RUSSIA’S COUNTERINSURGENCY 

IN NORTH CAUCASUS: 

PERFORMANCE AND CONSEQUENCES

Ariel Cohen

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Carlisle Barracks, PA and

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Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

RUSSIA’S COUNTERINSURGENCY 

IN NORTH CAUCASUS:

PERFORMANCE AND CONSEQUENCES

The Strategic Threat of Religious Extremism

and Moscow’s Response

Ariel Cohen

March 2014

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ISBN 1-58487-606-9

iv
v

FOREWORD

The North Caucasus has been a source of instability 

for Russia ever since the Russian Empire brought the 

region under its control in the course of the late-18th 

and the first half of the 19th centuries. General Alexei 

Yermolov, a top Russian commander in North Caucasus, used inhumanely harsh methods to conquer the 

region and retain it under the Romanov crown’s control. Hundreds of thousands were ethnically cleansed, 

and many civilians murdered. 

In the Russian Civil War (1918-21), which took place 

right after World War I, the North Caucasus became a 

victim of both the tsarist White Army and the communist Red Army, who plundered the region and refused 

to give its peoples the rights they hoped to regain after 

the war was over. A little over 2 decades after that, the 

North Caucasus nations faced merciless deportations 

as a result of imaginary crimes they allegedly committed against the Soviet Union during World War 

II. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens and Ingush 

were ethnically cleansed and forcibly relocated to Kazakhstan’s frozen steppes, Central Asian deserts, and 

elsewhere. In the 1990s, Chechen demands for independence led to two devastating wars, which resulted 

in tens of thousands of casualties, destroyed cities and 

villages, and hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Today, the region reminds one of a simmering 

cauldron, and the issues that caused so much violence 

in the past have not been resolved. Russia has basically 

granted Chechnya a de facto independence, complemented by huge federal monetary subsidies, in order 

to prevent it from trying to claim de jure independence 

again. This strategy has so far been successful. However, the fragile stability in Chechnya is now based 
on the depth of the Kremlin’s pockets; the whims of 

the current Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov; and on 

appeasing the local population with federal money. 

How long this bargain between the Kremlin, Kadyrov, 

and the Chechen people will last remains to be seen. 

Ethnic Russians, tired of the cronyism and rigidity 

of their public institutions, watch with jealousy how 

much money the North Caucasian “aliens” keep getting from the federal budget. The nationalists march 

under the slogan “Enough feeding the Caucasus,” 

creating a deep fissure between citizens of the same 

country. Meanwhile, the nations of the North Caucasus lack a system that would allow people to freely 

pursue their personal aspirations. Due to poverty, 

high unemployment, and higher birth rates in the 

North Caucasus than in the rest of Russia, the problem 

is likely to get worse.

If the situation gets out of control, the consequences are hard to predict. The North Caucasus shares borders with similarly unstable South Caucasus, and has 

close ties to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with 

ramifications both in terms of terrorism and drug trafficking. Therefore, it is a shared interest of the United States, Europe, and Russia to make sure that the 

North Caucasus remains stable and does not become 

a breeding ground for terrorist activity both within 

Russia and abroad.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

vi
vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ariel Cohen is a recognized authority on international security and energy policy, and the rule of 

law. He is a leading expert in Russia/Eurasia, Eastern 

Europe, and the Middle East, and serves as a Senior 

Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and 

International Energy Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Dr. Cohen frequently testifies before committees 

of the U.S. Congress, including the Senate and House 

Foreign Relations Committees, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and 

the Helsinki Commission. Dr. Cohen regularly lectures 

at the request of U.S. Government institutions: the 

U.S. Department of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 

Training and Doctrine and Special Forces Commands 

of the U.S. armed services, the Central Intelligence 

Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He also 

conducts White House briefings and directs high-level 

conferences on international security, energy, the rule 

of law, crime and corruption, and a variety of other 

issues. Dr. Cohen consults for Fortune 500 companies 

and international law firms. He served as a Senior 

Consultant for Burson Marsteller’s Emerging Markets 

practice, a global public affairs firm, and for Emerging Markets Communications, a boutique strategic 

communications consultancy. He has prepared expert 

testimonies and/or testified in high-profile cases tried 

by leading Washington law firms; and wrote expert 

opinions for investors who are involved in multi-billion dollar suits against illegal expropriations in the 

countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Dr. Cohen 

was a Policy Adviser with the National Institute for 

Public Policy’s Center for Deterrence Analysis and has 

consulted for U.S. Agency for International Develop-
ment, the World Bank, the Pentagon, the U.S. Senate, 

and Radio Liberty-Radio Free Europe. Dr. Cohen is 

a member of the Editorial Board of Central Asia and 

the Caucasus (Stockholm) and is on the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, 

Endowment for Middle East Truth, and Jerusalem 

Center for Public Affairs. He is also a member of the 

Council of Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), and the American 

Council on Germany. Dr. Cohen has published six 

books and monographs, 30 book chapters, and over 

500 articles in professional and popular media. He appeared on CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX, C-SPAN, BBC-TV, 

Al Jazeera English, and all Russian and Ukrainian national TV networks. He was a commentator on a Voice 

of America weekly radio and TV show for 8 years. 

Currently, he is a Contributing Editor to The National 

Interest and a blogger for the Voice of America. For 8 

years, he wrote commentary columns for United Press 

International, Middle East Times, and has extensively 

written as a guest columnist for The New York Times, 

International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, 

The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, EurasiaNet, and National Review Online. 

In Europe, his analyses have appeared in Kommersant; Izvestiya; Hurriyet; the popular Russian website, 

Ezhenedelny Zhurnal; and many others.

viii
ix

SUMMARY

This monograph examines the underlying issues 

behind the continuing low-level Islamist insurgency 

movement in the Russian North Caucasus. It begins 

by analyzing the history of relations between the Russian and the North Caucasus nations, focusing specifically on the process of subjugating the region by the 

Russian Empire. Since the 18th century, Russia has 

used brutal force to expand territorially to the Caucasus. The mistreatment of the North Caucasus continued after World War I and especially during and after 

World War II, when entire North Caucasus nations 

faced persecution and forcible deportations to remote 

parts of the Soviet Union—in which up to 30 percent 

of the exiles perished. Thus, the Russians planted the 

seeds of resentment and hatred toward them that persist to the present time.

These tragic events lie at the heart of the grudges 

the Chechens, the Ingush, the Circassians, and other 

North Caucasus nations feel against the Russians. 

Right after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe 

and the breakup of the Soviet Union, these grudges 

came to the surface. Chechnya tried to break free from 

what the Chechens considered occupation of their 

lands by the infidel Russians. Its attempt was suppressed in two wars so as to preserve the territorial 

integrity of the Russian Federation.

The First Chechen War lasted from 1994 to 1996 

and revealed a startling lack of combat readiness of 

the Russian military. However, Russia learned military lessons from the botched 1994-96 campaign and 

handily won the Second Chechen War of 1999-2000. 

Both Chechen wars resulted in tens of thousands of 

casualties (both military and civilian) and hundreds of 

thousands of refugees.
After the wars, Moscow used vast funds to rebuild 

Chechnya materially, but the grudges of the people 

have remained. Stability in Chechnya now depends 

on the current Kremlin-appointed Chechen president, 

Ramzan Kadyrov. Moscow continues to allocate significant federal funds for Chechnya and turns a blind 

eye to local corrupt practices, which are often a direct 

violation of the Russian federal law.

Without immediate, thorough, and concerted 

international action, the challenges that the North 

Caucasus presents to the world may grow into major problems. The United States must engage its allies 

and work with Russia to strengthen its border security, invigorate law enforcement and counterterrorist 

cooperation with national and international agencies, 

counter Islamist propaganda, improve intelligence capabilities, and appeal for international cooperation to 

eliminate the financial support of terrorism that helps 

North Caucasus militant groups flourish.

x
1

RUSSIA’S COUNTERINSURGENCY 

IN NORTH CAUCASUS:

PERFORMANCE AND CONSEQUENCES

The Strategic Threat of Religious Extremism

and Moscow’s Response

The Russian North Caucasus, including the Republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia, is 

transforming into a dangerous, ungovernable area in 

which global Islamic terrorism thrives. After conventional military operations of 1994-96 and 1999-2000 

ended, the region has become a nexus for spreading 

global jihadi violence, as the attack on the Boston 

Marathon by the Tsarnaev brothers demonstrated. 

Al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri called the North Caucasus “one of three primary fronts in the war against 

the West”1

—something many in the West, including 

United States, have not noticed. This is a threat not 

just to Russia, but also to Europe—and global stability. While Russia and North Caucasian peoples had 

endured war, violence, and upheaval since the 1700s, 

the region’s unprecedented emergence as a center of 

global Islamic terrorism is a recent phenomenon that 

started in the mid-1990s.

Terrorism as a tactic among North Caucasusbased Islamist groups is a recent trend but has swiftly 

catapulted into the primary form of violence against 

Russia and the global Salafi-jihadi movement’s international targets. The radical North Caucasus groups 

include Jamaat Shariat (the Dagestani Front of the 

Caucasus Emirate’s Armed Forces), Yarmuk Jamaat 

(the Armed Forces of the United Vilayat [Province] 

of Kabarda-Balkaria-Karachai), Ingush Jamaat, Riyyadus Salihin headed by Amir Khamzat, and Doku 
2

Umarov’s Caucasus Emirate, established in 2007 and 

declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department on May 26, 2011.2

 The goals of these groups 

include: 1) discourage Russian authorities from fighting the terrorists, who have a “long-war” strategy to 

bog down their adversaries with attacks on military 

and civilian targets; 2) spread Islamist ideology “by 

example” and recruit North Caucasus youth for the 

“holy war” against Russia as well as for global jihad; 

and, 3) fight to create the “Caucasus emirate” (Imarat 

Kavkaz). The latter is a self-proclaimed state entity 

that would stretch over the entire North Caucasus. Its 

main goal is to secede from Russia and form an independent state, ruled by Sharia law.

Terrorism in the North Caucasus was pioneered by 

the Chechen fighters in the 1990s, when forces commanded by Shamil Basayev executed Pervomaysk and 

Budyonnovsk attacks. In Budyonnovsk in June 1995, 

195 terrorists led by Basayev took around 1,500 civilians hostage in the village in the Stavropol District. As 

a result of the attack, 129 people were killed and 415 

injured. The operation was a success for the terrorists, 

who released the hostages after Moscow granted them 

a safe passage to Chechnya. In Pervomaysk in January 1996, a group of rebel fighters took 36 policemen 

hostage while trying to cross the nearby border into 

Chechnya. They managed to escape the several-day 

siege of the village conducted by the Russian military and made it to Chechnya, albeit with significant 

casualties (153 out of several hundred rebel fighters 

were killed).3

The astonishing Dubrovka Theater siege in 2002, 

the 2005 Beslan school massacre, and the 2011 Domodedovo Airport bombing represent the extent to which 

North Caucasian terrorists are ready to fight and kill 
3

for global jihad. However, it appears that the Islamist 

fighters adjust their tactics and occasionally respond 

to public criticism. For instance, Doku Umarov has 

publicly stated that he ordered his fighters to stop civilian attacks.4

 He justified the order by stating that 

Russian civil society does not support the Putin regime and is its hostage in the same way as the Chechen fighters are for their independence. Nevertheless, 

the threat to Russia and the world, including civilians, 

remains severe.

In order to provide adequate policy, military, and 

security solutions, U.S. military planners and security providers should understand the history, geography, politics, and religious conflicts that are pertinent to the issue at hand. This is what this monograph 

attempts to accomplish.

HISTORY OF WARFARE AND 

COUNTERINSURGENCY ALONG RUSSIA’S 

CAUCASUS BORDERLANDS

Russia and the nations of the Northern Caucasus 

have been in perpetual conflict since the 18th century, 

when Russia’s military under Catherine the Great annexed the region into the Russian Empire. From the 

first Russian invasions of the area in the early 18th

century through the Caucasian War of 1817 to 1864, 

historians and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy (the author of Hadji Murat, a short novel) have depicted the 

numerous battles between the Russians and the nations that make up the Caucasus and their complex 

relationships.5

 Tolstoy writes: 

The red-haired Gamzalo was the only one Loris-Melikov [a Russian official, A.C.] did not understand. He 
4

saw that that man was not only loyal to Shamil but 

felt an insuperable aversion, contempt, repugnance, 

and hatred for all Russians, and Loris-Melikov could 

therefore not understand why he had come over to 

them. It occurred to him that, as some of the higher 

officials suspected, Hadji Murad’s surrender and his 

tales of hatred of Shamil [the rebel commander, A.C.] 

might be false, and that perhaps he had surrendered 

only to spy out the Russians’ weak spots that, after 

escaping back to the mountains, he might be able to 

direct his forces accordingly. Gamzalo’s whole person 

strengthened this suspicion.6

Imperial Russia and subsequently the Soviet Union 

have had a substantial impact on the history, identity, 

and development of the entire Caucasus. Tsarist Russia needed North Caucasus to secure its connections 

to and the rule over Southern Caucasus, to establish a 

bridgehead against the Ottoman Empire and Iran, and 

to extend its Black Sea coastline. To capture Northern 

Caucasus, Russia used extensive military force, ethnic 

cleansing, agricultural colonization, and oppression 

to force the local Islamic tribes under its rule.7

However, since the first battles in the 18th century 

through the present day, Russia has failed to fully and 

effectively suppress the separatist tendencies of the 

Northern Caucasian peoples, who have maintained 

their culture, language, Islamic religion, and therefore, a distinct and at times hostile identity from Slavic 

Orthodox Russians.

Islam has been an integral part of Northern Caucasian identity since the late-7th century,8

 when 

Arab conquerors first introduced it to the region. Some 

local tribes adopted the religion later than others. The 

first to do so were those in Dagestan, specifically the 

Avars and Lezgins, and this slow Islamization lasted 
5

from roughly the 8th to the 12th centuries. Chechens 

were much later, adopting Islam during the 15th and 

16th centuries, while the nations of the Western part 

of the North Caucasus finally did so 2 centuries later.9

Meanwhile, their southern neighbors Georgia and 

Armenia continued to follow the Christian Orthodox 

tradition, each having its own autocephalous Church. 

