Ingushetia Plays Down 1992 War with North Ossetia but is Worried Enough about That Clash to Bring in Police from Vladivostok to Man Border Post

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 2 – The 1992 border war between Ingushetia and North Ossetia has been forgotten by many, but it is still very much on the minds of Ingush who were forced to flee. The Ingush authorities this year have played it down in the hopes of avoiding protests, but they have been worried enough to bring in police from Vladivostok to man border post.

            The independent Ingush portal Fortanga noted that no senior official or government media outlet used the occasion of the day of memory of MIAs to recall the 1992 clashes in the Prigorodny district, an issue that still roils Ingush society (fortanga.org/2026/09/vlasti-ingushetii-ne-vspomnili-o-zhertvah-tragedii-v-prigorodnom-rajone-v-mezhdunarodnyj-den-propavshih-bez-vesti/).

              Just how much those events of more than 30 years ago do affect the thinking of Ingush, however, was implicitly recognized by those same officials when they brought in police from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East to guard the border post between the two republics (fortanga.org/2026/08/chermenskij-post-na-granicze-ingushetii-i-osetii-budut-ohranyat-policzejskie-iz-vladivostoka/).

              The commanders of these Russian units and the Ingush government not surprisingly presented this decision as one intended only to block illegal flows of goods and to protect the population, but there can be little doubt that these outside forces were brought in to prevent any protests about 1992 and the unresolved problems the war left behind.

              Ingushetia has brought in police from the Russian Far East before when it has felt threatened by popular protests; but analysts said that this earlier move had proved counterproductive because it had shown the Ingush people they remain part of an empire (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/06/moscows-use-in-ingushetia-of-police.html).

              What has happened in Ingushetia is a useful reminder of both how people who have suffered conflicts do not soon forget them however much the authorities try to encourage that and also how these authorities simultaneously refuse to address these problems and instead use outsiders to repress their own people and maintain their reputation in Moscow.

              In this case, it may also be that Magas doesn’t trust its own security forces, a reasonable view given that a group of Ingush police broke with Magas over the protests about the deal with Grozny that gave away a large portion of Ingush land. (On that case and its resonance, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/08/european-court-to-take-up-case-of-13.html.)  

              While attention to Ingushetia has declined since the end of the protests in 2019-2020 and the subsequent trial of the Ingush Seven, these latest reports from Magas suggest that the situation there is anything but calm and stable and that the authorities both in the Ingush capital and Moscow are worried.