19 January, 2009 - Human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot dead in Moscow.

 

16 April, 2009 - The Russian authorities officially declared the counter-terrorism operation that had been in force in Chechnya since the start of the Second Chechen War in 1999 to have ended.

 

7 May, 2002 - Burdov v Russia (final 4 September 2002): first judgment by European Court of Human Rights in a case concerning Russia.

 

7 May, 2008 - Inauguration of President Medvedev.

 

7 May, 2000; 7 May, 2004  - Inauguration of President Putin, first and second terms.

 

10 July 1991 - Inauguration of President Yeltsin (first term). He had been elected on 12 June, 1991 as head of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

 

15 July, 2009 - Human rights defender Natalia Estemirova was shot dead. Abducted outside her house in Groznyi, her body was found the same day in Ingushetia.

 

9 August, 1996 - Inauguration of President Yeltsin (second term). He had been elected on 3 July 1996 (first round had been held on 16 June 1996).

 

10 August, 2009 -  Charity workers Zarema Sadulayeva, and her husband, Alik (Umar) Djabrailov, were abducted and shot dead in Groznyi. Their bodies were found the next day.

 

31 August, 1996 - the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements brought an end to the First Chechen War between Russia and Chechnya.

 

1-3 September, 2004 - Tragedy at Beslan School No. 1 in North Ossetia when an armed group took more than 1,100 people, including 777 children, hostage, demanding that the Second Chechen War be ended. On 3 September Russian forces stormed the building.  At least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children. Hundreds were wounded.

 

4 September 1999 - a bomb exploded in an apartment building in Buynaksk, marking the beginning of a series of explosions in apartment buildings in Russian cities - in Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and in Volgodonsk on 16 September - in which nearly 300 people were killed.

 

1 October, 1999 - Russian ground forces entered Chechnya, marking the start of the Second Chechen War.

 

7 October, 2006 - Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a special correspondent for the independent Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta well-known for her investigative reporting on human rights violations by the Russian military in Chechnya, was shot dead in the apartment building in Moscow where she lived.  During her career as a journalist, Anna Politkovskaya had been threatened, jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned.
 

17 October, 1994 - Journalist Dmitrii Kholodov, an investigative reporter for the Moscow-based newspaper Moskovskii Komsomolets, was killed in a bomb blast at the newspaper's offices. Dmitrii Kholodov, who had been investigating mafia connections with the military, was killed when he opened a briefcase he had been led to believe contained secret documents exposing military corruption.
 

23-26 October, 2002 - Tragedy at Moscow's Dubrovka Theatre (showing the production Nord-Ost) when an armed group demanding withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya took hostage the actors and audience. At least 129 civilians and 41 of the hostage-takers were killed. 17 members of the production team were killed, including two child actors and a third of the musicians in the orchestra.

 

30 October, 1974 - the first Day of Political Prisoners; since 1991 officially the Day of Victims of Political Repression.

 

20 November, 1998 - Galina Starovoitova murdered in St. Petersburg.

 

26 November, 1994 - The pro-Moscow opposition in Chechnya, led by Umar Avturkhanov, Beslan Gantamirov and Ruslan Labazanov, with support from the Russian military, attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the then president of Chechnya, Dzhokhar Dudaev, whose forces were under the command of Aslan Maskhadov, Ruslan Gelaev and Shamil Basaev, a key event in the build up to the Russian offensive that began that December.

11 December, 1994 - Russian forces launched a ground offensive towards Grozny, marking the start of the First Chechen War.

 

12 December, 1993 - Adoption of the Russian Constitution by referendum.

 

14 December, 1989 - Andrei Sakharov died of a heart attack in Moscow.

 

20 December 1917 - Creation of the Cheka (acronym for Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya, or Extraordinary Commission), the Bolshevik's state security police, forerunner of today's Federal Security Agency (FSB).

 

25 December, 1991 - Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic becomes the Russian Federation.