For an illustration of ethnic divisions in North Caucasus, see Map 1.

Map 1. North Caucasus Ethnic Divisions.10
6

Despite elements of paganism among the tribes, 

and Islam not being as fundamentalist as in other areas, Islam was and remains a significant factor that 

helped unify the many diverse ethnic groups of the 

fragmented region. As seen on Map 1, the Caucasus is 

home to a variegated collection of tribes, nations, and 

cultures that have lived in a small area for centuries 

with continuous intertribal strife and limited interethnic mixing. Each of the empires, Russian, Ottoman, 

Iranian, and Mongol, that have occupied the region 

left visible legacies.

Russia’s Use of Overwhelming Force.

In order to open military maneuver space in the 

South Caucasus, Black Sea area, and to prepare bridgeheads for the onslaught against the declining Ottoman 

Empire, Russian imperial forces began their invasions 

of the North Caucasus starting in the 18th century and 

continuing into the 19th century. The imperial Army 

and the Cossacks primarily used brutal, overwhelming force that resulted in the complete devastation of 

villages and towns with high numbers of deaths and 

refugees.11

During the Caucasus war, General Alexei Petrovich Yermolov, the most prominent Russian general 

in the field, used the tactic of carrots and sticks. As 

a stick to punish Chechen rebels committing crimes 

against the Russians, he used ethnic cleansing, burned 

down villages, and cut down forests. He would order 

attacks even if he knew that Russian losses would be 

significant. Yermolov punished the rebellious Chechens by burning their villages, destroying their forces, 

beating them in skirmishes that never developed into 
7

battles, and, occasionally even seeking to win them 

over by an unwanted display of clemency.12

He writes in his memoirs:

In order to punish the Chechens who were constantly 

robbing villages, . . . I wanted to turn them out of the 

Aksayev lands, which they inhabited. . . . I knew that 

attacking their villages in hardly accessible and forest 

areas would lead to significant casualties on our side, 

if the villagers did not remove their wives, children 

and property first; they always protect these desperately, and only an example of an horror can induce 

them to do so.13

Yermolov also used the “scorched earth” approach, burning all occupied territories to ashes in 

order to prevent the deported population from being 

tempted to recolonize the places they once inhabited. 

Hostile tribes were pushed high into the mountains 

where many starved, while others were forced to settle in Russian-controlled lowlands. These tactics gave 

Russia the upper hand and facilitated the subjugation 

of the North Caucasus peoples. With these actions, 

Yermolov and his disciples planted the seeds of future 

hatred between the highlanders of the Caucasus and 

the Russians.

Yermolov also made use of carrots, attempting to 

lure the local elites to the Russian side through various 

gifts and concessions. The local elites were recruited to 

serve the Russians, and were given salaries as if they 

represented the Russian leadership in the areas they 

controlled.14 Cooptation of and cooperation with local 

ethnic elites was a cornerstone of the Russian empire 

in general. In other words, Russian leadership used 

their counterparts from the ethnic groups they came 

to dominate to ensure metropolitan rule.
8

Another tactic worth mentioning is the frequent 

use of abatises (Rus. zaseki). These were obstacles 

formed with the branches of trees laid in a row, with 

the sharpened ends directed toward the enemy. The 

trees are usually interlaced or tied with wire. I. Drozdov, a contemporary Russian officer, writes that the 

Russian troops built abatises immediately upon arriving at the location of their temporary camp.15 Once the 

highlanders attacked these defensive obstacles, they 

became an easy target for Russian shooters hidden 

behind them.

Yet, the highlanders fought back. Imam Shamil, a 

political and religious leader of the Muslim tribes of 

the North Caucasus, put up the most fierce resistance 

against the powerful Russian army for 25 years (1834-

59). Initially, he tried to avoid direct battles with the 

Russian forces as he recognized that his position was 

not sound enough, and he did not wish to waste lives. 

Instead, he concentrated on solving internal problems, 

and for a period of time he was able to concentrate 

his power and avoid major confrontations with the 

Russian forces. Vladimir Degoyev, a Russian historian and a contemporary scholar of North Caucasus 

history, quotes Shamil, who described his hit-and-run 

tactics as “hare’s run.”16 Over time, the radical members of the imamate intensified pressure on Shamil to 

revise these tactics and become more aggressive. 

In the early-1840s, Shamil’s charismatic leadership 

allowed him to mobilize an army of more than 10,000 

men within days. This newly realized strength, combined with the pressure from the local elite, motivated 

Shamil to abandon the “hare’s run” approach and 

take advantage of the momentum to initiate broad 

offensive actions against the Russians. He hurried 

to consolidate his gains and conquer new territories. 

He led the war against the Russians as razziya, a holy 
9

war in the name of Allah (also known as armed jihad 

or the holy war), and known by its Russian/Caucasus equivalent term, gazavat. By proclaiming liberation from the oppression of the infidel, Shamil facilitated the consolidation of his power over his newly 

conquered lands.

Vladimir Degoyev writes:

He [Shamil] . . . had a character that could not be impressed by personal material benefits, which so much 

satisfied other rulers with not so much integrity and 

which were something that could be traded with Russia. Because of this very reason, it was incomparably 

easier for Russia to deal with feudal lords than to deal 

with Shamil. Political, state, ideological and cultural 

conceptions of Shamil and Russia diverged completely, leaving no space for an effective compromise. Russia was an obstacle for Shamil, just like Shamil was an 

obstacle for Russia.17

Unlike the Russian wars with Turkey and Iran, 

wars with Shamil were more difficult, due to his unexpected tactics deemed “barbarian” by the Russians. 

Degoyev writes that the more the Russian generals 

adhered to the conventional tactics they were taught, 

the more losses they suffered. Shamil forced the Russians to fight an unconventional war, to which they 

had trouble adapting. His military talent was based on 

taking advantage of the unique flexibility of his troops 

and on understanding the impossibility of defeating 

the Russians in an open battle. Despite the impression 

that Shamil’s tactics lacked coherence, he always had 

a plan that took into account the peculiarities of each 

battle, especially the terrain. He usually attacked the 

flanks and the rear first, avoiding head-on clashes.

Shamil also paid due attention to defense. He built a 
10

series of defensive posts, each of which was meant to 

weaken and exhaust the enemy.

Examples of such tactical successes include the 

Ichkerinsky Battle in 1842 and the Battle of Dargo in 

May and June 1845. The Ichkerinsky Battle took place 

from May 30 to June 2, and the Chechens used tactics 

of “loose formation” (Rus. rassypnoy stroy) and “migrating artillery,” consisting mostly of captured cannons.18 The Russians tried to take advantage of the fact 

that the main forces of Imam Shamil were in Dagestan at that time. Nevertheless, the Russians under the 

command of Adjutant-General Pavel Grabbe had to 

withdraw after losing 66 officers.

In the Battle of Dargo, Shamil and the highlanders again avoided direct clashes with the Russians. 

They constructed a series of fortifications, which gave 

them time to fire at the enemy as they were overcoming each obstacle. These tactics increased the number 

of Russian casualties but were insufficient to keep the 

Russians out of Dargo. On July 6, 1845, Dargo was 

conquered by the Russians.19 Before abandoning the 

city, they burned it to the ground.

During the 17th to the 19th centuries, the flatlands 

north of the Terek River gradually came under control of the Cossack settlements and the Russian military.20 While the Russians were able to inflict serious 

damage, the mountainous terrain south of the Terek 

proved very difficult for the imperial military. Chechen and forces of other nations resisting the Russians 

could hide and organize in the mountains while defending themselves from the advancing forces. This 

enabled the North Caucasus to battle the Russian invasion forces long after the annexation of Georgia in 

1801, Armenia in the early-1810s, and Azerbaijan in 

the late-1820s.21
11

Beyond military subjugation, the Russian Empire 

did not have a cohesive strategy to introduce the Russian culture through “soft-power” means that would 

seek to attract peoples of the Caucasus to their orbit.

Instead, in parts of the region, the main goal of the 

Russian leadership was to “liberate” the Caucasus 

from the local indigenous people via ethnic cleansing.22 New Russian settlements were built on the territories emptied by the advancing forces. These settlements were to serve as a means of an eventual full 

Russification of the region and for further penetrating 

into the mountainous territories.

In order to secure the area around the settlements, 

large amounts of forests were cut down, forcing the 

locals to abandon their comfortable living areas in the 

lowlands. As I. Drozdov, a Russian officer and eye 

witness, wrote in 1877:

In late February [1864] the Pshekh battalion moved to 

the river of Marte in order to observe how the mountain dwellers were being deported, and, if necessary, 

in order to evict them by force. . . . The view was atrocious: scattered corpses of children, women and elders, torn, eaten by dogs; migrants exhausted by famine and diseases, who could barely move, kept falling 

on the ground out of exhaustion, being eaten alive by 

hungry dogs. . . . On May 28, 1864, the Caucasian war 

was over. The Kuban Oblast’ [roughly corresponding to today’s Krasnodar Kray–A.C.] was conquered 

as well as “cleansed.” Only a handful of people were 

left out of a formerly large population that once lived 

there.23

Russia had limited means to introduce the Christian Orthodox religion as a meaningful alternative to 

Islam, since the Caucasian ethnic groups, and especially their leaders, used Islam as a unifying force against 
12

the Russians. Thus, the highlander tribes would never 

accept the Russian Orthodox Church, as it was the 

faith of the “infidel enemy.”24

With a limited “soft-power” tool box, tsarist Russia had to rely on violence and the destruction of the 

North Caucasus tribes to control the region. Though 

they managed to colonize the region outright, military 

power never fully extinguished the desire among indigenous peoples to shake off the Russian yoke. One 

of the North Caucasus nations that was a victim of the 

Russian expansionary policy was the Circassians. The 

tragedy of the Circassians was that they were unable 

to unite against the common enemy. The 12 stars on 

the current flag of Adygea symbolize the 12 original 

Circassian tribes, although their real number was allegedly even higher.25 A prince led each tribe, and the 

number of internal disputes among the tribes was significant. Their divisiveness determined the outcome 

of their war against the Russian forces. Having lost, 

entire Circassian clans were forced to flee their homeland, and most of them did not survive. They either 

drowned in the sea on their way to Anatolia when the 

overloaded Turkish boats sank, or died from hunger 

and diseases in relocation camps.26

It is worth noting that Russia was not the only 

power that used harsh methods to enlarge its territory 

and subjugate the people that lived along its perimeter or in the colonies. The 19th century was one of 

struggle of large powers for dominance, and similar 

approaches were used by other empires, such as the 

British, French, Ottoman, as well as the expanding 

United States.
13

AFTER WORLD WAR I

Following World War I and during the Russian 

Civil War (1918-21), Chechnya initially supported 

tsarist forces. However, later it switched sides and 

supported the Bolsheviks. The reason for this was a 

series of myopic mistakes made by General Anton Denikin, the commander of the anti-communist (White) 

southern Russian forces, in his treatment of the North 

Caucasus nations. First, Denikin ignored the level of 

alienation and the atheism the Bolsheviks imposed on 

the traditional life of the Muslim highlanders. Second, 

blinded by the imperialism permeating other tsarist 

generals (“Russia one and undivided”), Denikin and 

his men turned the highlander peoples against them.27

The White forces myopically viewed this strategy as 

a new conquest of the Caucasus, which did not allow for alliances with the local Chechen and Ingush 

leadership, who initially were willing to fight the Red 

Army on the side of the Whites. 

Practical actions of Denikin only intensified the 

alienation of the North Caucasus people from the 

White army. He punished the Chechens and wanted them to “pay back” for all losses suffered by 

the Don and Kuban Cossacks, who fought on the 

tsarist side. Both the Chechens and the Ingush responded with a fierce resistance and expelled Denikin’s forces from the area. Other strategic mistakes 

added to the Chechen and Ingush defiance. Just 

like Yermolov more than half a century before him, 

Denikin made use of “scorched earth” tactics, which 

further alienated the North Caucasian nationalities.28

The new Soviet leadership made its own mistakes 

in the North Caucasus. It was openly hostile toward 

Islam, rudely ignored the mountaineers’ traditions 
14

and used the total expropriation approach of “military 

communism” that existed in Russia in 1918–21.29 They 

provided for the abolition of private banks, nationalization of industry, central planning, government monopoly on commerce, equal distribution of material 

goods, and mandatory labor.30 This approach of the 

Communists quickly cooled down the enthusiasm of 

the mountaineers, who initially welcomed the arrival 

of the Red Army. However, despite their mistakes, the 

Soviets were willing, at least on paper, to grant them a 

certain level of autonomy, proclaimed in the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia.31 Despite 

their promises, disillusionment with the Red dictatorship set in quickly.

Stalin Cracks Down.

During the time of the Russian Civil War (1918-21) 

and the establishment of the Soviet Union (1922), the 

Red Army crushed the Caucasian revolt with mercilessness similar to that of the Tsar. After the defeat 

of the White Armies, including the ones of the Don 

and the Kuban Cossacks, the Soviet Union retained 

ethnic Russians’ dominance over the region using the 

new military technologies of World War I: tanks, airpower, modern artillery, and chemical weapons. The 

Caucasus tribes, on the other hand, were primarily using the same weapons they had in the 18th and 19th 

centuries.32

Then an ethnic Georgian, Joseph Stalin, born Iosif 

(Soso) Djugashvili in the Georgian town of Gori, became, first, the Commissar for Nationalities, and then 

the leader of the Soviet Union. The peoples of the 

Caucasus entered into a new chapter of relations with 

Moscow that would soon see their nations torn out at 

the roots.
15

As World War II raged, Stalin accused Northern Caucasus peoples, especially Chechens, Ingush, 

Karachays, and Balkars (as well as Kalmyks and 

Crimean Tatars), of treason against the state and alleged collusion with the Nazis, despite the lack of 

any credible evidence.33Although many Caucasian 

highlanders fought valiantly in the Red Army in 

World War II, Stalin punished even veterans, their 

families, and their nations with death, imprisonment, and brutal relocation to Siberia and Central 

Asia. In this ethnic cleansing, up to one-third of 

Chechens died.

