Russian government’s amnesty for rebels in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus, announced last July by Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev acting in his capacity as head of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK), expired on January 15. Estimates varied regarding how... MORE