Moscow Plans to Dispatch Ethnic Russians to the North Caucasus
Ironically, the Russian government’s plans to relocate ethnic Russians to the North Caucasus to affirm control over this region in the long run might backfire and end up alienating even those territories that have been relatively calm. Indeed, the North Caucasus is one of the most densely populated areas in the Russian Federation. The region suffers from a lack of jobs, but not a lack of a workforce. While highly skilled workers might still be in demand in the North Caucasus, there are very few enterprises that need high skilled labor. Even if Moscow found those extra 50,000 ethnic Russian families willing to relocate to the North Caucasus, they would largely compete for livelihoods with the locals, resulting in skyrocketing conflicts between the native people of the region and ethnic Russians.