BUDANOV TRIAL UPDATE.

On the subject of Colonel Budanov, who is scheduled to go on trial on February 28 for having strangled a young Chechen woman, General Gennady Troshev, commander of the North Caucasus Military District, recently recalled: “I met him several times. Budanov struck me as an honest fighting officer, one who does not duck down when the bullets start to fly. They don’t give out the decoration ‘For Courage’ to the well connected. And Budanov has two of them. Whether he is guilty will be decided by the [military] court” (Trud, February 20).