The operation aimed at deporting the Chechens 

and the Ingush from their homes in the North Caucasus, called Operation LENTIL, started in February 

1944. According to a cable sent to Stalin by Beria, who 

personally supervised the expulsion, 478,479 Chechens and Ingush were deported within the first week 

of the operation.34 The data on the total number of deported people vary. A cable sent to Stalin in July 1944 

states that 602,193 people were moved from the North 

Caucasus into the Kazakh and Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist 

Republics, most of whom were Chechens and Ingush 

(428,948), followed by Karachays (68,327) and Balkars 

(37,406). Another cable lists the total number of deported Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, and Karachays as 

650,000.35

The excuse and formal justification to undertake 

these deportations varied from nation to nation, but 

were of a similar nature. For instance, the Karachays 

were accused of “treacherous behavior, joining German-organized battalions in order to fight the Soviet 

leadership, betraying honest Soviet citizens to the Germans, accompanying the German troops and showing 

them the way. . .”36 After the end of the war, they were 
16

accused of “resisting Soviet actions,” and “hiding bandits and German agents.” Kalmyks were charged with 

“betraying the Motherland, joining German battalions 

in order to fight the Red Army, betraying honest Soviet 

citizens to the Germans, and giving the Germans communal cattle from the Rostov Oblast and Ukraine.” 

Similarly to the Karachays after the war the Kalmyks 

were accused of “actively resisting Soviet efforts of rebuilding the economy destroyed by the Germans” and 

“terrorizing the surrounding population.”37 Crimean 

Tatars were allegedly guilty of “treacherous actions 

against the Soviet nation.”38

Like his tsarist predecessors, in the place of the 

“punished” groups, Stalin resettled ethnic Russians in 

order to dominate the indigenous ethnicities through 

demographic warfare rather than conventional warfare alone. Since the Soviet Union mandated an atheist society, the Kremlin also cracked down on Islam, 

cutting ties with overseas institutions of learning and 

banning Hajj. Stalin’s idea was to change North Caucasian tribal and Islamic civilization and culture to 

the socialist realist fare the rest of the country was already experiencing. The communist party shut down 

mosques, hounded mullahs, destroyed Buddhist monasteries of the Kalmyks, and murdered or imprisoned 

the lamas.

After Nikita Khrushchev’s recognition of Stalin’s 

atrocities and the “cult of personality,” he allowed 

exiled Chechen, Ingush, and others to return to their 

native lands from the exile as a part of Khrushchev’s 

“thaw” policies during his reign. While many (but not 

all) returned to their ancestral homelands, they still 

were unable to fully practice their religion and some of 

their cultural traditions due to the restrictions placed 

on all Soviet citizens. As a result, the remnants of their 
17

customs went underground; however, as tribal elders 

found great difficulty in transferring their traditions 

and practices to the young, after repatriation in 1956-

57, North Caucasus became bereft of cultural and religious leaders who would preserve the Islamic Sufi 

tradition during post-Stalinist Soviet period.39 This 

religious and cultural vacuum in the region became 

fertile grounds for the new Salafi forms of Islam that 

infiltrated North Caucasus in 1990s, and encountered 

little competition from the traditional, moderate forms 

of Islam.40

COLLAPSE OF THE UNION OF SOVIET 

SOCIALIST REPUBLICS AND THE FIRST 

CHECHEN WAR (LATE-1980s TO 1994)

During the last years of the Soviet Union through 

the early years of the Russian Federation, Chechnya 

and Dagestan showed the most prolific renaissance of 

Islam and nationalism among all the Northern Caucasus. With the Soviet ideological control beginning 

to disappear, most people in the region revived their 

sense of religious, ethnic, and cultural identity, which 

had existed before the USSR. One reason for the quick 

rise in nationalism and the quest for independence 

was the impact of the tsarist oppression and Stalinist 

expulsions. Though not the only ethnic group to suffer 

from ethnic cleansing by the Romanoff empire or Soviet Russia, the Chechen leadership of the early-1990s 

consisted of figures who were born and/or raised in 

exile in Kazakhstan—and bore the grudge.41

Nationalism and the bitter memories that united 

the Chechen people against the Moscow-based Russian 

government created the strong yearning for Chechen 

independence, while other Caucasian republics were 
18

less rebellious. In addition, from the 1980s through the 

1990s, Islam was going through a renaissance. All of 

the North Caucasus republics experienced an increase 

in Islamic activity, partly as a result of “glasnost” and 

the Russians’ inability to regulate religion and partly 

due to opening of the borders to outgoing and incoming religiously-related travel, including Hajj and 

study abroad.42

New forms of Islam, however, had origins outside 

of the region. The newly introduced Salafi/Wahhabi 

sects were radical and had roots in Saudi Arabia and 

in Salafism throughout the Middle East and Pakistan. 

These imported religious teachers were well-financed, 

and their following drew on the fanaticism and enthusiasm of the separatists, ready to use force and 

faith to achieve their goals. Initially, most of North 

Caucasus society, especially the elders, rejected these 

Islamist imports. They had no desire to adopt novel 

forms of Islam built on radicalism that would seek to 

overhaul the traditions that the region had fought to 

uphold for generations and sought to preserve and to 

resurrect. Meanwhile, many younger people had little 

knowledge and appreciation of the historical connections between themselves and their heritage, which 

made them vulnerable to radical Islam’s influence 

and appeal.43

In the early-1990s, the socio-economic situation 

in the Soviet Union/Russia and the Northern Caucasus sharply deteriorated, undermining the hopes for 

a peaceful and prosperous post-Soviet future while 

quietly integrating into post-communist Russian Federation. The chaotic disintegration of the Soviet Union 

led to the independence of 14 republics and to the creation of the Russian Federation under the leadership 

of Boris Yeltsin.
19

In the South Caucasus, the former Soviet Socialist 

Republics of the USSR, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan became independent states in 1991. The North 

Caucasus region consisted of Autonomous Soviet 

Socialist Republics (ASSRs), which were subordinate 

to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic 

(RSFSR). When the Soviet Union dissolved, Moscow 

would not authorize these nations, which constituted 

autonomous republics, to create sovereign states.44

As a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union, 

Moscow witnessed the loss of its empire, including 

regions that had both a geostrategic value and were 

considered legitimately under Russian control due to 

decades spent conquering them. President Yeltsin and 

the majority of Russian elites, including liberals and 

nationalists, believed that further losses of Russian 

territory to secession of various national-territorial autonomous republics could bring about the disintegration of the Russian historic core. Needing to preserve 

what was left of the “Motherland,” Yeltsin could not 

afford to yield independence to any rebel territory. 

His famous phrase, “take as much sovereignty as you 

can carry away,” applied to pacific lands, willing to 

patiently and peacefully negotiate disagreements, 

such as Tatarstan, not the rebel Chechnya.45

Thus, Russia’s approach to post-Soviet Chechnya has been a mix of modern strategic goals of state 

preservation and resistance to centrifugal processes, 

together with obsolescent military tactics of overwhelming, imprecise fire power, ham-handed counterinsurgency, and roots dating back to the Caucasus 

wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet 

Union, former Soviet Air Force general Dzhokhar Dudayev, an ethnic Chechen, was elected president of 
the Autonomous Republic of Chechnya on October 

27, 1991, which remained a part of the new Russian 

Federation. He gained 90.1 percent of the votes,46 although his opponents accused him of falsifying the 

results. Upon witnessing the independence of former 

Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe and Union republics, some of them smaller than Chechnya, Dudayev 

declared Chechnya independent as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria immediately upon his election.47

With the Chechen declaration of independence and 

the Russian resistance, both sides reverted to an active 

state of hostility. On November 8, Yeltsin issued a decree declaring a state of emergency in Chechnya. In 

1992, Russia and the Chechen separatists held several 

rounds of fruitless talks dedicated to the normalization of relations. The year 1993 can be characterized by 

the Kremlin’s confrontation with the rebellious antiYeltsin parliament, making integration impossible. 

After a period of a de facto Chechen independence in 

1991–94, in the fall of 1994 Yeltsin and his administration refocused on the North Caucasus. In December 

1994, Moscow re-invaded Chechnya.

The First Chechen War (1994-96).

The conditions at the beginning of the First Chechen War were similar to many cases of decolonization 

worldwide. The metropolis was weakened by internal 

strife, while the peripheral elite desired to shake loose 

the imperial chains. Relations between Chechnya and 

Russia were contentious. Svante E. Cornell points out 

that the Chechen military elite was not interested in a 

negotiated dialogue with Moscow to create a compromise that would allow Chechnya to live in peaceful 

coexistence within the Russian Federation.48 In fact, 

20
21

other Muslim-majority regions like Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and many of the North Caucasian republics 

managed to come to agreements with President Yeltsin on their constitutional status.49 Several reasons can 

explain this difference. First, compared to the other 

Russian republics, Chechnya’s population is highly 

homogenous. According to the 2002 census, the share 

of Chechens was 93.5 percent.50 In contrast, only 52.9 

percent of the population of Tatarstan was Tatars and 

almost 40 percent were Russians. Similarly, in Bashkortostan, the largest ethnic group in 2002 was the 

Russians (36.1 percent), followed by the Bashkirs (29.5 

percent) and Tatars (25.4 percent). Russians in Dagestan constituted only 4.7 percent of the population in 

2002. However, the population of Dagestan does not 

have a majority ethnic group, but instead is made up 

of several main nationalities, such as the Avars (29.4 

percent), Dargyns (16.5 percent), and Kumiks (14.2 

percent). It was more difficult for the non-Russian 

populations of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and most 

other republics of the RSFSR to organize strong movements for independence, since they did not have a 

dominant ethnic group as a secessionist support base.

Second, Chechen separatists were supported by 

outside forces. According to a Russian source, foreign 

mercenaries from 15 countries fought the Russian federal forces in the First Chechen War.51 In the Second 

Chechen War of 1999–2000, the number of the countries represented rose to 52. In 2000, the number of 

foreign mercenaries reached 600–700 people.

Third, the Chechen leadership was set against any 

deal with Russia. In his last interview, former Russian 

defense minister Pavel Grachev discusses how neither 

he nor Dudayev wanted war.52 Grachev says Dudayev 

must have reacted (by declaring independence), be-
22

cause Moscow flatly refused to talk to him, and in 

such a situation, the Chechen leadership and nation 

would reject Dudayev’s inaction. 

The majority of the Chechen elite believed that independence was the sole option, and that their people 

could live freely and peacefully only if they had a 

clean break from Russia.53 This enduring political philosophy among the Chechens was very similar to their 

unwillingness to compromise with imperial Russian 

forces, beginning with the first invasions in the 18th 

century and to their refusal to acquiesce to Russia’s 

occupation ever since. The Stalinist expulsions in the 

1940s and the attempted eradication of Islam in the 

region only confirmed what the Chechens believed for 

centuries: The Russians could not be relied upon to 

protect them and to ensure their freedom to live how 

they wish.

Nonetheless, the negotiations lasted from March 

1992 to January 1993, but the talks ultimately failed.54

The Kremlin then tried to implement a “coercive 

diplomacy” approach by adopting a more belligerent tone toward the Chechen leaders in an attempt 

to compel them to make a deal similar to their other 

Muslim counterparts, but these efforts also failed. In 

November 1994, the Russians tried to execute a coup 

against Dudayev, in part by organizing pro-Moscow 

Chechens to oust their leader.55 The attempted coup 

was a massive defeat for the Russians.

Before the war, Defense Minister Grachev made a 

failed attempt to transform the North Caucasus into 

a buffer military district meant to shield Russia from 

the instability in the South Caucasus. This step would 

mean sending the best battalions into the region. What 

happened in reality was the exact opposite. Most of 

the battalions moved to the North Caucasus were 
23

unprepared for the war and almost totally lost their 

fighting ability during the war. Trying to contain this 

negative trend, the military leadership tried to put together battalions that were still able to fight, but even 

this strategy turned out to be insufficient to defeat the 

Chechen guerilla fighters.

Following the series of failures, Moscow intensified its efforts. The Russian military leadership misinterpreted the Dudayev government’s lack of engagement with pro-Moscow Chechens as a weakness or a 

haplessness on the part of the separatists. They did 

not realize, according to Ilyas Akhmadov and Miriam Lanskoy et al., that the Chechens were hesitant to 

kill each other in the fear that this would spark blood 

feuds and vendettas between Chechen clans that had 

plagued the nation centuries before.56 Vendettas are a 

part of the tribal culture of the Caucasus Mountains.

In part, as a result of this miscalculation, Russian 

forces assumed that any incursion into Grozny would 

be easy and incur with minimal Russian casualties. 

They were wrong. For the ill-fated November 1994 

invasion, the Federal Counterintelligence Service had 

assembled elite tank squadrons for an attack on Grozny. Chechen forces ambushed them with ease and 

took many Russian soldiers as prisoners. This failure sparked criticism of then-defense minister Pavel 

Grachev, who had famously said that he would capture Grozny with one paratroops battalion in 2 hours.57

He later justified his statement by stating that it would 

really have been possible providing that he could fight 

by all the rules of warfare, meaning the availability 

of unlimited aviation, artillery, etc. In such case, he 

claimed, the remaining rebel fighter bands could have 

really been destroyed or captured with one airborne 

battalion. But this was an ex-post-facto justification.
24

The Russian reaction to the humiliating failure to 

capture Grozny was to boost its forces and essentially 

declare war, retake Chechnya, and restore Russian 

pride and control. The Russian assault on Grozny began in December 1994 and was met with heavy resistance from the Chechen forces on the ground. In order 

to engulf Chechnya in a “shock-and-awe” assault, the 

Russian military subjected Grozny and other major 

Chechen cities to an intense air bombardment that all 

but obliterated them, resulting in tens of thousands of 

civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees.58 They were the first Russian cities destroyed 

since World War II—and as utterly as the cities obliterated by the Nazis.

