On January 31, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a car carrying the mufti of Ingushetia, Isa-Khadzhi Khamkhoev, in Nazran, lightly wounding the mufti and his son, Russian and Western news agencies reported. ITAR-Tass reported on February 1 that the mufti was treated for a superficial... MORE

Many believe that Russia’s populace supports the Kremlin’s policy toward Chechnya. It is very common to hear from Russian political scientists that Russians no longer care about the situation in the war-torn region. Indeed, it is hard to imagine an ordinary Russian thinking every day... MORE

In the wake of the London poisoning of former FSB Colonel Alexander Litvinenko came unexpected reports that the alleged “terrorist mastermind” and organizer of the September 1999 apartment block bombings in Moscow and Vologodonsk that sparked the current Russian/Chechen war was still active in the... MORE

Three police officers were killed in Dagestan on February 4 during an incident in which gunmen fatally shot a police investigator in his car outside his home in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, and two bombs went off as a police convoy headed to the site... MORE

Two Russian servicemen were reportedly killed and three were wounded in a shootout with militants in Chechnya’s Kurchaloi district, Svobodanews.ru reported on February 6. The rebels, numbering eight, reportedly managed to escape. Meanwhile, three Grozny residents were detained on suspicion of having ties to rebel... MORE

Moscow’s Tverskoi district court ruled on February 7 that an article published in Kommersant last June 15 violated the honor and dignity of Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov. The article, which was titled “Komandante Chechni” [Commandante of Chechnya], with a subtitle reading “kult lichnosti” (cult... MORE

Hundreds of people gathered at Moscow’s Avtozavodskaya metro station on February 6 to commemorate the third anniversary of the 2004 terrorist attack that killed 42 and wounded 250, the Moscow Times reported on February 7. According to Ekho Moskvy radio, friends and relatives of the... MORE

During his most recent annual press conference, which took place in the Kremlin on February 1, Vladimir Putin said very little about one of the most painful issues of his country: the security problems in the North Caucasus. He probably would have preferred not to... MORE

In an article that caused quite a stir, famous Russian geopolitician Alexandre Dugin maintained, “Chechnya is at the center of contemporary Russian statehood” [1]. This thought-provoking statement deserves a closer look at Dugin’s opinion of the Chechen question and his analyses of the processes underway... MORE

The conflict between Chechen President Alu Alkhanov and Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov ended with a decisive victory for the latter on February 15, when President Vladimir Putin appointed Kadyrov as acting president of Chechnya and Alkhanov a deputy justice minister in the federal government.... MORE