Moscow Declares Ingushetia Bankrupt and Takes Direct Control of the Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 3 – The Republic of Ingushetia has been recognized as bankrupt on the basis of a study by the Accounting Chamber and the administration of the finances in Magas will now pass directly to the Russian finance ministry, the latest act of the denigration of Russia’s poorest federal subject.

            Ingush have long objected to the way that their republic has been run as a colony, but the handing over of control of finances to a Moscow ministry, something ordered by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will infuriate them further (regnum.ru/news/economy/3105396.html and kavkazr.com/a/30926664.html).

            The republic government will remain in place but it will be hollow with Moscow now formally as well as informally making all the decisions about the republic, which came to this situation because it is the second most indebted republic in the Russian Federation. The central government has decided this is intolerable.

            Republic head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov had warned in August that this was a possibility unless the republic got its finances under control (regnum.ru/news/economy/2704015.html), but in the crisis, he was unable to do so and now Moscow, not Kalimatov, will make the decisions. Indeed, it is possible perhaps even likely that he will be replaced.

            Just how angry and on edge the people of Ingushetia remain was highlighted today when a post on the Ingush Internet specifying that two police posts on Ingush territory had been handed over to North Ossetia and the interior ministry forces of Russia, went viral despite its obvious fraudulent character (kavtoday.ru/article/5641).

            Such a claim touches two themes especially sensitive in Ingushetia – the possibility that the borders of the republic will be further contracted and the danger that North Ossetia, having driven Ingush out of the Prigorodny district in the 1992 war, has Moscow’s backing to move once again against Ingushetia.

            Cooler heads appear to have prevailed, but that may not always be the case in the coming days.

            Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, an exhibit devoted to the seven leaders of the Ingush protest movement who remain behind bars as political prisoners opened. It was organized by Russian activists who said they felt too many Russians have forgotten the dignified and peaceful protest in Ingushetia had contributed to Russia (fortanga.org/2020/11/vystavka-ingushskoe-delo/).