By Neil Hauer

November 8, 2019, the CACI Analyst

The summer of 2019 saw a crackdown on civil society across the North Caucasus. Ingushetia experienced the most severe repressions, with more than 30 individuals still detained, but Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria experienced arrests as well. The proximate causes of the crackdown varied among the three republics, but all reflected the fact that a region-wide civil society has flourished since the near-end of the former Islamist insurgency. Authorities are evidently unprepared to deal with this new challenge, and forceful measures against their new, nonviolent opponents have proven ineffective at best.

By Huseyn Aliyev

September 12, 2019, the CACI Analyst

On June 24, the head of Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, announced his decision to retire. Two days later, President Putin promptly accepted Yevkurov’s retirement and appointed former prosecutor general Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov as the interim head of republic. In the aftermath of the criticized land swap with Chechnya in the late 2018, Yevkurov engaged in a bitter conflict with powerful Ingush clans, civil society and religious leaders. His growing unpopularity resulted in violent protests and discontent with the Kremlin. Yevkurov’s retirement is yet another attempt by Moscow to tackle the issue of poor governance in the restive North Caucasus region. 

By Emil A. Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev

August 28, 2019, the CACI Analyst

Following Ramzan Kadyrov’s reappointment in 2016 as head of the Chechen Republic for yet another five-year term, the ambitions of the Chechen strongman have grown. While intensifying his age-old rivalry with Rosneft for control over Chechnya’s oil resources and with Gazprom over writing off Chechnya’s debt, Kadyrov has sought to expand to the neighboring republics not only politically but also geographically, claiming parts of Ingush and Dagestani territories. Kadyrov’s ongoing struggle with Ingush activists, along with his interference in the neighboring republic’s internal affairs, has caused an internal revolt in Ingushetia. Likewise, Kadyrov’s claims on contested border territory have stirred tension in Dagestan.

By Neil Hauer

January 17, 2019, the CACI Analyst

The ongoing dispute over the transfer of 10 percent of Ingushetia’s territory to Chechnya shows few signs of calming. Regional authorities, including the heads of both republics, have attempted to both assuage and intimidate the incensed Ingush population with little success. The current redrawing of regional borders, unprecedented in the post-Soviet period, threatens to aggravate similar grievances across the region, while raising questions about the sustainability of its current political structure. Ramzan Kadyrov’s willingness to continue expanding his influence at the cost of his neighbors also serves as an ominous portent for regional stability.

By Emil A. Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev

December 20, 2018, the CACI Analyst

On September 26, the heads of Ingushetia and Chechnya, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Ramzan Kadyrov, signed an agreement on a proposed land swap between the two Northeast Caucasian republics. While the Chechen public welcomed the plan, which was kept secret until it was signed, the agreement sparked unprecedented protests in Ingushetia. Several thousand Ingush protesters in the republic’s capital Magas have found sympathy from both Ingush siloviki and the public in their resistance to the deal. With bottom-up opposition to the land swap spreading in Ingushetia, this “Maidan” in Russia’s geographically and demographically smallest republic may have far-reaching implications not only for Ingushetia and Chechnya, but also for the rest of the Russian Federation.