Grozny Invoking Pandemic to Make Chechnya’s Border with Ingushetia Ever More Like One between Two Countries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 7 – Since July, Chechen authorities in the name of combatting the pandemic have blocked cars and trucks coming from Ingushetia; but local people say that Grozny has not introduced similar restrictions on vehicles entering Chechnya from other regions and republics, although restrictions on trucks from elsewhere have increased.

            Indeed, it appears that the pandemic has become a pretext for the Chechen government to make the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia more like one between two independent countries than between what are at least nominally two republics within the current borders of the Russian Federation (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/352814/).

            Border restrictions are affecting more than vehicles, Kavkaz-Uzel reports. People who live in one republic and had worked in the other now cannot go to work. That restriction has been in place for three months, people say. Moreover, Grozny has banned Chechen residents from leaving without special permission “even under exceptional circumstances” like funerals.

            Chechens who want to visit relatives in Ingushetia or Ingush who want to go in the opposite direction can avoid these restrictions by travelling to a third Russian federal subject and then crossing the border. But that is both time-consuming and expensive and further exacerbates tensions between the two republics that have been high since the 2018 land deal.

            Not only is Chechnya doing this unilaterally in violation of Russian law, but there is every indication that Grozny is using the pandemic merely as a pretext to inflict new damage on the Ingush republic and its people without doing the same with regard to the republic’s other neighbors.

            Such selectivity is offending many Ingush and raising questions among many Chechens, at least to judge from the multitude of comments the news agency provides.