Rapprochement of Russian Community Group and Chechen Special Services Useful for Russian Nationalists, Chechens and the Kremlin, Four Russian Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Cooperation between the Russian Community Anapa South organization and the Chechen special services, serves the interests of the Anapa group which seeks recognition and funding, the Chechens who don’t want the Russian Community to attack them, and the Kremlin which doesn’t want these two groups to come to blows, four Russian analysts say.

            Last week, Apti Alaudinov, the head of Chechnya’s special services, met with leaders of the Russian Community Anapa South and agreed to become part of the council overseeing that group, which despite its name is separate from the notoriously extremist Russian Community organization although it too has the same program of hostility to immigrants and minorities.

            The Kavkaz-Uzel portal spoke with four Russian experts. They were unanimous that the group, the Chechens and the Kremlin may very well benefit from such a development but divided in terms of how far such a rapprochement could go and which of the three will benefit the most from what does happen (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/413945).

            Vera Alperovich, an expert at the SOVA Center, says that Alaudinov really is trying to build a bridge to the Russian nationalists because he senses that there is something similar in their approaches and that they differ only about attacks on non-Russians generally with the Russian Community favoring them and the Chechens opposed.

            By showing himself ready to cooperate, Alaudinov clearly hopes to wean the Russian Community group away from the idea that attacks on non-Russians other than migrants are a good idea, Alperovich says; but she doubts that this development is part of a Moscow effort to use such contacts as “a testing ground for creating controlled nationalism.”

            Instead, she suggests, what is taking place is far ore likely an appeal by the Chechen government to the Kremlin to block the Russian Community from attacking indigenous non-Russians and a reminder to the Russian leadership that any such attacks will be repelled by the non-Russians themselves.

            A second Russian specialist on the Caucasus, speaking on condition of anonymity, disagrees. While noting that the Anapa group is independent of the Russian Community, he argues Alaudinov’s move really an attempt to see if some version of Russian nationalism might be created that “would take the interests of the indigenous peoples of Russia into consideration.”

            A third expert, Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the Civic Action Committee, says that in her view the Chechens are acting on their own, seeking alliances with people who share much of their agenda and hoping to influence them into attacking others rather than attacking Chechens or other indigenous nations.

            And a fourth expert, Sergey Boyko, a Russian scholar at London’s Adam Smith Center, argues that Alaudinov’s move is the product of the thinking both in Chechnya and in Moscow, where officials want to benefit from a controlled Russian nationalist movement but don’t want one that will come into violent conflict with other groups.

            At a minimum, he suggests that what Alaudinov has done is intended to “correct” the direction some of the Russian Community activists have taken before things get out of hand.