Are North Ossetians Afraid They May Be Forced to Give Back Prigorodny District to Ingushetia?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 26 – Perhaps the most faught territorial dispute in the North Caucasus concerns the Prigorodny District, then transferred to North Ossetia when Ingushetia was disbanded at the time of the 1944 deportation, but not returned to Ingushetia when that republic was re-established after the Ingush were allowed to return home in 1957. 

            The Ingush have always claimed it, and the dispute exploded into an armed conflict in 1992 in which almost 600 people were killed and 60,000 people forced to flee from their homes (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/81949/). Recently, more Ingush have been talking about getting it back (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/10/two-more-border-disputes-in-north.html).

            The nervousness in North Ossetia came out as a result of charges the government is seeking to bring against a blogger there who suggested that the region was in fact Ingush and, more significantly, that Vladikavkaz had compounded the problem by failing to develop that area lest any Ingush return (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/341581/).

                That simply highlights the reality, Artem Plato suggests, that the North Ossetian government either doesn’t view that land as its own or, what is more likely, fears that at some point it might have to give it back and doesn’t want to invest in a place that will ultimately belong to another republic. 

            Plato insists he has broken no Russian laws with his posts, but he says the criminal investigation he faces is a reflection of the fact that few Ossetians are willing to discuss the border let alone be open to the possibility that it might be changed.