Chechnya Pressuring Ingushetia to Yield Land Magas had Agreed to Give Grozny in 2018

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 10 – Six years ago, the former leadership of Ingushetia signed an agreement with Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov to give approximately ten percent of Ingushetia’s territory to Kadyrov’s republic. That deal sparked massive protests in Ingushetia that Magas worked hard to suppress.
    Ingushetia was punctilious in living up to the arrangement with one exception; and that exception now threatens to trigger a new round of protests in the republic. Magas has insisted on holding on to a park that contains numerous rare animal and plant rarities and cultural monuments that Grozny says is Chechnya's.
    Grozny has been pressing its case for at least two years apparently with the support of at least some in Moscow; but Magas has been resisting, arguing that federal laws on parks make it impossible for the Ingush authorities to do what the Chechen ones are insisting (fortanga.org/2024/12/vlasti-ingushetii-mogut-peredat-chechne-chast-zapovednika-erzi-istochniki/).
    Most of this back and forth has been going on behind the scenes, with only occasional leaks, followed in each case by denials from the other side. But if the conflict continues, it could create a new situation, one in which the Ingush people and the Ingush government would be united against a Chechen challenge.
    That could lead Kadyrov to try to use force to get in fact what he thought he had been given earlier; and any such effort could trigger a serious military conflict in the North Caucasus, one that could easily spread from between the two Vainakh peoples to a more general one involving Dagestan where there is a significant and restive Chechen population.