My family and I stayed in the village of Pervomayskoye outside Grozny through the winter and spring of 1996. I took part in the resistance along with some friends, planting remote-controlled mines along roads used by the Russian military convoys. We lay in wait for the vehicles, and set off the mines when they were near enough. In this way we destroyed several armoured cars and troop transport vehicles. One day we watched a group of young Russian infantrymen coming along the road which we had mined. I felt sorry for them – they were just young boys who had […]

Even though many decades have passed, the Second World War is still an unanswered question for the Chechen people, and this historical burden inevitably impacts the continuing development of Chechen society today. Though the current Russian government is eager to emphasize recent peaceful developments, the image of the Chechen as “the enemy,” originally created by the Communists, is alive and well within the country today. Historians, politicians and journalists have created thousands of works that are filled with deliberate lies that portray the Chechens as a people and the entirety of Chechen history in a truly terrible light.

In his most recent televised address to the people, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said corruption in Chechnya was minimal. In reality, it is enough to spend a few days in the region to realise that corruption, like a spider web, envelops almost every sphere of life in [the Russian occupied] Chechnya starting in primary school.

In the age of the Russian Empire, people used to believe the tsar was good and the Boyars were the evil exploiters. In Stalin’s times, many believed the leader was good and wise and that his corrupt underlings were responsible for cruelties he did not even know about. What about now? What legends circulate in Kadyrov’s Chechnya?

They never go out alone, and when they are in their small apartment here in the capital of Chechnya, a flat screen on the wall displays a continuous feed from security cameras in the hall and stairway outside.

An article which was published by The Sunday Times, points that members of the security forces of Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Russian head of the bloody regime in the Russian occupied Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, are accused of turning a young mother into a sex slave.

Chechnya recently openly celebrated “Chechen Language Day” [with the orders of pro-Russian regime], but Russian is still the Russian occupied country’s official language and fewer and fewer Chechens are fluent in their own mother-tongue.

Hello! My name is Asma Adaeva. I was born in Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya. Now I live in Villach, Austria. I want to say something about my life.

Nani was an elderly woman. Every day she sat alone in the yard under the shade of a walnut tree, spinning and singing songs about the cruelty of the Russian tsars.

Grozny again surprised me by the brightness of its evening lights. Like it cannot be sated by the ability to burn lights after that darkness in which it was dipped for several years after bombings and destruction. Yet the avenue is illuminated by lights, leading from the airport to the city. It is like the plane is descending to a place of great celebration.

Azim is 92. Due to the bombings during the Russian-Chechen wars of the nineties, he had to rebuild his white-stone house six times. His life reflects the destiny of the Chechen People through a century characterised by war, deportations and more wars.

Our family was born far from our home and our fate had to move from place to place. Perhaps, it is difficult for people who love their homeland.

Professor Mohammad Shashani, the President of World Chechen Congress, send his article to our editorial staff about the mass deportation of Vainakh people on 23 February 1944.

As it well known, in of September 2010, Chechen mujahedeen and their leadership left Dokka Umarov, who is the self-declared “Emir” of the virtual “Caucasus Emirate”, and published a public appeal. However for technical reasons, we can just now publish the material in English.

For several years, I have been working in the Human Rights Center “Memorial”. From the residents of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria I have heard one hundred stories about atrocities conducted by Russian servicemen against defenseless and peaceful people during so-called “counterterrorist operations”.

In the eighties, Tamara was a teacher of Russian language and literature in Chechnya. Since the year 2000 she has had to cope with not only the disappearance of her husband but also breast cancer, an illness with a particularly high incidence in Chechnya after the recent wars.

During the first and second wars in the territory of Chechnya, I, myself witnessed many deaths. I have seen dead people as well as many wounded and maimed children and adults. I saw only grief, blood and tears.

The relatives of prisoners in Omsk Penal Colony-2, from Ingushetia and the occupied Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, have appealed to the editorial staff of the Free Speech (Svoboda Slova) website with a call for help.

Our dependency on natural gas and oil imported from the East is increasing dramatically. It significantly breached the energy safety margin. It is not in line with suitable EU directives. This is a reason why I ask to justify the diversification project, which is the construction of an oil pipeline system running from northern Iraq and supplying oil to the Odessa-Brody-Płock oil pipeline. Suppliers of Caspian oil in economically required quantities are becoming more problematic.

A trial involving the spectacular murder of a Chechen exile begins Tuesday in Vienna. Austrian investigators believe it was a contract killing which may be linked to Chechen [puppet] president Ramzan Kadyrov, who is alleged to have a network of ruthless agents across Europe.

An account written over 10 years, this is a chilling record of executions, torture, revenge and despair during 20 tours of duty in Chechnya.

Mikael Storsjo, a prominent Swedish journalist who currently lives in Finland, is the founder of the Finnish-Chechen Association, a human rights organization that advocates for refugees and asylum-seekers from the North Caucasus.