Anna Politkovskaya was born in 1958. She studied at Moscow State University, and earned a diploma in journalism before working for several Russian newspapers and broadcasters.

She visited Chechnya for the first time in 1998 (on assignment with Obshchaya Gazeta) to conduct an interview with the president, Aslan Maskhadov. By the time of the second Chechen war in 1999, she was working for the independent democratic newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. She reported the war extensively and visited Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia dozens of times.

Among Anna Politkovskaya’s books are A Small Corner of Hell (University of Chicago Press, 2003) and Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy (Metropolitan Books).

Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her home in Moscow on 7 October 2006.

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Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist renowned and assailed for her work in uncovering the brutalities of the war in Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow on 7 October 2006. In tribute, openDemocracy publishes extracts from work which earned her the 2003 Ulysses prize for the art of reportage.

(This article was originally published 9 October 2006)