BLOG: Commentary To The Russia’s Feudal Legacy

by TOL, 18 April 2008

There is an urgent need for Medvedev and Western partners to deal with the Caucasus tinderbox.

As the disorder in Russia’s North Caucasus republics is making news yet again, there is just the slightest hint of a change in Moscow’s strategy towards the region.The Kremlin’s new thinking on relations with its far-flung regions comes as a new president is about to take office: Dmitry Medvedev, a man seen in some quarters as less paranoid about the West than Vladimir Putin. The transition to a new Russian administration may present the best chance Europe and America have to talk with Russia on long-term political stability and economic development on both sides of the Caucasus Mountains.
The three most unruly North Caucasus republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan are more like heavily militarized colonies than functional units of the Russian Federation. The republics’ budgets cover only 15 or 20 percent of expenditures; the federal government covers the rest. Joblessness is around 30 percent, reportedly over 60 percent in Ingushetia.
As for security, in stricken Chechnya the Kremlin’s strategy throughout Putin’s eight years in office has been to let the barbarians fight it out among themselves, so long as they give lip service to the federative principle, and keep the oil and gas pipelines secure from attack. The fighting these days is mainly between rival bands of Moscow loyalists. Witness the scene in the town of Gudermes a few days ago when as many as 20 deaths occurred as a convoy of fighters belonging to President Ramzan Kadyrov’s personal army got into a shootout with members of a Defense Ministry special battalion commanded by a Kadyrov foe.

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