Syrian Events Seen Having Greater Impact on North Caucasus than Even War in Ukraine Has

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 9 – Putin’s war in Ukraine has had a profound impact on the North Caucasus because Moscow has drawn so many men from there to use as cannon fodder d. But the overthrow of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is likely to have an even greater impact on the region than the Ukrainian war, experts from the region say.
    The reasons for this, these experts, many speaking on condition of anonymity, are not only that many North Caucasians fought against Assad but also that there are numerous and significant North Caucasian diasporas in that country who remain in close touch with their homelands (kavkazr.com/a/blizkaya-istoriya-kak-na-severnom-kavkaze-reagiruyut-na-sverzhenie-rezhima-asada-v-sirii/33234398.html).
    Ruslan Kutayev, a Chechen political scientist, argues that “the overthrow of Assad is very important for the North Caucasus, both for the Chechens and for the republic itself. The news from Syria is not simply about some events of a distant Arab state. In that country, there are many young people from the North Caucasus” who fought the Assad regime.
    Consequently, he continues, “as strange as it may seem, the events in Ukraine are not  as close for young people [in Chechnya] as are the events in Syria” because “young people conceive the latter as something very close” because some of their number fought there, because Moscow has failed to successfully defend its client, and  because of the diasporas there.
    The North Caucasian diasporas in Syria are especially important because they link Syria to the North Caucasian peoples and involve not just the Circassians, who are the most numerous, but many other groups from that region as well. (For a useful survey of these groups and their activities, see kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/406502.)