--- description: A wave of terrorist bombings in the Russian northern Caucasus late last month killed 23 people, including a 15-year-old girl, and wounded 144. In Rostov-on-Don,... title: Murder Case Puts Moscow's Chechnya Policy on Trial image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) # Murder Case Puts Moscow's Chechnya Policy on Trial by [Yuri Zarakhovich](/author/yuri-zarakhovich/) Apr 4, 2001 4:00 AM CUT by [Yuri Zarakhovich](/author/yuri-zarakhovich/) Apr 4, 2001 4:00 AM CUT A wave of terrorist bombings in the Russian northern Caucasus late last month killed 23 people, including a 15-year-old girl, and wounded 144\. In Rostov-on-Don, 1,100 km south of Moscow, the trial of Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov on charges of murdering an 18-year-old Chechen girl resumes next week. Both events highlight the madness of Russia’s tragic Chechen quagmire. Budanov, 38, was a rising star in the Russian army when he came back to Chechnya as commander of the 160th tank regiment in September 1999\. He was a hardened veteran of both Chechen wars, having earned two medals for valor and two early promotions that put him on the fast track to a general’s stars. But that brilliant military career went off the rails when Budanov became the first high-ranking Russian officer to be charged with what amounts to a war crime: the abduction and premeditated murder of Kheda Kungayeva. [Full Story…](/time/europe/eu/daily/0,9868,104886,00.html "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6938911/murder-case-puts-moscows-chechnya-policy-on-trial/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6938911/murder-case-puts-moscows-chechnya-policy-on-trial/"},"headline":"Murder Case Puts Moscow's Chechnya Policy on Trial","datePublished":"2001-04-04T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T07:28:14.111Z","description":"A wave of terrorist bombings in the Russian northern Caucasus late last month killed 23 people, including a 15-year-old girl, and wounded 144. In Rostov-on-Don,...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6938911/murder-case-puts-moscows-chechnya-policy-on-trial/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Yuri Zarakhovich","url":"https://time.com/author/yuri-zarakhovich/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6938911/murder-case-puts-moscows-chechnya-policy-on-trial/","name":"Murder Case Puts Moscow's Chechnya Policy on Trial"}}]}] ```