After 2 months of initial engagement, the Russian 

army conquered most of Chechnya and forced the 

separatists to flee into the southern mountains, where 

they regrouped.59 Despite Dudayev’s assassination 

in April 1996 by a Russian precision-guided missile, 

Chechen forces successfully recaptured Grozny from 

the Russians after a few days of fighting; both sides 

signed a cease-fire agreement known as the Khasavyurt Accord a few weeks thereafter.60

During this war, the Chechen rebels launched their 

first terrorist attack and hostage standoff on a hospital in Budyonnovsk in Stavopolsky Krai. The guerilla 

commando unit, led by Shamil Basayev, consisted of 

about 150 Chechen rebels. On June 14, 1995, the terrorists stormed the unguarded hospital and took 2,000 

hostages.61 The Russian Special Forces were called 

in the following day,62 and the operation to neutralize the rebels was launched on June 17. However, it 

failed to completely liberate the hospital. On June 18, 

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin negotiated with 

Basayev over the phone and accepted some of Ba-
25

sayev’s demands, including a safe passage to Chechnya. During the siege, 129 people died and 415 were 

injured.63 This is the earliest terrorist attack credited 

to the Chechens, and is believed to have reinvigorated the fight against the Russians.64 This is also the 

largest hostage taking event ever to occur in Russian 

territory.65

The Chechen Tactics.

An important figure that supported the Chechens 

in their separatist efforts against Moscow was Ibn alKhattab, a Saudi citizen who joined the Chechen war 

in late 1994. Khattab secured international financing 

of the separatists, procuring weapons and building 

terrorist preparation camps in Chechnya. One of the 

most important elements of the hostilities in Chechnya 

was a sniper war. Snipers were heavily relied upon 

on the Chechen side, and the Russian federal forces 

responded in the same way.

The Chechen separatists avoided direct contact 

with the Russian forces. They preferred operating in 

small units of three to five people.66 These units included a sniper, an rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) 

operator/grenade launcher, a machine gunner, and 

one or two submachine gunners. Their tactics were as 

follows: the main group opens fire at the federal forces, while a sniper, often hidden in a tree and shielded 

by the noise of the battle, neutralizes them. The separatists preferred short and frequent fire engagements 

to avoid casualties.

The tactics of “fighting troikas” (Rus. boyevaya 

troika) deserve special attention. It consisted of one 

sniper, one grenade launcher, and one submachine 

gunner. In a military operation, the gunner initiated 
26

the battle by opening fire at the enemy to provoke 

them to fire back. The sniper identified the sources 

of the enemy’s fire and destroyed them. Meanwhile, 

the grenade launcher destroyed armored vehicles and 

machinery. If the fighting troika was on the defense, 

it quickly ambushed the Russian forces and hid in the 

surrounding area. Once the Russian attack began, the 

separatists were able to shoot at the enemy soldiers 

from their hiding places only a short distance (100–150 

yards) away. Snipers targeted the Russian commanders and the most active soldiers in order to spread 

panic among the Russian troops.

The Chechens also widely used wounded Russian 

troops as “bait.” They intentionally did not kill them, 

but waited to ambush the Russian soldiers who came 

to help their wounded comrades. Once the number of 

the wounded Russian troops was large enough, the 

Chechens systematically killed them.

The Russians used a combination of carrots and 

sticks.67 The Russian leadership led an active campaign 

among the Chechen population, calling upon it to persuade the rebels to leave their villages. Meanwhile, the 

Russians kept taking control of high grounds around 

Chechen towns, which rendered any armed resistance 

meaningless. These tactics allowed the Russians to 

capture the towns of Argun, Gudermes, and Shali 

without fighting in 1995.

In battles, the Russians used massive fire barrages, 

which turned out to be a wrong strategy for the type 

of warfare they faced in Chechnya.68 Russian generals were using strategies that would be appropriate 

in a large-scale military operation with a clearly defined battlefront, but not for guerilla war in Chechnya. Chechen battalions were highly mobile; they kept 

splitting into smaller subunits, which later reunited. 
27

This Russian miscalculation, together with a superior 

knowledge of the mountain landscape, allowed the 

Chechens to avoid Russian artillery fire and air strikes. 

There was no clear battlefront, and the federal forces 

had to bomb civilian objects, causing noncombatant 

casualties and uniting the Chechen people against the 

Russian military. In other words, the Russians were 

repeating the mistakes of their 19th-century forefathers, American commanders in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan.

With the training that Chechen leaders received 

while in the Soviet military, including fighting in 

Afghanistan, the experiences some guerilla elements 

such as Shamil Basayev had in fighting on the Russian 

side against Georgians in Abkhazia and Armenians in 

Nagorno-Karabakh—together with the abundance of 

Soviet-era weaponry and better motivated troops—

gave Chechnya an advantage. Training provided by 

al-Qaeda and other affiliated militant Islamists also 

played an important role. For example, Shamil Basayev came to Afghanistan in 1994 and visited training camps in the province of Khost.69 He later received 

training by and was in regular contact with al-Qaeda. 

In total, several hundreds of Chechens were trained in 

al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and militant Islamist 

groups also financially supported the recruitment of 

fighters from neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Air power proved not to be the decisive factor expected to win the First Chechen War. The overreliance 

on air power and its failure led to the Russian troops 

being poorly supplied and trained, inadequately led, 

demoralized, exhausted, and disorganized. In One 

Soldier’s War, his memoir of Russian army life, Arkady 

Babchenko writes: 
28

We stopped caring for ourselves, no longer washed, 

shaved or brushed our teeth. After a week without 

soap and water, our hands cracked and bled continually, blighted by eczema in the cold. We hadn’t 

warmed ourselves by a fire for a whole week because 

the damp reeds wouldn’t burn and there was nowhere 

to gather firewood in the steppe. We began to turn 

wild as the cold and wet and filth drove from us all 

feelings apart from hatred, and we hated everything 

on earth, including ourselves.70

The Chechens used creative tactics to defeat the 

Russians in the city centers. As described in a RAND 

Corporation report by Arthur L. Speyer III, the Chechen strategy in the cities was a “textbook example of 

the modern urban guerilla.”71 In order to minimize casualties, the Russians would use tanks and air forces 

without infantry to bombard various buildings where 

rebels were believed to be hiding.72 Once Russian forces were deeply enmeshed in the city, the Chechens 

would attack from positions in buildings alongside 

the city streets, greatly relying on tried-and-tested 

Russian RPGs used in packs.73 The entrances to these 

buildings were barricaded from the inside, and the 

top floors were unoccupied so that air attacks would 

yield the least amount of Chechen casualties.74

The Russian command failed to fully take into account that even if the Chechens are forced to relinquish 

temporary control of their cities and plains, they were 

likely to recover while waiting out the enemy in the 

mountains and come back with a vengeance, utilizing 

their mountainous guerilla-style tactics.

The Chechens had a significant intelligence advantage because their leaders, including the Grozny 

city engineer, had been preparing for an invasion of 

the city for 2 years. Russian intelligence performed 
29

woefully, due to the lack of local sources and their 

inability to fight an enemy whose language and traditions the ethnic Slavs were not familiar with and 

whom they underestimated due to the darker hue of 

their skin. Using tanks and planes in lieu of infantry 

to storm each building led to the bogging down of 

the Russian operations and their ultimate withdrawal 

in 1996.

The First Chechen War was a spectacularly demoralizing defeat for the Russian political leadership and 

the Russian military, which itself was undergoing an 

identity crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The strategy included an overwhelming use of air 

power to destroy cities, kill and terrorize civilians, and 

demolish the power centers of the Chechen separatists. This approach was counterproductive because it 

caused severe civilian casualties and radicalized many 

of those who remained neutral or even supported remaining a part of Russia.

The Russian General Staff did not realize that the 

Chechens were trained by Islamist emissaries; the 

training would be expanded in the interwar period of 

1996-99 during the presidency of Aslan Maskhadov.

ASLAN MASKHADOV AND THE 

INTERWAR PERIOD

In 1997, Colonel Aslan Maskhadov, an ex-Soviet 

artillery officer who fought valiantly in the First 

Chechen War, was elected president of the separatist 

Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. This proved that the 

ordinary Chechens were tired of the war and hoped 

Maskhadov would be able to find a compromise with 

Moscow.75 Maskhadov, a talented and successful military commander, however, turned out to be a poor 
30

politician. He was a hostage of the interests of influential field commanders, such as Shamil Basayev and 

Salman Raduyev, whose resolve was stronger than 

Maskhadov’s. The centralized economy and social 

welfare system broke down for good. It was the right 

of the stronger and the closeness to the sources of financing from Moscow’s federal budget that had the 

ultimate deciding power.

As the president of Ichkeria, Maskhadov continued to think in military terms. He had to choose 

whether to ally himself with Akhmad Kadyrov, who 

brought together the opponents of Wahhabism, or 

Shamil Basayev, who was preparing a military campaign to conquer Dagestan and create a larger state 

(emirate) under the influence of the Wahhabist ideology. In that, the problems of 1990s are reminiscent of 

those facing Imam Shamil in 1840s. Maskhadov chose 

Basayev, backed by the strongest battalions of the 

Ichkerian military.

During the interwar period, relations between 

the Chechen separatists and the Taliban continued 

to thrive.76 In 1997 and 1998, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev 

and Movladi Udugov, two main Chechen terrorist 

ideologues, visited the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and held meetings with Mullah Muhammad 

Omar and Osama bin Laden. Konstantin Kosachev, a 

former head of the State Duma Committee on International Relations, said, “We have reasons to believe 

that Osama bin Laden was involved in a series of terrorist attacks in our country.”77

Russia in the Aftermath of the First Chechen War. 

The Russian society was unprepared for what 

started as a poorly organized military improvization 

and morphed into the First Chechen War.78 Due to the 
31

lack of understanding of the reasons for the operation, 

the attitude of the Russian public toward the political 

leadership that initiated it and the generals that led it 

was largely negative, and the leadership’s credibility 

was hitting rock bottom. At a later stage of the war, 

the public pressured Yeltsin to start negotiating with 

the rebels.79

However, the attitude of ordinary Russians toward the ongoing Chechen conflict kept changing, 

depending on the latest developments in the war. For 

instance, in late-1995, after the federal forces failed 

to achieve a breakthrough, as little as 3.2 percent of 

the people supported continuing the war, while 51.1 

percent supported an immediate withdrawal of the 

troops.80 In November 1999, 62.5 percent supported 

continuing the war after the federal forces neutralized 

Basayev’s band and achieved noticeable successes in 

the republic.81

The number of Russian casualties in the First 

Chechen War was below the threshold that would 

lead to mass antiwar protests. However, conscription 

and the deployment of police units from all across the 

country to fight in Chechnya contributed to a transformation of an initially local conflict into a nationwide 

one. The return of large numbers of angry and demoralized veterans led to talks about Russia’s “Weimar 

syndrome” in reference to pre-Nazi Germany, where 

World War I veterans played a significant role in 

political radicalization.

The military considered itself betrayed by the 

chaotic actions of the Russian leadership and ostracized by the people. The failure to achieve victory 

was unexpected by the public, which had gotten used 

to regarding the Russian military as a formidable 

force even against Europe and the United States.82
32

Before the start of the war, the supreme military 

leadership considered the upcoming deployment of 

troops in Chechnya to be another “peace-keeping” 

operation, similar in nature to those in, for example, 

Transnistria.83

The peace agreement with Chechnya, signed in 

1996, became a symbol of defeat and humiliation of 

Russia—only 4 years after the inglorious abandonment of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, little energy had 

been spent to learn from the failed Chechen war. One 

of the possible reasons is that the military leadership 

was hesitant to admit its defeat and instead chose to 

play up the story about the betrayal by the politicians.

After the failed First Chechen War, the Kremlin 

learned several military lessons. It understood the 

necessity to estimate the military capabilities of the 

separatists more objectively and to ensure better collection of and better quality information. The Russian 

leadership recognized the need for political support 

for the Army and law enforcement agencies, and that 

the separatists could not be expected to keep their 

ends of negotiated bargains due to their decentralized 

structure.

Overall, the First Chechen War was lost to the wellorganized and led Chechen guerillas by an army that 

did not draw the appropriate conclusions from its defeat in Afghanistan. Russia’s failure resonated around 

the world, and the global reaction to it was surprise 

and disdain. The communist colossus, which only 

10 years earlier had the United States and the world 

trembling, was defeated by a ragtag army of guerillas 

in the territory the Russian empire had controlled for 

over 200 years. The defeat greatly imperiled Russia’s 

ambition to become a leading power in the post-Soviet 

space and a serious player in the post-Cold-War world 
33

order. Nonetheless, Yeltsin, the Kremlin, the military, 

and the nationalist elite across the board—communists, nationalists, and many liberals—remained committed to defeating the Chechen separatists. They did 

not have to wait long to get a second chance. After 

a brief and traumatic interwar period, extremists 

provoked another disastrous war.

The Interwar Period in the North Caucasus 

(1996-99).

In the Soviet Union, with its internationalist and 

atheist ideology collapsed, religion and nationalism 

began filling the political and spiritual void. While 

Russians increasingly self-identified as Christian Orthodox Eastern Slavs, their opponents self-identified 

as Chechens and Sunni Muslims. Dzokhar Dudayev 

and his de facto Chechen government mainly used 

separatism and independence as the motivating factors in fighting the Russians. Additionally, traditional 

Sufi Islam was a stimulus that generated separatist 

attitudes against the Russians. Traditional Sufi Islam 

was never isolated from the idea of the Chechen nation, nor was it the primary factor that inspired the 

Chechen forces to fight against the Russians and to die 

for Chechnya in 1994-96.

After the end of the First Chechen War, however, 

nonindigenous forms of Islam such as Salafi/Wahhabi, which were far more radical and global in scope, 

began to enter aggressively into Chechnya and neighboring North Caucasian republics to exploit the desperate socioeconomic situation in war-torn region. A 

significant problem that intensified in the period between the two wars was the Islamization of Chechnya. 

Although Moscow signed a treaty with Chechnya that 
34

called for mutual relations based on the principles 

of international law, Moscow failed to provide sufficient funds to rebuild the Chechen infrastructure 

damaged or destroyed during the First Chechen War. 

Social problems resulting from the neglect by Moscow provided a fertile ground for radical Islamic currents, such as Salafism or Wahhabism, to take hold in 

the republic.84

The political course of the acting president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in 1996-97, aimed at the rapid 

Islamization of Chechnya, facilitated the spread of 

Wahhabism in the republic.85 In order to strengthen 

the Sharia law in Chechnya, Bagauddin Magomedov, 

a radical Islamist leader active in Dagestan, was invited to visit. In September 1996, Yandarbiyev issued 

a decree that abolished Russian law, banned civil 

courts, and introduced an Islamic (Sharia) criminal 

code, which was essentially copied from that of Saudi 

Arabia.86 Islam was declared an official religion.

