Ingush Plan to Give Returning Veterans Land Likely to Spark Unrest in that North Caucasus Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 12 – Many are worried about how returning veterans will act and the likelihood that they will spark a crime wave. But a plan by the Ingush government to give land to veterans and their families has the potential to do more than that and to trigger serious social and even political conflicts.

            Land in the Russian Federation’s smallest republic (except for the two capitals) has always been in short supply given the burgeoning population and contributed not just to conflicts among those with land and those without but also contributed to the rise of unrest as the losers blame the winners and seek to redress what they see as an unjust imbalance.

            Consequently, Ingush Republic head Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov’s announcement that he has already handed out more than 800 land parcels to veterans and their families and plans to distribute even more carries with it the risk that conflicts over land ownership, always a feature there, will intensify (fortanga.org/2026/01/v-ingushetii-semi-uchastnikov-vojny-v-ukraine-besplatno-poluchili-bolee-800-zemelnyh-uchastkov/).

            If as seems likely other republic governments in the land-short republics of the North Caucasus follow his lead, it is a virtual certainty that such actions will in one or more places lead to the kind of clashes that will fuel a new round of violence and unrest by people who may feel as many veterans now do untouchable by Russian law enforcement personnel.