It's been less than a week since valiant Russian human rights groups Memorial won Europe's llustrious human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, but it seems that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is determined to pull the plug on any celebrations. Kadyrov won a civil libel suit against the organization's Chairman Oleg Orlov earlier this month, regarding the activist's public affirmation that the Chechen leader was responsible for the murder of fellow Memorial representative Natalya Estemirova in July.  Kadyrov has now opened a criminal libel suit against Orlov, which carries a prison sentence of up to three or four years. This from the AP: The case stems from Orlov's statement in July that Chechen President ...

TODAY: US to modify or jettison missile defense plans? NATO chief to meet with Russian envoy; Lukaschenko sends out mixed messages.  South Ossetia denies book burning; think tank leader says Putin could be heading for Brehznev-style decades in power; Medvedev finds inspiration on blogosphere.The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House may abandon the Bush-era missile defense plans which have caused consternation in Russia.  AP sources quoted on the Washington Post suggest a compromise measure, tempered to Russian concerns.  RFE/RL has an entertaining list of the 'dissidents' President Medvedev might like to meet on his upcoming US trip.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Russian envoy to the alliance Dmitry Rogozin will hold an ...

TODAY: Yushchenko hits back; Russia accuses Ukraine of participation in Georgia war.  Medvedev suggests media scaremongering regarding disaster.  Seeks the advice of Buddhists.  Putin visits Kadyrov; Estemirova commemorated. Two candidates for the title of Russia's Obama.Russia has reportedly claimed that Ukrainian troops and volunteers joined with Georgian soldiers in fighting against Russia during last year's five-day war.  Celebrating the 18th anniversary of Ukraine's independence from Soviet rule, embattled President Viktor Yushchenko deflected the criticisms from abroad, in particular 'foreign overlords'.  President Medvedev has been on a recruitment drive in the Buryatia region of Mongolia, where on a visit to a temple the President asked Buddhist monks to join the armed forces as spiritual advisers. ...

TODAY: Merkel condemns activist murder; explosive violence in Caucasus; South Ossetians encouraged to disarm.  Medvedev merciless on Yushchenko; Venezuela and Russia tighten relations; military may scrap underperforming missile.  'Absolutely unacceptable' is how Chancellor Angela Merkel described the recent murders of NGO worker Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband  and instructed Medvedev that 'actions must also follow'.  Medvedev has ordered Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to punish those responsible for the slayings.  The end of last week andthr beginning of this week are particularly bloody in the Caucasus, with over twenty people killed in different shootouts.  The New York Times reports that South Ossetian citizens, for whom 'a weapon is an essential part of daily life', are being ...

When the Chechen human rights worker Natalia Estemirova was snatched off the streets of Grozny and later deposited in a roadside ditch with a few bullets to the head, the grotesque brutality of the act was hard to swallow.  In response, not all the much was done.  In Russia, the event was not even a blip on the media radar, and mourners at her memorial were even harassed and arrested.  Outside of Russia, Estemirova was given generous and sympathetic treatment (here is a good example), but the sadness and outrage on the editorial pages did not translate into any concrete political action.The costs of inaction on the renewed violence in Chechnya are very high, as this week we ...

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty takes the time to pick apart the words of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - the consistencies and contradictions reveal, well, a frightening and important reality.Many aspects of Kadyrov's interpretation of the events of the past 15-20 years in Chechnya are open to question. He has emphatically denied (in an April 2009 interview with "Rossiiskaya gazeta") ever having fought on the side of the resistance during the 1994-96 war. At the same time, he has admitted having as a boy regarded ChRI President Djokhar Dudayev as "a national hero." In a statement in December 2006 to mark the 12th anniversary of the Russian attack on Chechnya, Kadyrov blamed the onset of the war on "the shortsighted and irresponsible policies of the political leadership of both Russia and Chechnya at that time." But he now argues that both the 1994-96 war and ...

TODAY: Medvedev meets Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and LAS in Cairo; supports idea of Middle East peace talks before year's end; Lavrov says Russian security idea is not anti-NATO; European report launches stinging attack on Russian justice systemMedvedev has announced that Moscow plans to hold a Middle East peace conference before the end of 2009, an idea supported by Egypt.  In a meeting with the League of Arab States, Medvedev commented that the peace process might result in an independent Palestine with the capital in East Jerusalem.  The BBC comments on the motivation for the trip: 'in terms of influence, Russia lags far behind China and the US - not just in Egypt but right ...

Had everything gone according to plan, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would have spent the weekend visiting Brazil, Ecuador, and his close friends in Venezuela.  However following a carefully worded warning from Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and domestic political struggles - including a rare public rebuke from Ayatollah Khamenei, the trip was suddenly cancelled without explanation.  Given Russia's role alongside Iran and China as one of the countries whose influence is fast growing in Latin America, how is the penetration of Iran into these areas seen by Moscow - as competitors or partners?

To discuss some of these questions regarding the Russo-Iranian relationship, Grigory Pasko conducted a Q&A with Pavel Salin, Head of Research for the Russian Center for

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Whoever said that ruling Russia with an iron fist was all fun and games never had to consider these kinds of enormous inconveniences: Authorities in the Chechnya region, now largely calm after Putin sent in troops to crush a separatist rebellion in 1999, on Sunday named a street in its capital after Putin. Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov professes fierce loyalty to Putin. "(Putin) has said that he does not have the right or the opportunity to put pressure on anyone, but he himself would prefer it if this did not happen," Putin's chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a visit to ex-Soviet Belarus. "That goes not just for re-naming streets in his honor, but also various statues that have been there for several years, his photographs on school textbooks and so forth. On the whole, he does not support this." My goodness, can't the people of Russia declare their love for their ...