Not all leaders in Chechnya welcomed this new 

course. The Chechen Islamization was opposed primarily by Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmad Kadyrov. 

Maskhadov, who was a Prime Minister under Yandarbiyev, did not favor the hasty introduction of Islam 

as an official religion as he feared that it could lead 

to a fight for the title of imam, and that the Afghan or 

Tajik scenarios of a religious war could be repeated 

in Chechnya. Nevertheless, in his presidential campaign in 1997, Maskhadov, for reasons not entirely 

clear, used the slogan of creating a “Chechen Islamic 

state.” He might have wanted to steal a popular topic 

from his political opponents, or perhaps he believed 

that Sharia law was the only way to unify the fractious Chechens under an overarching ideology. On 

July 25, 1998, Maskhadov organized a congress of the 
35

Muslims of the North Caucasus in Grozny. Its participants accused the Salafists/Wahhabists of extremism, 

intervention in the Chechen political life, and insubordination to the official Chechen authorities. He also 

called upon the Chechen president to get rid of members of his administration who supported this extremist ideology. The chief mufti of Chechnya, Akhmad 

Kadyrov, also opposed the spreading of Salafism/

Wahhabism in Chechnya. He launched a campaign 

aimed at discrediting Wahhabism as an alien ideology 

and its preachers as agents of foreign secret services. 

Nevertheless, Wahhabism in Chechnya was not eradicated. The Wahhabists allied themselves with other 

religious radicals, who were proponents of an antiRussian jihad in the North Caucasus.

The fertile ground for radical Islam also caught the 

attention of al-Qaeda, which was interested in taking 

advantage of the situation to expand into new territories. In December 1996, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second in command, tried to establish a new base 

for the organization in Chechnya.87 He was arrested in 

Dagestan and released in 1997.

However, the spread of radical Islam was not confined exclusively to Chechnya. In August 1999, rebels 

under the command of al-Khattab and Basayev invaded two Dagestani regions bordering Chechnya and declared the creation of an Islamic state. In a subsequent 

Russian military operation, three Wahhabist villages 

where the radicals had taken hold were destroyed. In 

the meantime, the territory of Chechnya was targeted 

by a rocket attack from the federal forces. This invasion of Dagestan led to a full-fledged military operation, known as the Second Chechen War.
36

Failures on Both Sides.

Russia missed the opportunity to establish a working relationship with moderate nationalists in Chechnya and Dagestan and, facilitated by its high-handed 

tactics, the Salafist penetration of Chechnya and 

North Caucasus. 

With the economic depression in the region, high 

unemployment—especially high youth unemployment—and destabilizing forces (ranging from criminal gangs to Islamist terrorists) began to establish safe 

havens and thrive in interwar Chechnya.88 The First 

Chechen War left Chechnya in a disastrous economic 

situation, in which people had only slim prospects 

for a bright future. Most of what had remained of the 

economy was predominantly controlled by the secessionist leaders and their gangs. In this period, the 

main sources of income for Chechnya were oil, drugs, 

hostages, and federal subsidies from Moscow.

In the late-1990s, the main source of income for 

Chechnya (other than federal subsidies) was oil.89

In 1997, Chechnya produced two million tons of oil 

annually, according to official statistics. In late 1998, 

official oil sales in Chechnya were almost totally terminated due to staggering volumes of oil illegally 

smuggled out of the republic, which reached around 

700,000 tons/year. During the first 5 months of 1999, 

Chechnya produced only 96,000 tons of oil. The drop 

in oil income largely contributed to the chaotic and 

anarchic situation in Chechnya in the late-1990s.

Besides oil, an important source of money was 

criminal activity, ranging from stealing federal aid to 

taking hostages for ransom and even slave trade. Drug 

trafficking also played an important role. Drugs were 

often being received as a form of “financial support” 
37

from the Taliban and were later sold in the Russian 

territory for cash. In 1998, the Chechens constituted 

33 percent90 among the ethnic groups in Russia most 

active in drug trafficking.

As the Chechen leadership was unable to maintain 

even the most basic forms of authority outside the city 

centers, Islamic radicals began establishing their own 

writ in rural, mountainous regions under the religious 

guidelines set by radical Islam and Sharia law. The 

Chechen “official” secessionist forces were underfunded, undermanned, and demoralized. 

One partnership that helped to boost radical Islam 

in North Caucasus during this period was the relationship between the Chechen guerilla commander 

and the emerging military leader of the Islamist movement Shamil Basayev, and a Salafi emissary and Saudi 

citizen known by the nom de guerre, Ibn al-Khattab.91

The two developed a plan and launched a campaign 

to unite Chechnya with the North Caucasian republic 

of Dagestan to the east.92 Many other radical Islamists 

from around the Middle East and the Balkans also 

flocked to Chechnya. Cornell notes how the Bosnian 

Islamists who emigrated from the Balkans after the 

implementation of the Dayton Accords found a new 

jihad theater for an Islamist Caliphate—this time in 

the mountains of the Caucasus.93

During the interwar period, “slave trade” in 

Chechnya flourished.94 In fact, it was rather a market 

where hostages were bought and sold for ransom or in 

anticipation of such. This trade served as an important 

source of income for the separatists. The rebels did not 

limit the kidnappings to Chechnya, and victims were 

often smuggled in from neighboring Dagestan, as well 

as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other Russian cities. 

They would be held in Chechnya until ransom was re-
38

ceived. In some cases, hostages were kept in the cities 

where they were captured, but this fact became known 

to the relatives only after they had paid the ransom.

One of the most prominent hostage takers and 

slave traders was Arbi Barayev. He was also among 

the cruelest terrorists.95 Before joining the separatist 

movement in 1991, Barayev served in the local traffic 

police. In 1995, he became a leader of the self-defense 

militia in the village of Alkhan-Kala to later become 

the commander of the “special Islamic battalion” and 

a Chechen separatist general. As a slave trader, he is 

known for having taken hostage a group of NTV journalists in 1997, when this practice started becoming a 

common occurrence in Chechnya. He also started kidnapping rich Chechens, instead of Russian soldiers, 

which distinguished him from those who focused on 

victims from outside of Chechnya.96 Barayev was, by 

far, not the only slave trader. Other known separatist 

leaders, such as Shamil Basayev, were also involved in 

hostage taking and slave trade.

In 2005, a Russian television channel NTV released 

a documentary called “Open-Hearted Confession—

Prisoners of the Caucasus.”97 Based on interviews 

with former victims, this documentary describes the 

selection of victims, methods of blackmailing their relatives, and sizes of the ransoms. The slave traders did 

not kidnap random victims, but focused on wealthy 

individuals such as children of rich parents, journalists, and foreigners. After the hostages were captured, 

the process of blackmailing was similar to what we 

see in movies. The terrorists sent the relatives of the 

victim a videotape where he or she is begging them 

for help. As a sign that the terrorists should be taken 

seriously, they often cut their victims’ fingers while 

capturing the entire scene on camera. If the ransom 
39

was not paid, the victims often spent up to a year (and 

sometimes even more) in captivity before, in many 

cases, being found and freed by the Russians. Most of 

the time the ransoms ranged from $3,000 to $20,000.98

The NTV documentary mentions amounts as high as 

$70,000 in one case and allegedly as much as $500,000 

in another. During the period of 1993–2005, 912 hostages were taken in Dagestan, of which 868 were 

successfully freed by the Russian forces. According 

to Vyacheslav Izmaylov, a war journalist, overall 

around 1,500 hostages were freed, but many more 

were taken.99

In 1996–99, Chechnya boasted a totally “legal” arms 

market, situated in the central Grozny marketplace. 

At this open-air suk, a Kalashnikov automatic could 

be bought for around $200–$300 and a Makarov pistol 

for around $600. A grenade cost 30 rubles.100 However, 

weapons also were flowing in from abroad, and more 

importantly, they came with foreign instructors.

The radical Islamist recruiters found many Chechen recruits among the young war veterans and unemployed who found little hope in a brighter future in the 

de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, 

where many converted to the Salafi-Wahhabi radical 

ideology. As the radicals attempt to deny and reject 

ethnic identity, the recruits reduced their allegiance 

to Chechen or other Caucasian ethnic identity—as 

do global Islamists operating from the Philippines 

and Thailand to Afghanistan to East Africa and the 

Magreb (North Africa). Much of the new radicalized 

forces congregated in southeastern Chechnya near 

the border with Dagestan and with the Republic of 

Georgia. They were strategically located in this area 

because it would be the staging zone for an invasion 

of Dagestan on August 7, 1999, in an attempt to unite 
40

Chechnya and Dagestan into an Islamic Caliphate—

a religious-military dictatorship ruled by Sharia law. 

Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab recruited the fighters 

necessary to invade from the same area where they 

established the “Islamic brigade.”101 However, war fatigue after the previous conflict with Russia, rejection 

of radicalization by large parts of the population, and 

internal divisions within the Chechen government 

would make fighting the Russians for the second time 

far more difficult.102

THE SECOND CHECHNYAN WAR

When Yeltsin’s handpicked successor, Vladimir 

Putin, became Prime Minister in the summer of 1999, 

he was a fierce proponent of forcibly bringing Chechnya under undisputed Russian control. This stance 

secured him the support of the Russian military as 

Putin solidified his power during the early period of 

his presidency.

To justify their case for a war, Putin and his colleagues pointed out that the conflict in North Caucasus has evolved from an internal, separatist insurgency—in which the world mostly refrained from 

interference or was sympathetic to the rebels—to a 

struggle against radical Islamism, in which the world 

should stand with Russia. In addition, Russia began 

its public-relations campaign to convince its citizens 

and foreign powers that Chechens and other Muslim 

Caucasian terrorists were an existential threat to all 

Russian civilians. Moscow started claiming, not without reason, that the conflict in the North Caucasus was 

no longer a local fight for national liberation by the 

“freedom-loving Chechens” but a terrorist threat to 

Russians and other ethnic groups.103
41

Unlike the First Chechen War, in which Russia had 

made the first move, the Second Chechen War started 

in August 1999, after terrorist forces led by Shamil Basayev invaded Dagestan from Chechnya in an attempt 

to unite the two republics. The vision, articulated by 

al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was to 

connect Afghanistan with North Caucasus through a 

Caspian Sea “bridge.” Putin and the Russian military 

responded with similar overwhelming force similar to 

that seen in the first war.104 Devastation, displacement, 

and civilian deaths were again staggering.

Exact official data on civilian casualties during the 

Chechen wars are not available. Estimated numbers 

of victims are based mostly on assessments by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), but the numbers vary considerably. A conservative estimate of the 

number of civilian casualties in Grozny alone during 

the first war is between 25,000 and 29,000.105 Various 

Russian officials provided wide-ranging estimates of 

casualties. For instance, then Russian Interior Minister 

Anatoly Kulikov claimed that the number of civilians 

who lost their lives was below 20,000.106 Conversely, 

Sergey Kovalyov’s estimate is around 50,000, and General Aleksander Lebed spoke about 80,000–100,000 

civilians killed. According to Taus Dzhabrailov, the 

head of the Chechnya National Council in the mid2000s, 150,000 to 160,000 people are believed to have 

died as a result of both Chechen wars, out of whom 

75,000 were Chechen civilians.107

After the start of the Second Chechen War, 

Maskhadov filed a suit against Kadyrov in the Sharia 

court for engaging in negotiations with Prime Minister Putin.108 Kadyrov was sentenced to death and removed from the post of the Mufti.109 This led Kadyrov 

to use his support from the Kremlin to hunt down 
42

Maskhadov. During a special operation of the Russian 

Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2005, Maskhadov 

was allegedly shot dead by his bodyguard in order to 

avoid being taken prisoner.110 Kadyrov himself left the 

post of the Mufti after he was appointed the new head 

of Chechnya in June 2000. In August 2000, Akhmathadji Shamayev was appointed the Mufti by a congress of the imams of Chechnya.111

During the Second Chechen War, Russian forces 

crushed the radical Islamic faction and retook control 

of Chechnya, thus ending its de facto independence. 

Many of the Chechen leaders were killed in battle. 

Former President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was assassinated on February 13, 2004, by a car explosion in 

Doha, Qatar. Two Russian diplomats were accused of 

his murder and sentenced to 25 years in a Qatari prison, but after serving 9 months they were transferred 

to Russia.112 The Russian Ministry of Justice declined 

to disclose where they are serving the rest of their 

prison term, which suggests that they were silently 

released.113 Maskhadov was killed on May 8, 2005, 

during a special operation of the FSB, and Basayev 

was killed on July 10, 2006, also during a Russian 

special operation.

In the Second Chechen War, Russia was much 

more effective in using ethnic Chechen units and intelligence sources against the separatists.114 Many of 

them were rather opportunistic “pro-Russian” formations; nevertheless, they greatly contributed to the 

Russian victory. Their cooperation allowed Moscow 

to stop negotiating with the separatists and their leaders, and transform the conflict as a whole.
43

Information Warfare Aspect of the Conflict.

Russia’s ability to use propaganda to change the 

perception of the war in the Caucasus proved crucial 

in helping it not only regain control of the region, but 

also convince Russian citizens and the international 

community that the policies toward the Caucasus 

were the right ones at the right time. This was in a 

striking contrast with the hapless course that brought 

about the defeat and the inglorious Khasavyurt accords of 1996. Information management became an 

important aspect of the conflict. Russia, with the help 

of government-controlled media (especially TV channels), tried to censor the war crimes committed by the 

security and military forces during and after the active 

phase of the conflict, and attempted to portray this war 

as a fight for Russian sovereignty. Russian media also 

spun the hostilities and the struggle between Chechen 

factions—the radical Islamists and terrorists—and 

the legitimate Chechen nationalists fighters led by 

the Kadyrovs.

The federal forces prepared for the Second Chechen War better than they did for the first one. While 

Basayev and his bands were still in Dagestan, the 

leadership of the federal forces chose a strategy which 

used artillery and bombing raids first, followed by infantry assaults.115 This tactic turned out to be a success 

and led to relatively small losses among the Russian 

forces. Heavy Russian bombardment demoralized the 

rebels, and Basayev was forced to flee from Dagestan 

back to Chechnya. In Chechnya, the Russians tried to 

minimize the need for armed conflict. At first, they 

held talks with village elders and gave them a chance 

to persuade the rebels to voluntarily leave their villages. If the rebels agreed and if no one in the village 
44

opened fire on the federal forces, the Russians would 

not fire at the civilians.

