Chechens held demonstrations on November 25-26 to protest the abduction of a resident of the village of Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya's Urus-Martan district by unknown armed persons in the early hours of November 25. The Kavkazky Uzel website, citing the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, reported on November... MORE

The Chechen Times, citing the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, reported on November 26 that security forces detained two men during a zachistka in the Avtorkhan district of the capital, Grozny, on November 22. Earlier, on November 18, security forces had detained two young people during a... MORE

The pattern of kidnappings is not, unfortunately, restricted to Chechnya. The Chechen National Salvation Committee's website reported on November 26 that "unknown armed members of Russian power structures in masks and camouflage uniforms" had the previous day broken into a house being rented by the... MORE

The Chechen Times reported on November 26 that a mass grave containing the bodies of eleven unidentified young people, aged 12 to 20, was discovered near the Gudermes district village of Jalka on November 20. On November 19, a charred body was found near town... MORE

Chechen President Alu Alkhanov on November 26 delivered a report to a conference on "problems of the state's national policy in the Chechen Republic." He characterized the situation in Chechnya as "complicated but stable," Novye izvestia reported on November 29. In one part of his... MORE

Mixed messages have been coming from some of those charged with investigating the Beslan school seizure concerning possible foreign involvement in the tragedy. Federation Council Vice-speaker Aleksandr Torshin, who heads the parliamentary commission investigating the circumstances surrounding the Beslan terrorist act, told Interfax on November... MORE

On November 12, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov triumphantly announced that all units of the 76th Airborne Division located in Chechnya will be withdrawn from the Republic by January 2005, the Yufo.ru website reported. However, on November 26, RIA Novosti quoted Nikolai Rogozhkin, commander of... MORE

--REBEL WEBSITE REAPPEARS IN LITHUANIA Kavkaz Center, the Chechen separatist website, resumed operations in Lithuania on November 29. Interfax quoted a statement from the website's administration as saying that operations resumed as soon as the Second District Court in Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, ruled that all... MORE

The investigation into the September 1 terrorist attack on the North Ossetian town of Beslan continues. Apart from law-enforcement agencies and prosecutors, the Russian Federation Council and State Duma have also established an independent commission to tackle the problem. Commission members visited North Ossetia in... MORE

In late September, two remarkable anniversaries passed nearly unnoticed in Moscow. On September 20, 1994, the first contract on developing Caspian oilfields was signed between the government of Azerbaijan and the consortium of ten international oil companies (AIOC). On September 29, 1999, Russian troops moved... MORE