After weeks of intense battles, Chechen fighters withdraw from Grozny and Russian troops capture the city. Most of the city is left in ruins and thousands of Chechens are scattered among refugee camps, creating a dire humanitarian situation. Putin announces that the Russian operation in Grozny is complete, but some fighting continues in the mountainous regions of the South where Chechen rebel fighters have regrouped, according to Anna Politkovskaya's account in a Dirty War.

Putin visits Grozny and announces that he will reduce the number of federal troops in the region. Later in the month, Putin wins the Russian presidential election.

United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson visits Chechnya and denounces evidence of Russian troops' curtailing of Chechen human rights, calling the violations "so consistent and so serious" that Russia should take immediate action to curb them.

President Putin announces that Chechnya will be governed from Moscow. Maskhadov remains the leader of the separatist movement.

Moscow appoints a former Chechen cleric, Mufti Ahkmed Kadyrov, to head its administration in Chechnya, answerable to Putin. Maskhadov denounces Kadyrov as a traitor.

A bomb blast in a Moscow subway, blamed on Chechen militants, leaves eight dead and dozens more injured.

Moscow transfers control of "anti-terrorist" operations in Chechnya to the Russian Federal Security Service, commonly perceived as the successor agency to the Soviet KGB. Human rights organizations continue to express sharp concern about violations in Chechnya and report on the alleged detainment and torture of Chechens by Russian troops and the discovery of mass graves in Grozny.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Putin casts the conflict with Chechnya as part of the international war on terror. Later the same month, a major Chechen militant offensive on the city of Gudermes, Chechnya's second-largest city, leads to the downing of a Russian helicopter carrying military officials.

Russian officials hold meetings with Maskhadov's official representative Akhmed Zakayev -- the first formal talks with a Chechen separatist representative since 1999. Zakayev and Putin's southern envoy, Viktor Kazantsev, discuss a possible peace settlement on a secret government estate in Moscow.

An explosion during a Victory Day military parade in Dagestan kills at least 35 people, including 12 children. No groups claim responsibility for the bombing, but Chechen separatists, also described in the media as Islamic militants, are widely suspected. Later that day, U.S. diplomats reiterate the American position on Chechnya at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. They say Putin should foster a political agreement giving Chechnya broad autonomy within Russia, and say that Moscow should be held accountable for human rights abuses its military may have committed during the fighting in the breakaway republic.

With the exception of water distribution in Grozny, the U.N. halts aid operations in Chechnya for six weeks after a Russian aid worker is kidnapped. U.N. aid work in neighboring Ingushetia, home to hundreds of thousands of Chechen refugees, is also halted for two days. The U.N. had been providing food, health care and education programs in an effort to assist the Chechen people.

A Russian military helicopter crashes into a minefield outside of Russia's main military base in Chechnya, killing more than 100 people. Despite Russian military claims of an engine malfunction, it is widely reported that militant separatists shot the helicopter down using a Russian-made shoulder-held missile.

Militant Chechen separatists, led by 25-year-old Movsar Barayev, seize a Moscow theater and hold some 800 people hostage, demanding that Russian troops withdraw from Chechnya within one week. Nearly 130 hostages and 41 of the 50 hostage-takers are killed when Russian forces storm the building with a mysterious gas later determined to be an opiate-based compound.

Moscow contends that Chechnya should move forward with a new political referendum for peace, including the staging of new elections and the drafting of a new constitution, but refuses to negotiate directly with separatist leaders. According to media reports, Russian authorities begin to close refugee camps on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia, forcing thousands of Chechens to return to cities many believe are still unsafe. Russian officials deny that anyone is being forced to return to any particular area.

Suicide bombers drive a truck full of explosives into a Russian government office building in Grozny killing more than 80 people. Despite the violence, Putin says the peace referendum will move forward as planned.

Voters in Chechnya participate in a Moscow-backed constitutional referendum that Kremlin officials say will help pave the way toward stability and civil rule in the war-torn republic by approving a draft constitution and cementing its place in the Russian Federation. The referendum passes with more than 95 percent of the vote but separatist leaders warn the move won't bring peace.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission rejects the latest bid by the European Union to formally censure Russia for alleged human rights violations in Chechnya. The EU had encouraged the U.N. to declare "deep concern at the reported ongoing violations ... including forced disappearances, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, torture, ill-treatment ... as well as alleged violations of international humanitarian law" by federal Russian forces in Chechnya.

Two suicide bombings rock Chechnya within days of each other in the largest flare-up in violence since the constitutional referendum. A truck loaded with explosives ripped apart a compound of government buildings in northern Chechnya, killing at least 59 people and wounding dozens more. The next day, a second suicide attack near Grozny killed at least 16 and wounded dozens when at least one woman detonated explosives strapped her body as thousands of Chechens, including the pro-Moscow administration leader Akhmad Kadyrov, gathered for a religious festival.

Two female suicide bombers detonate belts laden with explosives and scraps of metal outside a rock concert that was attended by some 40,000 at the Tushino airfield in Moscow. The explosions occurred after police apparently stopped one of the women as she approached the concert's entrance. Authorities immediately accused Chechen separatists of carrying out the bombings, which killed 15 people and injured more than 50 others

A powerful vehicle bomb blast destroys a Russian military hospital near Chechnya, killing at least 50 and wounding some 70 others. The military hospital is located in the North Ossetia town of Mozdok, considered the headquarters for Russian forces combating separatist Chechen fighters.

Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed candidate for the leadership of Chechnya, wins the republic's presidential election by a considerable margin. International observers, such as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, declined to send monitors to the election, citing the tenuous internal security situation.