Free Republic

When will the guerilla war against Russian occupation start? Will the Ukrainian Govt retreat to Lviv? Will Russia invade western Ukraine too? Two weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, and still no ‘decapitation’ of the Ukrainian government, no city captured except Kherson (which no non-Ukrainian had ever heard of before the war), and maybe 2,000 military dead on each side. It’s not exactly a stalemate, since the Russians have more tanks, more artillery and more air power, and they have not yet used them as aggressively as they might. So, we can use this (relative) pause in the fighting to examine...

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on a church in Chechnya that killed three people, the group's Amaq news agency has reported. Four people attacked the Orthodox church on Saturday, killing two policemen and a churchgoer, Russian officials said. The attackers were killed. Amaq said: 'Islamic State fighters executed an attack on "Michael" Church yesterday in Chechnya's capital, Grozny.' Russia, which hosts the soccer World Cup next month, has fought two wars with separatists in the mainly Muslim internal republic since the 1991 Soviet collapse, but such attacks have become relatively rare in Chechnya. The wider North Caucasus...

A loud explosion and sounds of heavy fighting have been reported in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny, according to sources on Twitter and some media outlets in the region. Multiple sources on Twitter are reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motorcade has been seen pulling into the Kremlin in the middle of the night, around the time the unrest unfolded in Grozny.

Now that Vladimir Putin has allowed the Russian electorate to rubber-stamp him back into power, he can return with redoubled purpose to his consistently regressive interference in world affairs. That nobody is surprised at his obdurate defense of the regimes in Tehran and Damascus speaks volumes. Dictators support dictators, don't they? At this point Mr. Putin apparently doesn't mind much that anyone should include him in that category. After all, if Putinism could be defined by any single principle, if it had a formula, it would have at its core the "power now people later" approach common to all strongmen....

It was a star-filled night in Chechnya's besieged capital of Grozny. The snow crunched under my feet as I walked with the Chechen rebel commander away from the warmth of our safe house. When we entered a bombed-out neighborhood 15 minutes away, I put the battery in my Iridium satellite phone and waited for the glowing screen to signal that I had locked on to the satellites. I made my call. It was short. Then the commander made a call; he quickly hung up and handed me back the phone. "Enough," he said, motioning for me to remove the battery....

GROZNY, Russia -Islamic insurgents attacked Chechnya's parliament Tuesday in a brazen suicide raid that left six people dead and 17 wounded, defying Kremlin claims of stability in the volatile southern region. In a clear challenge to Moscow, the raid occurred just as Russia's interior minister was visiting the provincial capital of Grozny. The three attackers drove to the tightly guarded parliament complex and got inside. One militant blew himself up at the doors and another two ran into the building shouting "Allahu akbar!" — "God is great!" in Arabic — as they opened fire on the people inside, said Chechen...

At least two other gunmen ran into the building shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they opened fire on the people inside, Bekkhoyev said. The attackers were killed in an ensuing gunfight with police, said Chechen presidential spokesman Alvi Kerimov.

GROZNY, Russia, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Russian officials say that army commandos raided an al-Qaida headquarters in Chechnya, killing one of the group's leaders. Gen. Arkady Yedelev, head of anti-terrorist operations in the North Caucasus, told reporters Friday that the dead man, identified as Jaber, was the organizer and financier of a recent major terrorist attack, Itar-Tass reported. Jaber allegedly headed a group of foreign fighters who began smuggling militants into Russia from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge in 2001. Jaber reportedly was behind attacks in Grozny, the Chechen capital, and in villages that were aimed at disrupting the republic before its...

GROZNY, August 3 (RIA Novosti) - First Vice Prime Minister of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has banned gambling in the republic, announcing that all gambling facilities in Chechnya will be closed. "I am giving a week's notice to the owners of gambling parlors to dismantle their equipment," he said. "Otherwise, I will destroy the machines myself. Gambling is against the laws of Islam and has a negative impact on the younger generation." He also denied rumors that he owns a slot-machine business. "There are rumors that I own slot-machines. It is a lie," Kadyrov said, adding that he has never been...

How my child saved me from ego-driven mania Janine di Giovanni After years of reporting from the front line in war zones this war correspondent could not imagine doing any other job. Then along came her first baby — and everything changed RECENTLY a female reporter with a job similar to mine wrote an article about how having a child made her a better war correspondent. Despite the fact that she spent long periods away from him, she was proud that her son could point out Afghanistan on a globe and was baffled as to why he didn’t want to...

GROZNY, Russia, Sept. 8 - Mariyam Taburova and three of her roommates left the cramped, dismal apartment they shared here in Chechnya on Aug. 22. She has not been seen or heard from since. The others, however, have been. Amanat Nagayeva and Satsita Dzhbirkhanova checked in two days later for two flights leaving Domodedovo Airport near Moscow and, according to Russian officials, detonated explosives that brought down both airliners, killing 90 people. A week after those bombings, a woman believed to be Ms. Nagayeva's younger sister, Roza, blew herself up outside a Moscow subway, killing at least 10 people. The...

A senior Russian nuclear official said on Wednesday that an atomic reactor Moscow is building for Iran, long a stumbling block in Russian-U.S. relations faced further delays. Diplomatic sources and experts in Moscow have said President Vladimir Putin's growing recognition of Washington's concerns over Iran's nuclear programme have pressured the Kremlin into delaying until a United Nations body declares Iran clean. But the Russian official, speaking just days before U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets in Vienna to discuss Iran, said the delay was of a technical nature and had nothing to do with U.S. pressure...

According to the Associated Press, a Russian foreign minister says Moscow respects Lebanese sovereignty. In a veiled swipe at the United States and its United States allies such as Israel, Russia's foreign minister said Sunday his country opposed a Security Council resolution demanding free presidential elections here and a Syrian troop withdrawal out of Moscow's respect for Lebanese sovereignty. Sergey Lavrov made his comments after meeting Lebanese President Emile Lahoud in Beirut, marking his latest high level meeting during a Middle East tour that has included talks with the leaders of Egypt and Syria. He is expected to arrive in...

"The Russians are coming...The Russians are coming..." Well, that could have been the headlines in Israeli newspapers until a few days ago, before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came to Israel. Now, after meeting with Israeli officials, the headlines could be, "Russian FM: Chechen Muslim terror evil, but justifies support for PLO Terror State and help for Iranian Nukes." The day before the Russian Foreign Minister came to Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin, to express his shock at the seizure of the Russian school in Beslan. Sharon told Putin that, "We must concentrate political and...

In Groznyy, on the stadium of "dynamo", thundered the explosion there is those be killeden and injured, transmits the correspondent OF RIA of "news" from the place of events. Explosion thundered into 10.35 on the central platform of the stadium, where at this time was passed concert on occasion of Day of Victory. According to the evidence of the correspondent OF RIA of "news", to the stadium today arrived many people - all platforms were filled.     10:45

Sorry for the vanity post, but I've tried every way I can to find this article here at FR where I first read it. It was the translated story of a Russian officer who was sent in to Grozny, and told in great detail the Hell he went through there. Does anyone have a link to that one anymore? I had saved it at the time, but have since lost that hard drive to a thief some months back. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.