The leadership of the federal forces anticipated 

that the rebels would leave the besieged Grozny voluntarily as well.116 These expectations did not come 

true, and Russian military stormed Grozny. The air 

force conducted heavy aerial attacks using Su-24 and 

Su-25 fighters and helicopters. The pilots had to operate under air-defense missile fire from the Chechen 

radicals. Just as in the First Chechen War, the rebels 

used mainly Strela of various modifications, Igla, and 

some Stinger portable air defense systems.117

Similar to the first Chechen campaign, Russian soldiers taking Grozny in 1999–2000 were not sufficiently 

trained for urban warfare.118 Besides poor preparation, 

the operations also suffered from flawed coordination 

between the Russian uniformed military and the country’s internal troops under the Ministry of Interior, 

which also took part in the attack. After the Russians 

recaptured Grozny in 2000, the fighting moved deep 

into the Chechen territory. The rebels fled into their 

mountain bases located in caves, and the mountainous warfare made the situation more difficult for the 

Russians. The federal forces decided to engage attack 

planes and thermobaric (including fuel-air) weapons 

against the rebels hiding in the mountainous terrain.119

The main thermobaric delivery system the Russians 

used in Grozny was the “Buratino” (TOS-1),120 a system with a maximum effective range of 3.5 kilometers 

and a 200 x 400 meter zone of ensured destruction. Another thermobaric system reportedly used in Chechnya was a shoulder-launched rocket similar to RPG 

called RPO-A Schmel. This system has a maximum 

effective range of 600 meters, and a 50-square-meter 

zone of destruction in the open.
45

Indigenous political leadership was more important in Chechnya than the immediate military victory. Among the pro-Russian Chechen leaders was 

Mufti Ahmad Kadyrov, who formerly fought with 

Dudayev in the First Chechen War, but then clashed 

with Maskhadov. Kadyrov became the head of the 

pro-Moscow government in Grozny established after 

the end of formal hostilities in 2000. He had Moscow’s 

blessing to do whatever was needed to maintain the 

supremacy of Russian rule in the republic. When the 

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks gave credibility 

to Putin’s policy toward the radicals in the Caucasus, 

Russia not only managed to regain control of lost territory in Chechnya but also, to some extent, win the 

propaganda war against the radicalized Chechen factions and foreign fighters.

Chechen rebels, who self-identified as Islamists 

(Salafis-Wahhabis), allowed Russia to utilize the 

traditional Sufi allegiance of the Chechens to build 

pro-Russian fighting forces, who had superior local 

knowledge and high level of motivation, rather than 

solely using the conventional Russian military. However, even though Russia declared the second war 

over in 2004, that year marked the beginning of the 

fight between Russia and the pro-Russian Chechen 

government against radical Islamists in the Northern 

Caucasus, with the hostilities expanding throughout 

the region and spilling over to all of Russia.
46

GROWTH OF TERRORIST ACTIVITY

AND RADICALISM IN THE 

NORTHERN CAUCASUS SINCE THE 

SECOND CHECHEN WAR

The end of the active phase of the Second Chechen 

War in 2000 did not bring an end to modern political Islam and Islamist terrorism on the Russian territory. The terrorist factions that threaten Russia and 

have reached as far as Boston in 2013 have roots in the 

Chechen wars as well as in the global jihadi movement, 

as the Tsarnaev brothers’ website demonstrated. In 

addition, global Islamist factions striving for seizure 

of political control in Muslim lands and eventual creation of the Califate, such as the Muslim Brotherhood 

and Hizb-ut-Tahrir al Islami (Islamic Army of Liberation), decided to commit more resources to Russia 

when they saw the successes of the Islamist fighters in 

North Caucasus.

Having been defeated on the battlefield, Basayev 

turned his attention to attacking soft targets outside 

Chechnya and Dagestan, not for any tactical gain 

against the Russian military but for the terroristic, 

traumatizing value of such acts. Meanwhile, within 

much of Chechnya and neighboring republics, radicals, domestic and foreign, began expanding the terrorist network by establishing Salafi jamaats (communities) throughout the region. They took advantage of 

the unique geography and the desperate socio-economic conditions that helped to recruit many young 

locals to commit to their radical movement. Many, 

therefore, joined the Islamist groups and moved away 

to isolated areas, escaping the authorities’ writ and solidifying their commitment to increase their influence 

and plan attacks.121
47

Moreover, Islamist leaders like Basayev and, later, 

Doku Umarov, began outlining jihadist manifestos 

that definitively declared their desire to transform 

North Caucasus into a Caliphate and a vehicle of the 

pan-Islamist fundamentalist force fighting against 

Russians not just for independence but for global jihad.122 The radicals began with the implementation of 

Sharia law throughout the former Chechen Republic 

of Ichkeria and in the Salafi jamaats, over which their 

followers had influence outside of Chechnya. After 

Dudayev was killed and Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev became acting president of Ichkeria in April 1996, the 

process accelerated.123

As in other Muslim societies, Sharia law is perceived as God-given and thus paramount over laws or 

doctrines coming from civil or common law systems, 

such as parliamentary legislation and precedent-based 

law. According to the traditionalist interpretations of 

the Koran and other Islamic holy scriptures, Sharia 

law is not open to interpretation or amendment by 

secular scholars. This legal doctrine contrasts with the 

traditional Chechen and Caucasian attitudes toward 

Islam, as many in the region are devout Muslims, but 

have preferred to follow Sufi Islam, which accepts the 

following of Sufi saints and cultural icons that make 

up the separate religious and cultural identities of the 

Caucasian peoples.124 The radicals, on the other hand, 

adhere to the militant monotheistic principle of tawhid in which the worshiping or praying to any entity 

besides Allah—even to Muhammad himself —is sacrilegious.125 Throughout the world, Salafi followers of 

the tawhid often destroy graves of venerated saints, 

forbid any local worship, including that of ancestors, 

and are generally much more intolerant than the Sufis. 

Having established Sharia law, the radicals needed to 
48

implement doctrines in order to “purify” the region 

from kafirs (infidels), who do not practice Islam in accordance to their dogma.

After the assassination of Basayev in 2006 by the 

Russian Special Forces, the new head of the Caucasusbased Islamist movement, Doku Umarov, established 

the Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz, or CE) based on 

Sharia law and with goals consistent with fundamentalist Wahabbist-Salafist teachings of Islam.126 This 

restatement of Umarov’s militant Islamist ideology is 

important to understand the radical direction in which 

the North Caucasus insurgency is moving.

CE’s initial manifesto declared its objective to unite 

all of the Northern Caucasus into a single “Caucasus 

Emirate,” eliminating all the borders separating autonomous republics and all ethnic, linguistic, and cultural distinctions as un-Islamic. The whole region was 

supposed to become one frontline of the global jihad 

in the name of Allah and against the infidels. In order to achieve this goal, the Islamists needed to force 

Russia to relinquish its control over the region, as has 

been the demand among separatists for centuries. 

The extremists also seek to force the various republics 

and ethnic groups to renounce any indigenous identity, that has been cherished and valued, and submit 

completely to radical Islamist ideology and command, 

including the “Amir” Umarov, and join global jihad. 

Once achieving total control, Umarov and CE would 

begin to spread their war to the Muslim areas in the 

Urals, Central Asia, and Siberia, with future plans to 

conquer all of Russia, including Moscow.127

The CE became an Islamist affiliate of the global 

al-Qaeda-led movement that operated symbiotically with terrorist cells all across the Middle East and 

Eurasia. CE and other Northern Caucasus radicals 
49

received tactical, financial, and moral support from 

al-Qaeda and its partners.128 For example, Caucasian 

terrorists benefited from the expertise of al-Qaeda 

operatives Muhammad al Emirati and Abdulla Kurd, 

who helped organize operational activities within the 

region while coordinating with al-Qaeda globally. 

Though Russian counterterrorist forces killed both 

of them in April 2011, they advanced CE’s mission 

to connect with global jihad.129 Beyond this relationship, al-Qaeda’s tentacles in the region go back to the 

1990s, even before the paradigm of Caucasian rebellion against Russia changed to jihadist. Hahn documents the many instances of al-Qaeda contributing 

arms, funds, Islamist education, and access to training camps in Afghanistan and elsewhere, for fighters 

from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Al-Qaeda’s 

Ayman al-Zawahiri once stated that the North Caucasus represented “one of three primary fronts in the 

war against the West,” and CE’s actions attempted to 

match his rhetoric.130

The Second Terror Campaign.

With the help of foreign jihadi organizations and 

the infusion of new recruits and radical immigrants 

from the Balkans, the year 2000 marked the beginning 

of a new Islamist terrorist campaign against the Russian population, striking targets as far as Moscow. 

This was a startling development in comparison with 

the wars between Russia and Chechnya, as conflicts 

had remained contained within the Caucasus. The 

first known case of terrorism as a tactical as well as a 

psychological weapon was during the First Chechen 

War in 1995, when Basayev executed a large suicide 

bombing of Russian forces in Chechnya.
50

Coinciding with the beginning of the second 

Chechen war, however, Chechen Islamist fighters led 

by Basayev focused on attacking Russian civilians. 

The earliest major attack was the 2002 Dubrovka Theater siege in Moscow in which 912 people were taken 

hostage.131 Russian forces killed all the terrorists, but 

around 130 hostages perished with the terrorists. This 

Russian anti-terrorist operation is considered by many 

to be a failure of the special services. In 2006, the survivors and relatives of the victims prepared a 200-page 

report called “Nord-Ost—An Unfinished Investigation,” in which they claim that the special services did 

not do everything they could to save as many people 

as possible, and accused them of negligence.132 The 

most controversial aspect of the operation was the usage of a new type of nerve gas, which is believed to be 

responsible for the deaths of the terrorists and the 130 

hostages. It appears that the authorities did not deploy medical teams near the Dubrovka Theater, amass 

ambulances before storming the target, or brief the 

medical personnel on the nerve agent use and ways to 

treat the patients. While hardly a surprise, given the 

poor state of Russian military medicine and the health 

system in general, this was a failure of emergency 

medicine of enormous proportions.

There have been numerous demands to release the 

information about the gas, the composition of which 

continues to remain secret.133 However, Aleksey Filatov, a former Alpha special forces unit fighter, justified using the gas by claiming that, because the gas 

was used, the terrorists failed to detonate the bomb 

they had with them, in which case the number of casualties would have significantly exceeded the number 

of those killed by the gas.134
51

Several years earlier in September 1999, a series 

of apartment bombings shattered the peace in Russia.135 Four apartment buildings were blown up in 

cities across Russia: two of them in Moscow, one in 

Buynaksk (Dagestan), and one in Volgodonsk (Rostovskaya Oblast’). Around 300 people lost their lives, 

and many more were wounded. The terrorist attacks 

are believed to have been committed by separatists 

from North Caucasus as an act of revenge for Moscow’s military operations in Chechnya and Dagestan. 

There are many, however, who challenge the veracity 

of this version of events.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Basayev 

and Umarov perpetrated a series of terrorist attacks 

across Russia. The most notable examples are the attacks on a school in Beslan in 2004, the Saint Petersburg-Moscow passenger train in late-2009, the Moscow metro in 2010, and on Domodedovo Airport in 

Moscow in January 2011. The U.S. Department of 

State and the United Nations (UN) recognized these 

attacks as committed by Chechen terrorists, seeking to 

establish the Caucasus Emirate.136

On September 1, 2004, a group of 17 terrorists took 

around 1,100-1,400 people hostage in an elementary 

school in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia.137 The 

FSB-led operation to release the hostages remains controversial. On September 3, the FSB forces undertook 

a counterattack, which resulted in a chaotic exchange 

of fire between them and the terrorists.138 The efforts 

of the FSB and the supporting troops suffered from a 

lack of coordination and were further complicated by 

many armed civilians voluntarily trying to help free 

the hostages. One of the reasons for the poor coordination is allegedly the fact that the FSB forces expected 

only 354 hostages to be in the school, which resulted in 
52

choosing a wrong strategy for the attack.139Also, they 

did not set a perimeter, which initially prevented FSB 

forces from sealing the school and later allowed some 

of the terrorists to escape. As a result of the operation, 

335 hostages were killed. How many hostages died at 

the hands of the terrorists, how many as a result of 

the FSB using heavy weaponry, and how many due 

to the mistakes of the rescue team remains unclear.140

If the Russian military and security forces conducted 

a “lessons learned” investigation, it remains hidden 

from the public.

In the Northern Caucasus, CE and other radicals 

continued their guerrilla war against Russian forces 

at a staggering pace that earned Russia the dubious 

distinction of having one of the highest rates of terrorist attacks per year in the world.141 In effect, over 

the past decade, the North Caucasus has become 

an ungovernable area and a part of the global jihad 

space. Local Islamist organizations are now capable 

of launching their own operations with some level of 

cooperation with global terrorist networks, as arrests 

in Europe and the Boston attack have demonstrated. 

More intelligence activities will be necessary to better 

understand the multiple facets of this cooperation.

Russian Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency 

in the 21st Century.

Russia’s porous borders and insufficient surveillance throughout the region; inadequate local knowledge of the counterintelligence forces assigned to 

North Caucasus from around the country; a lack of 

linguistic skills by the regular military as well as special forces; and corruption of the local authorities and 

economic development programs severely affected 
53

Russian anti-terrorist and counterinsurgency responses. North Caucasus, in addition to terrorism and 

Islamism, has become a hotspot of drug and human 

trafficking that further funded terrorist activities and 

solidified the relationships between the Caucasus and 

drug havens of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and other 

global trafficking networks. Chechen and other North 

Caucasus networks have become significant narcotics distribution platforms for Russia and Eastern and 

Western Europe.

Doku Umarov’s Caucasian Emirate has become a 

formidable coalition of various decentralized jamaats 

that, despite Russian efforts so far, has avoided having its network substantially exposed and liquidated. 

