Russians who fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan came home to silence and stigma. There’s a very public push to make things different this time.

It's been 30 years since the first Chechen war when Moscow attacked the breakaway Chechen Republic, laying the capital, Grozny, to waste. Just as with the current war against Ukraine, Russia expected ...

The chief source of Putin’s dilemma is that the tragedy occurred over Chechnya, perhaps the only corner of Russia where his word isn’t necessarily law. If the incident had occurred in the skies over ...