Latest North Caucasus Weekly Articles
Kakiev: Pro-Moscow Chechens Have Been Sent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia
Nezavisimaya Gazeta on December 19 quoted Said-Magomed Kakiev, the former commander of the Zapad special-purpose battalion who is currently Chechnya's deputy military commissar, as confirming that servicemen from the Zapad Battalion and the Vostok Battalion—the other Chechen-manned special-purpose unit of the Russian Defense Ministry's 42nd... MORE
Briefs
- Russia Protests Zakaev's Appearance on Polish TV Akhmed Zakaev, prime minister of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI), appeared on the popular Polish public television talk show "Warto Rozmawiac" (Worth Talking), which was broadcast on December 10 by the TVP2 channel to mark... MORE
Will Kremlin Policy towards the North Caucasus Change after March 2008?
Russia has at last learned the name of Vladimir Putin's successor. On December 10, four pro-Kremlin's parties, including the United Russia party—the winner of the recent parliament elections—put forward First Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev as their candidate in the March 2008 presidential election. On... MORE
Attacks Reported in Ingushetia, Stavropol and North Ossetia
A police commando was shot to death on the Kavkaz Federal highway in Ingushetia in the village of Barsuki, Itar-Tass reported on December 11. RIA Novosti quoted a source in Ingushetia's law-enforcement bodies as saying that the commando, Magomed Tutaev, was fired on at point... MORE
The Dagestani Jamaat (Part 1)
The Dagestani Jamaat "Shariat" is the direct successor of the Dagestani Jamaat supposedly destroyed on the orders of Vladimir Putin in August and September of 1999 [1]. As such, it is one more example of how inefficient a military response is for suppressing an ideological... MORE
Dagestan Shaken by High-Profile Murders
A Dagestani Supreme Court Judge, Kurban Pashaev, was fatally shot by an unidentified attacker on December 11. The Associated Press quoted Makhachkala police spokesman Malvudin Galimov as saying that Pashaev was shot more than ten times in the entranceway of his apartment building in Makhachkala.... MORE
Website Proprietor: Chechen Police Official is Behind Ingushetia Abductions
The proprietor of the independent Ingushetiya.ru website, Magomed Yevloev, claimed in an interview published in Kommersant-Vlast on December 10 that the head of the police department (ROVD) in the Chechen town of Urus-Martan, Ramzan Dzhamalkhanov, is running essentially a "death squad" involved in kidnapping people... MORE
…As Do the Authorities in Ingushetia and Dagestan
Kavkazky Uzel reported on December 2, the day of the State Duma elections, that voter turnout in Ingushetia was more than 70 percent. The following day, however, Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK) reported a turnout of 92.11 percent. On December 4, Kavkazky Uzel reported that... MORE
Kadyrov Delivers the Vote…
The results of the December 2 elections for the State Duma, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party received more than 64 percent of the vote nationwide in a contest that Russia’s opposition and foreign observers claim was neither free nor fair, were particularly suspect... MORE
Is the Caucasian Emirate a Threat to the Western World?
The declaration of the Caucasian Emirate by the rebels in the North Caucasus has raised a question: how dangerous could this be for the Western world? The Chechen separatists have always stressed that they are fighting against the Russian authorities for the independence of Chechnya,... MORE