Akhmed Zakayev Calls for Chechens and Ingush to Form One State in Future

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 9 – Akhmed Zakayev, prime minister of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria in exile says that in the future, “Chechens and Ingush should create a single state,” a proposal certain to win support in Chechnya but outrage many Ingush who have fought long and hard since their republic broke off from Chechnya in June 1992.

            In a new interview, he says that he “considers that Chechens and Ingush are the closest of peoples. When we were together as a single people, we were very strong and the most numerous nation of the Caucasus. We never had conflicts with our neighbors, and despite this numerical advantage we never seized one square inch of the lands of our neighbors.”

            (The interview is available online at youtube.com/watch?v=4H5c81vAFCw. A text version is available on an Ingush news agency site at fortanga.org/2022/12/chechenczy-i-ingushi-v-budushhem-dolzhny-sozdat-edinoe-gosudarstvo-glava-kabmina-ichkerii-ahmed-zakaev/).

            Zakayev continues: “Russia’s current genocide in the Caucasus began with the Ingush people. This took place when the Ingush expressed their desire to separate from the Chechens and create their own republic within the Russian Federation … After Russia ceases to exist as an empire, the Ingush and Chechens must live together.”

            “We are obligated to create a single state formation. What it will be called and in what form is for future generations to decide. But in the Caucasus, there will be formed a single state where the closest peoples will be the Chechens and Ingush, and we must together decide the future of this state and of those peple who will be in a single legal space [with us].”

            Many perhaps even most Ingush will be alarmed by this because they have fought long and hard to defend the independence of their republic and by all accounts remain committed to doing so into the future (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/12/ingushetia-should-not-unite-with.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/on-30th-anniversary-of-ingush-republic.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/ingush-national-commission-takes-hard.html).

            Worse, many Ingush are likely to see Zakayev’s words as a sign that he seeks a greater Chechnya in much the same way that Ramzan Kadyrov so obviously does (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/chechnyas-kadyrov-threatens-to-annex.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/kadyrov-raising-military-unit-based-on.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/chechnyas-kadyrov-takes-up-cause-of.html ).

            That will reduce the chances that the Ingush will cooperate with Zakayev. But the words of the Chechen leader in exile are likely to raise concerns about Chechen intentions in the future not only with the Ingush, a fellow Vaynakh people, but of others in the North Caucasus that a unified Vaynakh republic might threaten to dominate or even absorb.