FULL-COURT PRESS

Kremlin nervousness over the drawn-out Chechnya war is chipping away at newly-won press freedoms in Russia, TIME chief European correspondent James O. Jackson reports. In addition to numerous cases of barring journalists from the battle zone, interfering with interviews and confiscating video equipment, Soviet-style military "censors" have also called up Russian journalists at home to "check their facts," he says. One Russian TV anchorman, Sergei Doryenko, says the anti-press forces "just want us to know that in a month or a year they might be back in power again. And the choice is ours."