President Vladimir Putin said air strikes did nothing to settle the situation around Iraq and urged any action taken against it to be sanctioned by the United Nations.

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist and human rights activist well known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and the Putin administration. She held Russian and US citizenship. She was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building on 7 October 2006. Politkovskaya made her name reporting from Chechnya for Russia's liberal newspaper, "Novaya Gazeta". The BBC described her writing as "often polemical, …

Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was a leader of the separatist movement in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya. He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the establishment of the de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Maskhadov became President of the nation in January of 1997 with heavy backup from Moscow. Following the start of the Second Chechen War, …

Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Vice-President of the internationally unrecognized separatist government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Islamist guerrilla leader, self-admitted terrorist and a national hero for many Chechens. He led guerrilla campaigns against Russia for years as well as launching several mass-casualty attacks against Russian civilians with his goal being the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Chechnya.

Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov (Russian: Рамзан Ахмадович Кадыров is the President of the Russian republic of Chechnya and a former Chechen rebel. Ramzan is the son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in May 2004, and heads a private army known as the "Kadyrovtsy". Kadyrov is widely believed to have amassed a huge fortune from extorting kickbacks and from the illegal sale of Chechen oil.

Zelimkhan Abdumuslimovich Yandarbiyev was an acting president of the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1996-1997).

Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin, (7 April 1957 -) is a Moscow attorney and former FSB officer who was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999 – the atrocities that provoked the Second Chechen War and skyrocketed Vladimir Putin to presidency.

Shaykh Doku Khamatovich Umarov is the underground President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Umarov has fought for more than a decade against the Russian Federation and is reported to have hundreds under his personal command, and with steady influence in the southwestern part of Chechnya, but previously little known in other parts of the republic. He is an adherent of Sufism and a follower of the Qadiri Sufi Order.

Ibn al-Khattab, more commonly known as Emir" "Khattab (also transliterated as Amir Khattab and Ameer Khattab) Translated to: Commander Khattab, or Leader Khattab, and also known as Habib Abdul Rahman, was a muslim Militant fighter and financier working with Chechen Mujahideen in the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War.

Andrei Babitsky is a Russian journalist and war correspondent for Radio Free Europe. He is famous for his coverage of war in Chechenya, and for his consecutive ordeal with Russian authorities. Babitsky specialised himself in coverage of the Second Chechen War, to the point of growing good relations with Chechen fighters. He managed to interview guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev. Babitsky made a last contact with his colleagues on January 15 2000 and disappeared.

Igor Sergeyevich Ivanov (b. September 23, 1945 in Moscow) became the Russian Foreign Minister in 1998, succeeding Yevgeny Primakov. He is the son of a Russian father and a Georgian mother. In 1969 he graduated at the Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (Moscow State Linguistic University). He joined the Soviet Foreign Ministry in 1973 and spent a decade in Spain. He returned to the Soviet Union in 1983. In 1991 he became the ambassador in Madrid.

Ilyas Khamzatovich Akhmadov served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the Chechen rebel government. He currently resides in the United States, where he was granted political asylum.

Vladimir Shamanov was a Major General in the Russian Army and former governor of the Ulyanovsk region of Russian Federation. Shamanov has been criticized by human rights groups for failing to control his troops in military actions during the Second Chechen War. Shamanov was removed from duty in January 2000, quoting health reasons, and for a period he was a civilian politician. As for 2007, General-Lieutenant Vladimir Shamanov is counselor to Russia's defense minister, …

General of the Army Anatoly Vasiliyevich Kvashnin (born 1946) was the Chief of the Russian General Staff from 1997 to 2004, when he was dismissed by President Vladimir Putin. As of 2007, he served as the President's Representative in the Siberian Federal District. As Chief of the Russian General Staff he had some success in reforming the command structure for the strategic deterrent forces, but feuded with Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov and many of his subordinates.

Gennady Troshev is a former general in the Russian military and was formerly the commander of the North Caucasus Military District, includingChechnya. He publicly defied, on national television, Minister of Defense Sergi Ivanov's suggestion that Troshev should relocate from Chechnya (the North Caucasus Military District) to a region in Siberia. Due to this act, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree dismissing Troshev from his post in 2002.

Former Colonel Yuri Dmitrievich Budanov (born 1963, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine) is the first Russian military officer convicted by a Russian court as a guilty of war crimes in Chechnya. Budanov is highly controversional in Russia: despite the conviction, Budanov enjoys the widespread support of the Russian public opinion. At the same time, he is broadly hated in Chechnya, even by the pro-Russian Chechens.

Abdul-Halim Salamovich Sadulayev was the fourth Chechen rebel president to be killed in 12 years of separatist warfare in the southern Russian region. In their wars against Russia the Chechens have traditionally elected leaders who held some kind of formal religious position, including Sheikh Mansur and Imam Shamil. Sadulayev was the first Chechen leader to spread the conflict outside Chechnya, as he had won pledges of loyalty not only from Chechen separatists, …

Sergei Lapin (also known by his radio call sign "Kadet") is a former Russian police officer who had served in Grozny, Chechnya as a member of the special police detachment (OMON) from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Federation. In 2005 he has been convicted for the forced disappearance and torture of Chechen student Zelimkhan Murdalov.

