Russian law enforcement recently tried to arrest a jihadist named Viktor Dvorakovsky. While the event itself can be regarded as a regular law enforcement operation, Dvorakovsky does not belong to any of the ethnic groups in Russia which are historically Muslims. Dvorakovsky’s case has indicated that jihadist converts, who have become Islamists in spite of lacking a historical connection to Islam, continue to constitute a serious problem for Russian counterinsurgency operations. The event indicates that jihadism continues to expand in Russia and that Islamist terrorism cannot be reduced to people from the North Caucasus, while the role of North Caucasian jihadists should not be underestimated in the spread of the phenomenon.
BACKGROUND: Conversions of people who belong to ethnic groups which have not historically been Muslim is certainly not a phenomenon limited to Russia. Still, the conditions in Russia have created a peculiar setting for the development of this phenomenon. The first wave of the conversions to Islam of ethnic Russians can be traced back to the 1990s when the collapse of the USSR, prevailing social-economic problems and the disintegration of the Russian state, created a spiritual vacuum which, together with other ideas, was filled by Islam. Conversions provided neophytes with a new sense of belonging and identity. Still, the interaction between those converts and members of the North Caucasian resistance, which had experienced full-fledged conflict with Moscow, was complicated due to the different role of Islam in the identities of new converts and the members of the resistance.
For a member of the North Caucasian resistance, nationalism was the major animus in their struggle against Moscow. Islam was incorporated in this nationalistic ideology; it was to an extent “nationalized,” which created problems in their relationship with Russian converts. For the Chechen nationalists, even ethnic Russians converted to Islam were still not full-fledged members of the resistance. The situation started to change by the end of the late 1990s when the nationalistic resistance was increasingly replaced by jihadists.
There were a variety of reasons for the transformation of North Caucasian resistance into a jihadist force. The major reason was that the North Caucasian resistance, which started as a mostly Chechen enterprise, became increasingly international and multi-ethnic. It increasingly included a variety of ethnic groups from the North Caucasus and abroad. In this situation, the nationalistic ideology became less and less appealing as a framework for the resistance. The increasing conflict between nationalists and jihadists could be seen in the polemic between Akhmed Zakaev, the comparatively moderate leader of the Chechen resistance, and Movladi Udugov, the emerging ideologist of the jihadists and the editor of Kavkaz Center, the most popular internet site of the North Caucasian resistance. Responding to Zakaev’s nationalistic appeal, Udugov stated that he plainly did not understand why Zakaev was so preoccupied with Chechens regardless who they were. Udugov questioned why he should be attached to Chechens who behaved as infidels and might even serve the Kremlin, a regime of infidels and the mortal enemy of true Muslims. While the jihadists argued that even Chechen infidels should be considered enemies, the Islamic resistance instead opened for ethnic Russians converted to Islam.
Jihadists in the North Caucasus resistance now had an opportunity to spread the resistance among population groups who had never participated in it before. In the late 1990s, the converts were mostly trained and indoctrinated by members of the resistance who belonged to traditionally Muslim ethnic groups, most of which originated in the North Caucasus. Later, the converts started to expand their ranks and engage in terrorist activities independently, or have returned to the North Caucasus to engage in the resistance.
IMPLICATIONS: Pavel Kosolapov is possibly one of the most well-known among these early Russians converts, who engaged in terrorist activities. Kosolapov was clearly indoctrinated by members of the North Caucasus resistance and later became one of its most successful terrorists. He was engaged in several spectacular terrorist attacks and was supposedly engaged in the attack of the Nevskii Express. While the first generation of Russian jihadists were trained and indoctrinated by jihadists belonging to historically Muslim ethnic groups, the converts gained followers of their own as time progressed. The new generation of jihadists came from the spiritual children, so to speak, of those who were themselves converts.
The case of Anton Stepanenko could be a good example here. Stepanenko had been converted to Islam in 1996 by his step-father who was Muslim. His mother and presumably biological father were Russian. Despite his young age and the absence of formal theological education, Stepanenko became quite known in Piatigorsk, a city near the North Caucasus, where he converted a considerable number of people, of which the majority was most likely ethnic Russians, to Islam. The authorities noted Stepanenko’s activities and he was arrested in 2006, but was soon released under the pressure of high positioned members of the Russian Islamic community. He left Russia for Saudi Arabia, but some observers believed he maintained the relationship with his followers in Russia. While engaging in preaching in Piatigorsk, he created a visible community of converts, mostly ethnic Russians, some of which engaged in jihad and participated in the attack on Nalchik in 2005.
It is quite likely that Dvorakovsky was also indoctrinated by Stepanenko. While most of the converts were either ethnic Russians or people of mixed ethnicity, other groups were represented as well. Vitalii Razdobud’ko, a Ukrainian, became a Muslim under the direct influence of Stepanenko together with his wife Mariia Khorosheva. Both of them engaged in suicidal terrorist attacks causing the death of two and wounding of twenty five members of Russian law enforcement. Vladimir Petrosian, an Armenian, played an active role together with Stepanenko in encouraging Dvorakovsky to take up arms.
According to reports, converts play an active role not only in conducting terrorist operations inside Russia, but also in filling other important functions for the resistance. One example is Ruslan Ozniev, whose mother was Russian and father Chechen. His father abandoned the family early on and he spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Grozny under Dudaev’s rule. His mother was arrested for selling alcohol and was beaten to death. This, however, did not prevent him from being converted to Islam and finally becoming the right hand of Doku Umarov, the leader of the resistance. He finally ended up in France where he engaged in fundraising for jihad. He later moved back to Russia where he planned to engage in various terrorist acts and was finally arrested.
The spread of converts to Islam has several implications for the North Caucasus insurgency and Russian counterinsurgency operations. On the one hand, converts could well make themselves visible through rigid practice of Islam, which would help Russian law enforcement in monitoring them and prevent attempts to engage in terrorism. On the other hand, those who are planning to engage in terrorist activities will not necessarily change their behavior and lifestyle. As a matter of fact, the jihadists themselves discourage terrorists who live among the general population from attracting the authorities’ attention. In such cases, converts belonging to the same ethnicity as the majority could easily blend with the general population. This would seriously complicate the efforts of Russian law enforcement to detect them. The increasing numbers of converts in jihadist ranks also indicates that the resistance can receive recruits not only from historically Muslim groups of the North Caucasus, but from the much bigger pool of the general Russian population.
CONCLUSIONS: The spread of converts has several important implications for the North Caucasian resistance. While the insurgency at first mostly comprised of ethnic Chechens, it later became open to representatives of all ethnic groups, including those who were not historically Muslim. While the converts are still small in number, they have already created serious problems for Russian law enforcement due to their capacity for avoiding detection and have in many cases been prone to suicidal-type terrorism, with the case of the young Russian Dvorakovsky as a telling example. The increasing presence of converts in the resistance also indicates that jihadists can receive recruits from all over Russia.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Dmitry Shlapentokh is Associate Professor of history at Indiana University at South Bend.