Moscow Likely to Impose Outsider on Ingushetia in Place of Yevkurov But It Won’t Work, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 13 – Moscow will eventually dispose of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in the hopes of stabilizing the situation in Ingushetia, Irina Starodubrovskaya says, and likely will try to impose an outsider as it has in Daghestan with Vladimir Vasiliyev.  But the situation in Ingushetia is different and that approach is unlikely to work.

            In one sense, the North Caucasus expert at Moscow’s Gaidar Institute suggests to Kavkaz journalist Lidiya Mikhalchenko, the opposition’s calls for Yevkurov’s removal work in his favor because the Kremlin never wants to do anything that appears to be a concession to popular pressure (kavkazr.com/a/29878726.html).

            A better strategy for the Ingush opposition and one that would give more hope for a positive resolution of the crisis would be to call for a restoration of an elected governor; but Starodubrovskaya says it is extremely improbable that the Putin regime would ever agree to such a change lest it undermine Moscow’s control or become a model of demands elsewhere.

Mikhalchenko also spokes with Denis Sokolov, a specialist on the North Caucasus at Washington’s CSIS He agrees that Moscow will remove Yevkurov eventually although it is unlikely to do so soon because that would look like a concession to protest. But what happens in the interim will determine new “’red lines’” for the next head of the republic.       

“Every leader of a region has certain ‘red lines’ with regard to Moscow, neighbors like Kadyrov and his or her own population. If Yevkurov leaves under pressure from society, these ‘red lines’ will change for the next head of the republic. It does not have great importance who that will be,” he argues.

            Moscow has given Yevkurov clearance to crack down on his own people: “he wouldn’t expand repressions without approval from above,” Sokolov says. But there are serious risks that in the current situation, one or another side could make mistakes and lead to a violent explosion.  All sides are aware of that danger and so far are seeking to avoid it.

            The Washington-based expert agrees that the restoration of an elected republic head could be helpful, but Moscow is unlikely to agree to that because it would be ceding control of the situation to republic elites, something the Kremlin is not willing to do at this point or probably ever.

            Meanwhile, the situation continues to deteriorate. The authorities have arrested more people, shifted their location, upped the ante by bringing criminal charges against those they had levied only administrative ones in the past and forcing one opposition figure to end his hunger strike (echo.msk.ru/news/2407129-echo.html, kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/334268/,  

kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/334275/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/326282/).