Colonel General Alexander Baranov is a Russian Army commanding general in North Caucasus. He is a recipient of Hero of Russia award.

Valery Baranov is a Russian Colonel General and former commander of Joint Group of Forces in the Chechen Republic during the Second Chechen War. On May 9 2004 he lost a leg in the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov in Grozny, Chechen Republic, Russian Federation.

Nura Luluyeva was a Chechen nurse and kindergarten teacher who was kidnapped and murdered by a Russian servicemen in 2000.

Rasul Makasharipov was a Dagestani Islamist rebel leader. He led a pro-Chechen group Shariat Jamaat, which sought to unite Caucasian Muslims under Islamic rule, until he was killed during a shootout with the Russian troops on July 6, 2005.

Ahmad Nasser Eid Abdullah Al-Fajri Al-Azimi, also Abu Zaid Al-Kuwaiti, Abu Omar Al-Kuwaiti and Abu Dzeit (February 16, 2005) was a Kuwaiti Salafist Jihad fighter and suspected al-Qaeda agent operating first in Afghanistan and later in Chechnya and the wider Caucasus area. Abu Zaid worked as a Kuwaiti actor in children TV programs, …

Shakhid Baysayev was a 61-year old Chechen civilian man who was forcibly disappeared and presumably summarily executed after being detained by Russian special police forces in the village of Podgornoye in Chechnya in March 2000. 50 people besides Baysayev were detained in the sweep and have not been seen since. An estimated 5,000 people have "disappeared" in Chechnya since the start of the Second Chechen War in 1999.

Elza Kungaeva (also known as Kheda Kungaeva, alternativelly spelled Kungayeva) was an 18-year-old Chechen woman abducted and murdered by a Russian Army Colonel during the Second Chechen War. On March 27, 2000, Elza Kungaeva was forcibly taken from her home in Chechnya, beaten and murdered. On February 28, 2001, the Rostov District Military Court begun the trial Col. Yuri Budanov for Kungaeva's murder.

Malika Umazheva was the former head of the of the pro-Moscow administration of the Chechen village Alkhan-Kala, who was murdered by a Russian servicemen on the night of November 29-30, 2002. Umazheva was an outspoken and courageous critic of unlawful raids that Russian forces conducted in her village and had had several confrontations with Russian federal officers during the months prior to her death. She had worked closely with the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.

Ruslan Alikhadzhyev was a former parliamentary speaker of Chechnya who was forcibly disappeared by the Russian soldiers. He was kidnapped by the uniformed soldiers supported by vehicles and helicopters from his home in Shali when he seeked a negotiated end to the Second Chechen War in May 2000. Alikhadzhiyev, who had four small children, was blindfolded and taken to a nearby location, which is where he was last seen.

James Meek is a British writer and journalist. He was born in London in 1962 and grew up in Dundee, Scotland. He spent several years living in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s and now resides in London. He has published three novels and two short story collections. His third novel, "The People’s Act of Love", received significant critical acclaim and went on to win the Scottish Arts Council Book of Year Award and the Ondaatje Prize.

Georgy Ivanovich Shpak is the governor of Ryazan Oblast, Russia since 2004. He was the commander of the Airborne Troops from 1996 to 2003. He was elected for the Rodina bloc.

Roddy Scott was a British freelance cameraman working for Britain's Frontline television news agency.

Adam Tepsurgayev was a 24-year-old Chechen freelance cameraman murdered in the village of Alkhan-Kala on November 21, 2000.

Supian Ependiyev was a veteran correspondent and editor-in-chief for the independent Chechen weekly "Groznensky Rabochy", who was killed in a Russian army's rocket attack on the Chechen capital, Grozny. Ependiyev was the first journalist to be killed while covering the second Russian military campaign in the Chechen Republic. During the first military campaign against Chechnya (November 1994 to September 1996) twenty journalists were killed.

Ramzan Mezhidov (1967-1999), was a freelance Chechen cameraman.

Petra Procházková is Czech journalist and humanitarian worker. She is best known as a war correspondent from conflict areas of the former Soviet Union. Procházková studied journalistics at Charles University in Prague (graduated in 1986). In 1989 she started to work in the re-established newspaper Lidové noviny. In 1992 she became Lidové noviny's Moscow correspondent. Here she began covering conflict areas - Abkhazia being the first.

Milana Bakhaeva, also known by the pen name Milana Terloeva, is a Chechen journalist and author of the 2006 French language bestseller "Danser sur les ruines. Une jeunesse tchétchène (Dancing on ruins. A Chechen youth)". A refugee during the Second Chechen War, Milana was one of eight Chechen students at the University of Grozny selected to study abroad by the human rights organization Etudes Sans Frontières in 2003, …