The Islamist leader who has claimed responsibility for the deadliest terrorist bombings in Russia in recent years is calling for an end to attacks on civilians now that they are protesting the 12-year-old rule of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. | In a video posted on an Islamist website, the fugitive rebel leader Doku Umarov said that recent street protests show that Russians no longer support Mr.
Vladimir Kara-Murza The upcoming presidential election places Russia€™s growing protest movement in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, pro-democracy forces have no candidate of their own: following the experience of 2008, when anti-Kremlin politicians were prevented from running, most opposition leaders declined to participate in the vote; Grigory Yavlinsky, the only liberal leader who did decide to run, has been barred from the ballot.
Moscow: Militants fighting to carve an Islamic state from Russia's southern flank should avoid attacks on the country's citizens now that they are protesting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, the leader of the insurgency said.
Raghida Dergham: The issue of Syria reached a decisive juncture this week, in a scene rarely witnessed at the UN Security Council, when the League of Arab States lodged a complaint against a regime in an Arab country. The issue has become internationalized, even if Russia prevents the Security Council from adopting the resolution Arab countries have requested via their League by making use of the veto -- albeit it might not do so.
Doku Umarov, the self-styled Caucasus Emirate leader, has resurfaced after a six-month silence and ordered the end of attacks by his fighters on civilian targets in Russia. In a four-minute video clip posted on February 3 on the Caucasus Emirate's main website, Kavkazcenter. com, Umarov notes that developments in Russia today, meaning the protests against the outcome of the December State Duma election, and the corruption...
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The leader of Russia's Islamist rebels ordered a halt to attacks on civilians, saying mass opposition protests showed the public no longer supported Vladimir Putin, according to a video posted Friday. | "I order all special groups that are carrying out or plan to carry out special operations in Russia to put a halt to these operations that could hurt the peaceful population,"
Alexei Yakimov's brutal political awakening came early one April morning. | The previous night, the driver from Nizhny Novgorod had gone to help a friend who had become the victim of police extortion. | "Two officers handcuffed me and chained me to a locker," he told me. | "One of them grabbed my feet and turned me upside down. I kept losing consciousness.
Prophet Muhammad's three hairs were delivered to Russia's Chechnya Republic from Turkey yesterday. The relic will rest in the republic for good. | The gift came from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a token of respect to the Chechen nation, Yuga.ru website reports. This is the first time, when Turkey makes such a gift.
Militants fighting to carve an Islamic state from Russia's southern flank should avoid attacks on the country's citizens now that they are protesting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, the leader of the insurgency said.
Last week, an upmarket restaurant in an elite Moscow neighbourhood screened a previously banned documentary, “The Assassination of Russia ”, about the 1999 apartment bombings in Russian cities which sparked the second invasion of Chechnya .
Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that he had gained so much experience in combating terrorism and corruption that he could give lectures about it, Yuga.ru reports. | The official added that Chechnya had to start restoring from scratch, reconstructing social and industrial facilities. | He concluded that the outstanding goal of making the region developed, prospering and comfortable for people had been achieved successfully.
Russians long for order and rarely find it in Lawrence Scott Sheets€™ new memoir €œ8 Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey through the Soviet Collapse." | The book is a sort of wartime Caucasus scrapbook."
Some say Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running again for president, fears any kind of popular uprising. Others say Putin, who has violently suppressed the (also violent) independence movement in Chechnya , fears any popular Muslim...
At least 12 militant groups made up of up to 300 people operate in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, the republic's Interior Ministry said on Thursday. | "The militant underground [in Dagestan] remains highly active...12 armed groups numbering 250-300 militants continue to operate in the republic," Interior Minister Abdurashid Magomedov said.
Former Soviet Premier Mikhail. Gorbachev has called upon Putin to step down only to be faced by rejection and even accused of instigating the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin would find a compromise with the opposition or resort to coercion. | Moscow residents did not hesitate to express their discontent by going to the streets and demand the elections to be re-run.
Others, though, criticise the series for failing to feature Russia's opposition. Masha Karp, a former editor at the BBC Russian service, complained of "glaring gaps" in the overall narrative, with Putin's savage polices in Chechnya glossed over.
With the whole world seemingly at his feet, conventional wisdom suggests that Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov would be seeking ways to consolidate and prolong his rule. Yet this month, the warlord-turned-Kremlin ally threw what observers said was a bombshell: he hinted at the possibility of relinquishing power. But experts suggest Kadyrov€™s surprising words mask an unpleasant reality.
While it proved effective in 1941, providing cannon fodder to throw at German Panzers, it was less successful in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s. Prime minister Vladimir Putin, then president, complained in 2006 that it was not possible to find enough...