Today La Russophobe offers a series of posts with a focus on Chechnya (in the above image, from Human Rights Watch, the familes of some of those who the Kremlin has made "disappear" in Chechnya hold pictures of their loved ones -- if you click through to the HRW link and then click on the individual photos, you can read more about each family), including from the current status of the Politkovskaya investigation, a review of her most important book, a lengthy backgrounder on the tortured region's current puppet dictator, information about the formation of a Chechen war crimes tribunal and an essay about efforts to promote international student exchange with the youngest victims of Russian atrocities in the region.

Writing recently in The Guardian, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa had this to say about the state of modern Russia:

The lesson of South Africa's transition is that no divided country has a future if it insists on going forward without truth and forgiveness. Russia's transition to democracy began at almost the same time as ours. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Nelson Mandela was released in February 1990. But what is happening in Russia today - rampant organised crime, the conflict with Chechnya, and carnage like the theatre hostage disaster and the Beslan school catastrophe - makes South Africa's transition to democracy look like a Sunday school picnic. By avoiding the truth of the Soviet past, Russians have stored up trouble for the future.