Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 10 – Ethnic Chechens living in Daghestan are demanding that the authorities live up to their promises and restore the ethnic district there they had before the 1944 deportation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/chechen-issue-in-daghestan-heats-up.html).
But both Moscow and Makhachkala are dragging their fear, fearful the restoration of any such region, even if stripped of two villages the Chechens want but that other nations now occupy, would entail unacceptable risks, according to a local activist speaking on condition of anonymity (kavkazr.com/a/zhitj-po-bratski-v-dagestane-vnovj-potrebovali-vosstanovitj-auhovskiy-rayon/32856852.html).
On the one hand, he says, the restoration of an ethnic Chechen region would both require the deportation from there of other groups and eat the same time establish a precedent that other nations inside Daghestan might then use as the basis for demands, something that could trigger violent clashes among these groups.
And on the other, restoring such a Chechen territory would give Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen republic, far greater ability to influence and even intervene in Daghestani affairs, a development he undoubtedly wants but that both the Kremlin and the republic leadership of Daghestan don’t.
At the same time, however, violating the promises of Moscow and Makhachkala to restore the Chechen territory in Daghestan by 2025 will lead to a radicalization of opinion among Chechens there and in Grozny and become the source of more violence, albeit from a different direction.
Thus, there is every likelihood that Daghestan, already the most restive republic in the Russian Federation, will become the site of inter-ethnic violence in the coming months, a development that both Moscow and Makhachkala will find it extremely difficult to cope with given their past promises and Grozny’s continuing interest.
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