Just like Islamist radicals elsewhere, CE members have 

successfully hidden from scrutiny and entrenched 

themselves in order to continue operations. They have 

managed to transform much of their historic grand 

strategy of regional guerilla warfare aimed at achieving independence from Russia—into one that includes 

underground tactics and urban warfare, while invoking radical ideology that had little connection with the 

history of the region. However, given the enormity 

of the international jihadi goals, it is too early to tell 

whether CE will manage to achieve its objectives domestically and regionally, and whether its comradesin-arms would succeed globally.

RUSSIAN COUNTERTERRORIST 

AND COUNTERINSURGENCY RESPONSES 

AND STRATEGIES SINCE 2000

After the successful recapture of Dagestan and 

Chechnya by Russia in 2000, Russian military and interior ministry units in North Caucasus have become 
54

primarily a counterterrorist force. However, they lack 

appropriate training, equipment, and motivation. 

With Putin ascending to the presidency in the same 

year, Russian counterterrorist operations maintained 

“search and destroy” tactics to stop the growth of radical Islam in the Northern Caucasus. Yet, since 2000, 

Moscow and Grozny have not fully eliminated the terrorist threat in the North Caucasus. As Sergey Markedonov from the Center for Strategic and International 

Studies (CSIS) notes, the main failure of the Russian 

counterinsurgency in the North Caucasus was the absence of a relevant, well thought out and coherently 

implemented strategy. Practically all operations, even 

the successful ones, look like belated responses.

Another problem is the correct identification of 

the enemy. Russian officials, including at the highest 

level, tend to refer to the separatists as terrorists or 

“bandits.”142 However, terrorism is not criminal activity; it is political violence, Markedonov says.143 Thus it 

is necessary to understand the ideological roots of the 

current Caucasian terrorists and their political goals. 

Since the late-1990s, terrorism under nationalist and 

self-determination slogans has been replaced by an 

Islamic one. However, even today Russian officials 

continue to speak about the “Chechen separatists.”144

Meanwhile, the situation in the North Caucasus no 

longer resembles the dynamics of the Chechen conflict. The insurgency in the region is not centered in 

Chechnya anymore. Rather, every year since 2005, the 

recorded incidence of violence in Chechnya has been 

less than, or equal to, the levels of violence observed 

in the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan. Ideologically, the Russian government does not 

propose any attractive alternatives to militant Islam. 

Instead, it is restricting its policy by supporting the 
55

state-sponsored Spiritual Board of Muslims (Dukhovnye Upravleniya Musul’man, or DUMs), while underestimating the role of unofficial Muslims who are 

not subordinated to DUMs and not engaged in the terrorist activity and jihadist propaganda.

Russian intelligence, counterterrorism, and strategic communities at times developed and implemented 

policies that were actually causing radical Islam to 

grow in the region. Outside their military and intelligence networks, Moscow has mainly relied on the 

subsidiary government in Chechnya led by, first, Mufti Ahmad Kadyrov, and after his death in the bombing 

during the celebration of the Russian V-E day on May 

9, 2004, by his son, Ramzan.145 Kadyrov the younger 

managed to bring the violence in the republic under 

control. However, he has a dubious human rights record, ranging from alleged killings of prominent Russian journalists who openly criticized his practices, 

to hunting down and killing his opponents abroad. 

A notable case of such killing is the assassination 

of Umar Israilov in Vienna, Austria, on January 30, 

2009.146 Israilov was a former bodyguard of Kadyrov, 

but later turned into an open critic of Kadyrov’s regime in Chechnya and fled to Austria, where he was 

given asylum.

The dynamics of Chechen society have, so far, 

worked to Kadyrov and Moscow’s advantage, because most of the Chechens still want to identify as being loyal to the Vaynach (Chechen) nation, rather than 

to adopt radical Islam and erase their discrete identity. Kadyrov has had a great impact on local society 

through repression of terrorist activity and promoting 

the “Chechen national identity,” which coexists and 

complements, not supplants, religious practices.
56

Through Chechen efforts and Russian subsidies, 

Grozny and other cities underwent massive postwar reconstruction and development that included 

constructing the Grozny Central Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe, Russia, and Eurasia, and one 

of the largest in the world, apparently with Turkish 

funding.147 This was done in order to further develop 

Chechen culture and traditional Sufi Islam and as 

an attempt to supplant the appeal of radical, 

global Islam.148

In what could be seen as an improvement in Russian-Chechen relations, the promotion of Chechen culture by the Kadyrov regime after the Second Chechen 

War is one of the few policy planks on which Russian 

and Chechen leaderships have actively collaborated. 

In order to further promote the government’s version 

of Chechen society over the radical ideology and to 

increase his own popularity, Kadyrov legalized polygamy (even though it is illegal under Russian law 

and the constitution).149 What Kadyrov did in the hope 

of improving the situation in Chechnya and decreasing the influence of radical Islamists in the area, with 

the blessing from Moscow, appears to have been more 

effective than Moscow’s actions.150

The fact that the current Russian counterinsurgency strategy is far from being fully successful is 

demonstrated by many news accounts detailing the 

ongoing violence in the region. As recently as June 23, 

2013, 38 special police officers were killed in clashes 

in southwestern Chechnya.151 Another two police 

officers were killed in the Shatoy district on June 29.

Aleksey Malashenko, co-chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Religion, Society, and Security Program, 

believes that the Kremlin did not learn any political 

lessons from the two Chechen campaigns.152 He notes 
57

that “the Kremlin has no productive strategy in North 

Caucasus; its policy toward the region is mostly reactive.” Another drawback of the policy of the Kremlin, 

Malashenko believes, is that it is not able to prevent 

the emergence of a new generation of mujahedeen. 

Effective measures against their rise would inevitably 

have to include a dialogue with the opposition and 

undertaking practical measures to combat the ubiquitous corruption in the region—something that the 

current elites are unwilling and unlikely to do.153

International Criticism of Russia 

and the Kadyrov Government. 

International observers from the UN, OSCE, the 

United States, and from human rights organizations, 

have criticized the Government of Russia and Kadyrov’s Chechen Republic for anti-terrorist activities 

that violate human rights and the laws of war. The 

U.S. Congress has stated that Chechen governmental 

forces are emulating the abusive tactics of the terrorists.154 The United States is under pressure to freeze 

Kadyrov’s bank accounts in response to these condemnations.155 Reportedly, Kadyrov’s name is in the 

classified section of the Magnitsky List, the U.S. law 

named after a Russian anti-corruption whistle blower who died in a Moscow prison awaiting trial, and 

that targets gross violators of human rights.156 However, despite the overwhelming use of force, many in 

Chechnya seem to have accepted the Kadyrov rule 

as “the lesser of two evils” between the available options, despite the fact that Kadyrov apparently has 

violated many Russian laws and may be guilty of 

serious crimes.
58

For now, Chechnya is no longer in an all-out war 

with Russia. Despite high unemployment, it is emerging from a debilitating economic depression. As long 

as Kadyrov maintains this modicum of security and 

income for the population, the Chechens will not risk 

altering the situation radically by combating Russia or 

swelling the ranks of the Islamists. They live with Putin and Kadyrov for now—but as in the past, this may 

change quickly.157

Russia, for its part, uses conventional, counterterrorist forces and soft-power means like economic aid, 

subsidies, and development schemes in order to help 

sustain a pro-Moscow government facing an Islamist 

threat. With the Kadyrov government becoming more 

entrenched, Putin’s Kremlin has been willing to live 

with a manufactured Chechen-nationalist narrative 

that uses Chechen history and tradition in order to 

simulate a “rebirth” of Chechen national pride; however, this “renaissance” has become more of a makeshift 21st-century post-modern artifact sustained and 

regulated by Grozny and Moscow. For now, it has 

been effective in striking a balance between de facto 

independence short of the trappings of sovereignty, 

such as full border control, foreign relations, and formally independent armed forces. Moscow and Grozny, too, consider this the lesser of two evils. 

Yet, the renaissance comes at a price. There are 

reports that Kadyrov is allowed to control a good 

portion of the lucrative real estate market in Moscow. This combination of strong-arm tactics, lucrative 

business ventures, and criminality helps to keep the 

Kadyrov regime under Kremlin’s control, while maintaining Moscow’s domination over the region by being Kadyrov’s de facto banker and protector. Thanks 

to Moscow’s strategic financial injections, Kadyrov 
59

has overseen the rebuilding and development of city 

blocks, shopping centers, and other major construction projects, including support of the faith. In order 

to promote further the “state-compatible” form of 

Islam, Kadyrov has been financing Chechens’ flights 

to Mecca for Hajj, one of the five obligatory Islamic 

pillars of faith.158

One of the reasons why the Chechen people continue to join the insurgency and become followers 

of radical Islamic ideologies is the long-term lack of 

opportunities and gloomy prospects for the future. 

Despite the heavy financial support from the Russian federal budget, Chechnya is the second poorest 

subject of the Russian Federation in terms of gross 

domestic product (GDP) per capita after Ingushetia, 

with approximate GDP per capita of $1,850 in 2010.159

Chechnya has levels of unemployment that are unsustainably high for a self-sufficient economy. The official 

unemployment level in late-2012 was 25.3 percent.160

However, according to Russian media sources, the 

real Chechen unemployment is as high as 70 percent, 

with youth unemployment being even higher.161 The 

high unemployment rates and low salaries of those 

who are lucky enough to be employed reflect the lack 

of prospects and opportunities, especially for young 

people. One may think that with over 90 percent of 

Chechnya’s budget bankrolled by Moscow, Kadyrov’s 

government can only create and execute policy that 

has the blessing from the Kremlin in order to preserve 

the still tenuous tranquility.162 However, Moscow itself is a hostage of sorts in Chechnya, as no one today 

is seen as capable of replacing Kadyrov.

Meanwhile, Chechen refugees in Europe are gradually organizing themselves and forming a well-established diaspora. The largest Chechen diaspora is in 
60

Western European countries, such as Norway, France, 

Belgium, Germany, and Austria, and made up of an 

estimated 10,000 to 30,000 people in each of those 

countries.163 The Caucasus Times claims that this newly 

formed Chechen diaspora is able to exert influence on 

the situation in Chechnya.164

There are several organizations in the Chechen diaspora. For instance, the World Chechen Congress is registered as an NGO in Belgium.165 Another organization 

is the Chechen Diaspora of Norway.166Additionally, 

in September 2010, a “virtual” World Chechen Congress took place in Poland, which was a controversial 

event evoking negative reactions among anti-Kremlin 

Chechens.167 For instance, Zhalodi Saralyapov, speaker 

of the so-called Parliament of the “Chechen Republic 

of Ichkeria,” said that these actions “are aimed at destabilizing the situation in the Chechen national liberation movement, at the destruction of positive developments acquired during the long war.”168 Members 

of the Chechen diaspora in countries all across Europe 

distanced themselves from the congress, stating that it 

was organized by Russians in order to consolidate the 

Russian occupation of Chechnya.

The members of the Chechen diaspora are not 

united. A majority of Chechen refugees may be supportive of the Islamist outlook, saying that they want 

to see the fight for independence continue (66 percent) 

and that they have a positive attitude toward establishing a single North Caucasus republic (54 percent). 

There is also a small group who are pro-Kadyrov in 

their views.169 These people actively promote the ideas 

of a common state with Russia.

Under the Dmitry Medvedev administration 

(2009-12), in order to promote a “softer” approach to 

exerting Moscow’s power over the region, the Kremlin 
61

has created the Northern-Caucasian Federal District 

and Northern-Caucasian Economic District. Alexander Khloponin, the Kremlin-appointed “GovernorGeneral” of the Northern-Caucasian Federal District, 

has outlined the District’s broad goals and individual 

projects. Khloponin announced that by 2020 the region will be part of a transportation network that will 

link the North Caucasus with the rest of Russia, the 

Middle East, and Central Asia. He has proposed various projects, including road infrastructure, building 

holiday resorts, improving regional access to higher 

education, making airport renovations, and constructing hydroelectric plants across the entire North Caucasus.170 Recent investigations of the resorts scheme 

suggest that a good part of these projects were means 

to illicitly syphon off budgetary funds into the private 

pockets of “favored” businessmen who are particularly close to the powers that be.171

The same can be alleged about the Sochi Winter 

Olympics in 2014. The Russian Ministry of Regional 

Development announced in 2010 (almost 4 years before the games) that the expenses for preparing for the 

Olympics had already surpassed $30 billion.172 Other 

sources claim that the Sochi “subtropical” Winter 

Olympics will cost $50 billion. In comparison, the cost 

of the last Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 is 

estimated to have been between $3.6 and $6 billion.173

According to Boris Nemtsov, the former Russian First 

Deputy Prime Minister and a leader of the Russian opposition banned from the Duma, the overall amount 

of embezzlement at the Sochi Olympics has already 

reached about $25–$30 billion.174 He believes that the 

total expenditures have already surpassed $50 billion, 

which makes it the most expensive Winter Olympics 

in human history.
62

The responsibility of national security, however, 

for Northern Caucasus, is a partnership between the 

autonomous republic governments and the federal, 

Moscow-based national security institutions. The national security apparatus within the federal government has indeed maintained the lead in intelligence, 

reconnaissance, and support for what Putin tries to 

portray as a solely “regional problem,” but which in 

reality threatens the whole of Russia and beyond.

In 2006, Russia established the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, headed ex-officio by the Director 

of the FSB, in order to bring various departments in 

one silo, where counterterrorist policy could be better formulated and implemented more efficiently.175

Even with better coordination, however, violence and 

death are still rampant throughout the North Caucasus. Pummeled by hostile media and public opinion, 

Doku Umarov, the CE emir, has made a declaration 

on behalf of CE in 2012 that terrorists under his command would “stop attacks against Russian civilians” 

and, instead, focus their efforts on battling military, 

police, government officials, or the security apparatus.176 The sincerity of Umarov’s declaration remains 

uncertain: the statement may have been made just to 

get better public relations, or in order to cajole Russians into moderating their assaults on CE and its 

terrorist networks. His public affairs track record remains, unsurprisingly, spotty: in fact, Umarov allegedly announced his resignation on August 1, 2010, 

due to poor health.177 The next day, however, Umarov released another video where he called his former 

announcement faked.178 He also said that he was in 

good health.

