Any campaign that seeks to turn around as tragic and painful a situation as that of Chechnya can only consist of many very small steps. One such small step was made this week when the true state of the North Caucasus was laid bare and decision makers forced to acknowledge it. On Monday the Parliamentary Assembly to the Council of Europe examined the findings of a report into the human rights situation in the North Caucasus by Dick Marty (Rapporteur on Human Rights) I wholeheartedly welcome his scrupulous investigative accuracy and his exposure of the deteriorating human rights situation in Chechnya. He got behind the propaganda that Ramzan Kadyrov seeks to portray and reflected the true picture of Chechnya from speaking to various sources on the ground. The incisive report managed to get to the heart of what must be understood by the world - the fact that away from the attentions of the world's media, abductions, killings and human rights violations on a desperate scale are actually increasing under Kadyrov's regime.

Horrors in Chechnya have been exposed before. What makes me hopeful that a new approach is now possible is another small step. The report has a led to the unanimous acceptance of a resolution which stated that Chechnya is currently "the most serious and delicate situation" in terms of human rights in the whole jurisdiction of the Council of Europe. That includes the Russian delegates who accepted the report's account of what is happening under the Russia-sanctioned Kadyrov regime. This indicates that perhaps Russia is recognising that the situation is untenable, and chimes with what seems to be new signals from the Kremlin that it is taking a more realistic and pragmatic approach to the outside world.

These small steps, always set against the darker shadow of the continued oppression in Chechnya, nonetheless make me hopeful as I head to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on June 22^nd, where I believe this report and resolution will spark a necessary debate, be adopted, and provide a stepping stone for the constructive work of the Chechnya Peace Forum.