Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 21 – Vladimir Putin’s
decision to disband the Ministry for the North Caucasus, an institution he set
up in 2014, appeared to open the way not only for even greater central control
over that region but also for the elimination in the near term of the other
regional ministry, the Ministry for the Development of the Arctic and Russian
Far East.
But at least one expert who is close
to the situation suggests that the Caucasus ministry was never close to the
region and that its demise may have a different set of consequences than might
appear at first blush to be likely. In fact, Olga Timofeyeva, the deputy
speaker of the Russian Duma, implies that things could work out differently.
She says that the ministry fulfilled
the tasks Moscow assigned it at the time of its creation and that now, a new
system of financing and launching national projects means that the time for
such ministries has passed. But at the
same time, she says, the regional ministry wasn’t really “regional” (capost.media/news/policy/ministerstva-po-delam-severnogo-kavkaza-bolshe-net/).
That is because both the men who
headed it, Lev Kuznetsov and Sergey Chebotaryev, not only were “not people from
this macro-region” but also led the ministry from Moscow “and therefore did not
understand the specifics of the Caucasus. These people sat 1500 to 2000 kilometers
from the regions and tried to solve the problems of the North Caucasus
republics.”
That shortcoming almost certainly
had nothing to do with Putin’s decision, and it is entirely possible that the
new bureaucratic arrangement he has established – the North Caucasus ministry
is to be absorbed into the Ministry for Regional Development – may make the
situation even worse for the regions.
But it is also possible that the regional
development ministry which has offices around the Russian Federation may be
more attentive to local people. And if that happens, the demise of the North
Caucasians’ “own” ministry could ultimately work to their benefit.
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