Tolstoy-Yurt, Russia
Russian authorities said this week that they had killed Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov in a raid on a militant hideout in northern Chechnya. Maskhadov’s body was shown on Russian TV. Maskhadov, 53, was a Soviet colonel who led the Chechens in a bloody, two-year war with Russia in the 1990s. He was elected president of the breakaway province in 1997 but failed to rein in the militants. After President Vladimir Putin launched the second Chechen war, in 1999, Maskhadov went on the run, and lost much of his influence. Chechnya is now governed by a Moscow-installed president.
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