Month in Brief - August 2005
September 5th 2005 · Prague Watchdog
August 2
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it would not renew the accreditation of journalists of US channel ABC, which on July 28 aired an interview with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev made by Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky.
August 3
Ramzan Kadyrov, Vice-Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, announced that the authorities plan to build in Grozny an Islamic education center, which would include, among other things, the largest mosque in Europe. He also voiced his intention to put an end to gambling in the republic.
A ceremony marking the start of construction of a new 170 km pipeline that should provide gas to Chechnya's southern districts took place in Gudermes.
Ingushetia's Supreme Court sentenced 13 participants in the June 2004 coordinated guerrilla attacks on the republic's Interior Ministry forces to 8-25 years in prison.
August 4
Chechen religious leaders announced their decision to declare jihad on wahhabism in the republic.
August 8
Sergei Abramov, Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, said that main streets in fifteen Chechen towns and villages would be renamed after Akhmad Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed President of the Chechen Republic assassinated in May 2004.
August 9
Ingushetia's President Murat Zyazikov said that gambling houses should and would be closed in the republic.
August 10
The Russian Defence Ministry announced that a total of 3,459 servicemen had been killed since the beginning of the second war in Chechnya in September 1999, and 67 of them were killed this year, but independent monitors said the count was several times lower than the real figure. The count does not include killed servicemen and members of the Russian Interior Ministry and other security agencies.
In the village of Dyshne-Vedeno, three houses of Chechen policemen were set on fire, probably by the guerrillas. A woman died in the fire.
August 11
Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev, successor to the slain President of independent Chechnya and resistance leader Aslan Maskhadov, issued decrees sacking the separatist government and cancelling the posts of foreign envoys, according to August 19 reports by websites close to the resistance.
August 12
Natasha Khumadova, the sister of top Chechen guerrilla commander and Vice-President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Doku Umarov, was kidnapped from her house in Urus-Martan. Human rights defenders suspect the incident to be another case of retaliatory hostage-taking by government forces aimed at making the abductee's relative to surrender.
August 14
Five Russian soldiers, including the commandant of the Urus-Martanovsky district Aleksandr Kayak, were killed in a clash with the guerrillas in the village of Roshni-Chu.
August 17
Two new schools were opened in Beslan, North Ossetia, to replace the School No. 1 that was destroyed in early September 2004 during a battle that ended a three-day hostage drama and resulted in over 330 casualties.
August 18
About three hundred ethnic Kalmyks and Chechens clashed in the village of Yandyki in Astrakhanskaya Oblast, a South Russian province, following the funeral of a local resident of Kalmyk origin killed in a row with several Chechens on August 16.
August 20
A monument to Akhmad Kadyrov was unveiled in Grozny on a square bearing the name of this former Chechen mufti and then politician, whom the Kremlin made the republic's president in October 2003 and who was assassinated in May 2004.
A blast killed three policemen patrolling the center of the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala.
August 21
At a meeting in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the work of Ramzan Kadyrov, First Vice-Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, adding that it goes in the direction set by his father, the slain Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov.
August 22
A vehicle was blown up by a mine near a hospital in Nazran, Ingushetia. One passer-by was killed.
August 23
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree setting the date of parliamentary elections in the Chechen Republic to October 27. He also signed a government resolution removing Batukhan Kurganov, the head of the federal state-run company in charge of reconstruction in the Chechen Republic, from his post.
Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev, successor to the slain President of independent Chechnya Aslan Maskhadov, appointed the members of his new cabinet, according to his decrees published by the guerrilla website Chechenpress on August 25. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev became the First Vice-Premier.
August 23-24
About fifteen representatives of the Beslan Mothers Committee staged a sit-in inside the building of North Ossetia's Supreme Court, where the process with the "only surviving terrorist" Nurpashi Kulayev is underway, in protest against the alleged failure of the authorities to investigate last year's Beslan tragedy properly.
August 25
Ingushetia's Prime Minister Ibragim Malsagov was seriously wounded in a mine attack on his vehicle in Nazran. One of his bodyguards was killed.
August 30
The Russian Supreme Court's Military Board overturned the North Caucasus District Military Court's May 25 acquittal of four Russian special force servicemen accused of killing six Chechen civilians in 2002 and ordered a new trial, the second retrial in this case that is known as the Ulman case.
Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev, successor to the slain President of independent Chechnya and resistance leader Aslan Maskhadov, issued decrees appointing Akhmed Zakayev his foreign envoy.
August 31
Four guerrillas planning attacks on the republic's leadership and representatives of the Russian military command were killed by the local Interior Ministry forces in the village of Novoterskoye in Chechnya's Naursky district, according to statements made by top Chechen Moscow-backed officials.
Compiled by Prague Watchdog. Along with these monthly summaries, we also publish weekly summaries, distributing them on Mondays to the subscribers of our weekly newsletter.
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