Five Years after Moscow Moved ‘Like a Bulldozer’ against Ingush Demonstrators, Potential for New Protests Remains, Mutsolgov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 26 – This week marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of Moscow’s massive efforts to suppress Ingush protests against an illegal deal which handed over a large swath of the republic’s territory to Chechnya, but despite what Moscow has done, the potential for protest in Ingushetia remains, Magomed Mutsolgov says.

            The Ingush human rights activist says that “the Kremlin’s repressive machine has bulldozed through civil society and independent media. But despite the absurdity of what is happening, civil society across the country has been preserved … and Ingushetia is no exception” (fortanga.org/2024/03/buldozerom-proshlis-po-grazhdanskomu-obshhestvu-posledstviya-ingushskogo-protesta-po-proshestvii-pyati-let/).

            Socially conscious citizens and independent public and religious organizations still exist there, although because of repression, they have fewer opportunities to act now than they did in 2018, Mutsolgov says. But it would be wrong to think that the Kremlin has completely suppressed the possibility of new manifestations of popular anger.

            “No one knows,” he says, “when the patience of the population will end and mass protests will begin.”

            In reporting his Mutsolgov’s conclusion, the independent Fortanga news agency provides a summary of what happened since 2018 and the suppression of the Ingush protests in March 2010 and the radicalization of opinion there. For more on these developments, search for “Ingushetia” on windowoneurasia2.bogspot.com.