Moscow Using High Unemployment to Try to Control Most Recalcitrant of Republics

Executive Summary:

• Ingushetia, a republic in Russia’s North Caucasus, is being pacified and kept dependent on Moscow as intentional Kremlin policies, rather than policy failures or Ingush shortcomings, are causing high unemployment.  
• Moscow has often used Ingushetia to test out policies and if it concludes that high unemployment will either pacify people or spark responses justifying repression, the center is likely to use it elsewhere.
• Some Ingushetia residents are intimidated, but many are angry and turning away from Moscow and Magas, putting their trust in groups ready to challenge the authorities. If this policy is imposed elsewhere, other nations will likely follow similar trajectories.

The Republic of Ingushetia holds the top place for unemployment not only in the North Caucasus but in the entire Russian Federation at 12 times the national average in 2024 (RIA Novosti, March 10). This extraordinarily high unemployment rate is the direct result of Kremlin policies intended to keep that most recalcitrant of republics pacified and dependent on Moscow rather than the result of Russian policy failure or Ingush shortcomings, as Moscow often suggests (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). This is troubling in the first instance for Ingushetia, the smallest federal subject in the country, given the human suffering involved, but even more for two other reasons. On the one hand, Moscow remains supportive of allowing Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to absorb Ingushetia and apparently views this policy as helpful in that effort (Window on Eurasia, December 15, 2024; Fortanga, December 18, 2024). On the other hand, Moscow has a longstanding tradition of using Ingushetia as a testing ground for policies it then extends to other parts of the country (Fortanga, September 6, 2023). Unsurprisingly, given the Machiavellian nature of such an approach, Moscow officials have kept the thinking behind such moves quiet. It may be that Moscow really believes that impoverished populations will be easier to control, but many in the center likely believe that if poverty leads to social explosions, it will provide a more plausible justification for expanded repression (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20, 2024). The results in Ingushetia so far have been mixed. Some people there have been intimidated, but far more are angry, turning away from Moscow and Magas and putting their trust in informal groups ready to challenge the government in a future transition. If Moscow does extend this policy to other parts of the country, the risks of an explosion around the periphery will only intensify. 

The Russian government has long considered low unemployment rates as critical to maintaining popular support and even has a history of falsifying unemployment numbers to suggest that the share of people without jobs is smaller than is the case (Rosbalt, November 22, 2019). Even Moscow acknowledges, however, that unemployment rates are higher in non-ethnic Russian areas than in ethnic Russian ones and that they are higher in the North Caucasus than in any other non-ethnic Russian part of the country (Interfax, January 19, 2018).  These differences are typically blamed on the history and culture of these nations and regions and are seldom acknowledged as being the product of Russian policy.[1]

Moscow’s perception toward the political utility of high and low employment rates makes a detailed new article by Radio Liberty’s Maaz Bilalov, a journalist specializing in the North Caucasus, particularly important (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). Bilalov notes that Ingushetia’s high unemployment rate reflects a variety of factors. The government blames both the republic’s high birthrate, which is producing more potential workers every year than the economy can absorb and the influx of refugees from Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus. Bilalov interviewed local experts, however, who place the blame on other factors—most importantly, Moscow’s policies and the way Magas has responded to them. Islam Belokiyev, an Ingush-Chechen blogger, claims that the republic’s government has failed to develop industries that could employ those who have been trained by the republic’s educational facilities (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). Related to that, but not mentioned by Belokiyev in Bilalov’s article, is that Magas, to make itself look good in Moscow’s eyes, typically promotes industries which the center is interested in rather than those which might provide more employment for Ingush people (Window on Eurasia, October 14, 2023).

Another local specialist, anti-corruption expert Ilya Shumanov, places the blame for high unemployment in Ingushetia elsewhere. He claims that many Ingush work unofficially and view state aid to the unemployed as “a kind of blanket financial support” rather than “as targeted assistance for those in need.” This attitude breeds dependency but also means that the republic remains mired in economic difficulties (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). Both Belokiyev and Shumanov consider what is happening as unfortunate but not the outcome that Moscow favors.

Others, however, take a different and darker view compared to Belokiyev and Shumanov. Ruslan Youloy, an activist and blogger, argues that “the federal government is deliberately maintaining this status quo, keeping the region economically dependent and leaving its people with no viable alternative for survival aside from Moscow’s subventions.” According to him, “Russia is invested in preserving the Ingush people’s dependence on the central government and uses subsidies [including unemployment payments] to do so.” To survive, people “fake disabilities, collect fraudulent pensions, and so on,” something the authorities do nothing to stop because “it’s easier to keep the population ‘on a leash’ through handouts than to create jobs and make the region more self-sufficient” (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). Ansar Garkho, a leading Ingush political analyst, agrees. According to Bilalov, “he argues that it’s not Ingushetia’s internal conditions that lie at the root of the region’s economic crisis but direct federal control” (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). Ingushetia has immense natural resources. Moscow takes all the money from those it has developed and keeps others, which could lead to a restart of the republic’s economy from developing, lest Ingushetia become more self-sufficient and independent-minded. In short, Garkho argues that Moscow is promoting high unemployment for its own purposes and at the expense of the Ingush people (Kavkaz.Realii, March 20). 

Many Ingush feel trapped given that Moscow’s promotion of unemployment and poverty has been paralleled by increasing repression, especially since the mass protests against a Moscow-brokered handover of 10 percent of the republic’s land to Chechnya in 2018 (Fortanga, October 4, 2023). As a result, Ingushetia’s once-vibrant civil society, far and away the freest in the North Caucasus a decade ago, has been largely suppressed (Fortanga, August 3, 2020). That does not mean, however, that those angry about the situation do not have a place to go. Many are turning to clan organizations such as the teips (Chechen and Ingush tribal organizations) or Sufi orders, including the Batal-Haji, against which Moscow and Magas have been launching attacks (see EDM, January 24, 2023; Window on Eurasia, November 5, 2024). This is driving such groups underground, and they are likely to be even more difficult to fight than before.

Moscow may now view keeping unemployment and dependency high in Ingushetia as a successful policy given that there have been fewer protests in the last several years, but that is a shortsighted view. When the center weakens, the Ingush population will likely reach breaking point given that they now rely on traditional values and organizations, and have been encouraged to do so with support from Ukraine, rather than depending on Moscow or Magas (Anti-imperial Block of Nations; Fortanga, February 23, 2024). If Moscow continues on its current trajectory and applies this policy to other non-Russian republics, it almost certainly will face an explosion of societal resentment that the center and its agents will not then be in a position to suppress once Russian President Vladimir Putin passes from the scene. 

Note:

[1] For a rare exception, see the comments of Moscow economist Marina Liptshits at Kavkaz.Realii, March 20, 2024, as discussed at Window on Eurasia, March 24, 2024.