Paul Goble
Staunton, July 20 – Daghestan, the largest Muslim republic in the North Caucasus, has suffered more combat losses in Ukraine than any other federal subject of the Russian Federation, twice more than it did during the decade of Soviet fighting in Afghanistan. And according to some reports, it is among the leaders in both draft resistance and the refusal of soldiers to fight.
In response to the latter developments, Ilya Davlyatchin of Verstka.Media reports, the Russian military has cracked down hard, regularly violating the rights of soldiers seeking to avoid having to take part in combat in Ukraine up to and including putting them in stockades without a court order (verstka.media/dagestan-otkazniki/).
But perhaps most seriously as far as the future is concerned, the military is marking the passports of those who seek to escape fighting in ways that will prevent them from getting jobs in the police or the government more generally, the primary reason many Daghestanis joint up and even sign contracts.
That will not only reduce the willingness of other Daghestanis to sign up to fight but it will create in that republic a group of very angry young men with military experience but without any obvious way to find a job or integrate into society. That has been a recipe for disaster in the past, and there is little reason to think that things have changed.
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