In fact, Umarov had assumed a less active role 

in CE but retains the top leadership position in the 

group, which signifies how decentralized the com-
63

mand structure in this terrorist network is, in sync 

with other net-centric terrorist organizations around 

the world.179 Rogue actors in the North Caucasus, real 

or imagined, still attack civilians, defying Umarov’s 

declaration. Moreover, the events in Belgium and Boston, where North Caucasus terrorists were arrested, 

demonstrate that the world must not discount the 

threat of Islamic radicalism in the North Caucasus to 

European and American national security.

EFFECT OF NORTHERN CAUCASUS ON 

BROADER RUSSIAN, AMERICAN,

AND GLOBAL SECURITY 

With Islamist terrorist activities challenging Russia’s control in the North Caucasus, Moscow risks 

having the insurgency undermine Russian strategic 

goals of reestablishing itself as a leading global power. 

With the advent of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games 

and the 2018 Soccer World Cup in Russia, Putin and 

the ruling elite are eager to use these and other Russian-hosted global events to improve the country’s image, attract global investment, and secure the world’s 

confidence that Russia is a 21st-century global leader 

akin to China, India, and Brazil. If one of those events 

were to attacked, the consequences for Russia’s global 

image would be extremely negative. While Umarov 

pledged to attack Sochi in 2014, Putin has managed to 

convince much of the world that the security problems 

in the North Caucasus, in spite of sporadic attacks and 

active terrorist cells, have been largely resolved.

The Long–term Rise in Radicalism.

Even though Russia made it through the Sochi 

Olympics with no casualties, the fight is far from 
64

over. Other regions in the Northern Caucasus, especially Dagestan, are experiencing a rise in Islamic radicalism. The origins of contemporary Islamic radicalism in Dagestan go back to the early-1990s, when the 

Soviet Union was collapsing and opening its borders 

to the outside world.180 A key figure in organizing the 

radical Islamist movement in Dagestan was Bagauddin Kebedov. He was a devout supporter of Salafism 

and harshly criticized other, more moderate forms 

of Islam, such as Sufism. In 1990, he became one of 

the leaders of the Islamic Party of Revival and subsequently a leader of a radical wing of Dagestani Salafists, later named the Islamic Jamaat of Dagestan (IJD). 

The Salafi ideology enjoyed wide support among the 

population due to the deepening economic crisis, the 

simplicity and understandability of the Salafi ideas, 

and the spirit of brotherhood in the organization. The 

IJD gradually became the most influential Salafi group 

in Dagestan.

The protracted conflict in Chechnya was also one 

of the reasons that facilitated the spreading of this radical ideology in Dagestan. The 1996 withdrawal from 

Chechnya was a sign of Russian military weakness. 

It encouraged the Dagestani radicals to form closer 

ties with their brothers in faith. Many of them went 

to fight in Chechnya or joined local terrorist organizations. In addition, the Chechen conflict encouraged 

people who saw the war as a source of income to join 

the radicals.

The antigovernment and anti-Russian sentiments 

among the members of the IJD were encouraged by 

the counterproductive policy of local Dagestani authorities. They lacked a cohesive strategy to contain 

the IJD and instead chose to irritate it with police action. In particular, the local Dagestani authorities de-
65

cided to launch what they considered to be a “total 

war” against the radical extremist groups. However, 

the ranks of Wahhabists were often filled by ordinary 

Muslims with no previous ties to extremists. Moreover, the “hunt on Wahhabists” was frequently used 

as a means to solve personal and political disputes, 

and also for the personal benefits of corrupt law enforcement and petty politicians. Using excessively 

harsh methods only motivated many Islamist activists 

to seek revenge or to go fight in Chechnya.

In 2012, the situation in Dagestan became critical.181

Around three-quarters of all terrorist acts committed 

in the North Caucasus for the first 9 months of 2012 

took place in Dagestan. Despite the minimal chances 

for success of their goal to establish an Islamic quasistate, the Salafists/Wahhabists enjoy considerable 

support of the Dagestani population. Similarly to the 

early-1990s, people continue to be dissatisfied with an 

untenable economic situation, including unemployment, corruption, poor healthcare, and the lack of future prospects. However, the religious yearning and 

its violent manifestation also attract Dagestanis into 

the ranks of terrorists.

The situation in Ingushetia is similar to that in 

Dagestan. The influence of Islamic radicals in Ingushetia remains high despite the regular killing and capturing of radical terrorists and field commanders.182

Salafi/Wahhabi ideology and organizations have a 

strong potential for the same reasons as in Dagestan. 

Moscow declared the counterterrorist operation in 

Chechnya completed in 2009. However, this action allowed terrorist activity to spread more easily to the 

neighboring republics, including Ingushetia.183 Terrorist attacks continue to take place. The ranks of Wahhabists continue to be filled mainly by Ingushetia’s 

youth who do not see other ways of self-realization.
66

Similarly, in Kabardino-Balkaria, the nationalism 

of the local ethnic communities dominates over civil 

values.184 However, radical Islamist terrorists are active in Kabardino-Balkaria. For instance, on January 

6, 2013, three suspected terrorists were killed by the 

Russian security services.185 They are believed to have 

been preparing terrorist attacks against local churches 

during the celebration of the Orthodox Christmas. At 

least since 2009, the clashes between the rebels and the 

Russian security services in the republic have been a 

weekly, if not a more frequent, occurrence.186 There 

are also reports that hundreds of Sunni fighters have 

joined radical forces in Syria to fight the Alawi regime 

of President Bashar el-Assad and his Shia allies, such 

as Hezbollah and Iran.187 Russia no doubt applauds 

the exodus of the troublemakers, despite its support 

of the Assad regime: if killed or wounded in Syria, 

these extremists are “off the streets” in the Caucasus.

Nevertheless, the Russian experts interviewed in 

the course of this research agree that expectations of 

a general massive uprising in the North Caucasus 

against Moscow’s rule are not realistic. Local uprisings are possible in the event that local administrations commit political mistakes, giving the insurgents 

an excuse to organize and act against the Kremlin.188

In addition, there are numerous disputes within the 

region itself, such as interethnic tensions between the 

Ossetians and the Ingush or land disputes between 

different groups in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, 

let alone inter-republican border disputes (e.g., between North Ossetia and Ingushetia, and between Ingushetia and Chechnya).189 Other examples of tensions 

include intra-Islamic disputes, such as those between 

Sufi Muslims, who consider their tribal lands to be a 

part of their ethno-national heritage, and the ultra-
67

religious Salafis, who exhibit higher differing levels of 

radicalism, and violent followers of global jihad.

The partial remedy to deprive the rebels of an excuse to lure new mujahedeen seems to be economic 

and social development of the region; attractive secular policies; and the presence of a strong alternative 

to the radical brand of Islam. If corruption and unemployment are successfully dealt with and if the youth 

is given a viable and attractive alternative, the rebel 

leaders will lose their appeal, and the whole insurgency movement may gradually fade.

Instead, Moscow is trying to discredit radical Islamism as something that is foreign to “traditional Islam” and Caucasian ethnic traditions—a strategy that 

has so far had little effect. Paradoxically, this strategy 

has been unsuccessful despite the fact that even unofficial Muslims, not subordinated to the state-sponsored 

Islamic structures, are rather critical and suspicious of 

the “Caucasus Emirate” activity.190 The local population in many cases fails to view federal institutions in 

the region as legitimate. In the meantime, the North 

Caucasus is gradually turning into a de facto “inner 

abroad” for Moscow.

In order for Moscow to achieve successes in fighting the North Caucasian separatists, its policy needs 

to include measures aimed at integrating at least some 

of the radicals into the Russian society. In other words, 

the resolve of the Kremlin to neutralize the separatists 

at all costs needs to be combined with “soft power” 

addressed to the citizens.191 Russia needs to be able 

to distinguish a terrorist act from a gangland slaying 

(very often the highest representatives of the Russian 

state identify terrorists as “bandits”). These measures 

must be accompanied by a relentless anticorruption 

strategy (because “privatization” of the local power 
68

provokes social protest and radicalism), creation of 

new personnel for the republican level of public service—(well-educated beyond the Caucasian republics)—and promotion of alternative versions of Islam 

(regional Caucasus or European Islam for example).

Beyond the North Caucasus, the situation is slowly deteriorating. In particular, the Muslim-majority 

republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, which are 

located in the core of Russia and far away from the 

North Caucasus, have started to develop Islamist networks that are linked with the Northern Caucasus and 

global networks. On July 19, 2012, Deputy Mufti Valiulla Yakupov was killed, and Ildus Fayzov, the Mufti 

of Tatarstan, was severely injured in a car bombing 

in Kazan, Tatarstan.192 These clergymen were openly 

critical of the spread of Wahhabism in the country.193

Radicalized citizens of Tatarstan have also been gone 

to fight in Chechnya and with the Taliban in Afghanistan.194 Also, in Bashkortostan in February 2011, Bashkir officials stated that four Islamist radicals operating 

at the behest of Umarov were caught with a “homemade bomb” with the intention of inflicting mass 

civilian casualties.195

Since North Caucasus is an energy hub adjacent 

to the Black and Caspian Seas, the sabotage of energy 

infrastructure remains a constant concern among Russian energy firms upstream and downstream. As Russia strives to connect new pipelines like South Stream 

from Novorossiysk on the Black Sea to Turkey and 

Europe and continues to build up Krasnodar Krai’s 

ports as energy-logistics hubs, Islamist terrorists in 

the North Caucasus will continue to focus on any opportunity to strike Russian energy trade and civilian 

population in a devastating way.
69

For the United States, the winding down of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq will change the U.S. focus on Central Asia and the Caucasus and its threat 

assessment of North Caucasus terrorism. After the 

withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 

2014, the country will most likely slip back into chaos, 

threatening the stability of the countries of Central 

Asia and North Caucasus, which has traditional political, religious, and drug-trafficking ties with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Thus, the United States may be 

required to refocus on the region, which has so far received insufficient attention under the Barack Obama 

administration. 

Terrorist networks from Russia will find new opportunities to undermine Russian and U.S. allies and 

the peace that the United States fought so hard to secure. Past reports show that Russian citizens from the 

Northern Caucasus have been active in combat and 

in drug trafficking in Afghanistan and South Asia.196

North Caucasus terrorists also greatly benefited from 

the drug trade originating from Afghanistan.197

After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the 

old ties are likely to revive. The global financing of 

terrorism is vital to help grow the North Caucasus 

Islamist network. The radical Islamists in the North 

Caucasus continue to challenge Russian federal authorities, thanks to the availability of outside sources 

of financing. As far back as 2000, Khattab and websites 

supportive of al-Qaeda have solicited financial support 

for North Caucasus groups, even before CE was established.198 Through the global “charity” called Benevolence International Foundation, set up in Saudi Arabia, Chechen groups received vast amounts of money 

from the Middle East, before the international terrorism finance arm was shut down in Russia, the United 
70

States, and elsewhere.199 In 2010, a charity known as 

“Sharia4Belgium,” which was sending money to CE, 

was thwarted, as well as numerous websites based in 

Europe that solicited and laundered funds that ultimately reached Islamic terrorist groups.200

Not only fraudulent “charities” in Europe were 

exposed as money-laundering schemes for terrorists; 

some North Caucasus cells have been uncovered in 

Europe as well. In the Czech Republic, a cell associated with CE, containing one Chechen and a couple 

of Dagestanis, among other Islamic radicals from 

Eastern Europe, was apprehended in April 2011. The 

French police found five Chechen nationals, including 

an imam, in a cell which made and stored components 

for making bombs.201 Based on the nature of these findings, North Caucasus terrorism in Europe appears to 

target civilians and government officials regardless of 

what declaration Umarov might produce.

Finally, as already mentioned, Chechens and other 

extremist Sunni fighters from the North Caucasus 

have made their way via Turkey to Syria fighting 

for the Sunni rebels against the Alawi Assad regime. 

Hundreds of Islamists from the North Caucasus, notably Chechnya, have joined the rebellion against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, even as Kadyrov states 

no Chechens are actively engaged in Syria.202 A senior 

Azerbaijani official who requested anonymity estimated the number of North Caucasians fighting in Syria 

against Assad to be in the “hundreds.” He complained 

that Russia is not doing much to stop the migration of 

its young men to fight a jihad in Syria because Russian authorities prefer “their” extremists to be killed 

far away from its borders.203 On the other hand, if 

trained and battle-hardened in Syria, these fighters 

may come home and cause a lot of trouble to the pro-
71

Moscow administrations of their homeland. As seen 

in Europe, Syria, Afghanistan, and in North America 

(Boston), the North Caucasian threat is already global 

in nature, and active cooperation among international 

intelligence and law enforcement organizations is 

required in order to prevent this region from inflicting any more harm to American and international 

interests.

OUTLOOK AND RECOMMENDATIONS

While Kadyrov and Putin continue to eviscerate 

terrorists, their networks, and supporters, Russian 

society as a whole has made little progress in establishing an interethnic harmony and inter-religious détente between the ethnic Russian Orthodox majority 

and the Muslim North Caucasian peoples throughout 

the country. The Russian elites and Slavic Orthodox 

majority’s attitudes toward the Caucasus vary. Some 

believe that Russia needs to stop pouring multibillion 

dollar subsidies from the federal budget to the likes of 

Kadyrov and to other Caucasus autonomous republics. Hence the famous slogan formulated by the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny: “Enough feeding the 

Caucasus.” 

Eventually, ethno-religious enmity and economic 

disparity may lead to political independence of the regions or parts thereof. Many prominent establishment 

figures, such as the former Prime Minister Yevgeny 

Primakov, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of 

Russia and former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, 

the head of Rosatom and the former Prime Minister 

Sergey Kiriyenko, and the former Moscow mayor 

Yury Luzhkov, essentially agree that Russia should 

abandon the North Caucasus and build a new bor-
72

der on the Terek River. Yet, others still consider the 

Caucasus to be an aggravating problem that should be 

suppressed rather than resolved. Whichever the approach, Russia is unlikely to give up the North Caucasus unless forced to by the aforementioned factors.

The nationalist movements that have conspicuously expressed their animosity toward the region have 

pled to Putin to stop the government’s assistance to 

governments in the Northern Caucasus at the expense 

of Slavic/Orthodox Russians. In the last few years, 

Russians have protested and rioted against the development aid to the Caucasus, as well as in response to 

alleged and real attacks on ethnic Russians by Caucasian migrants in cities and villages all across Russia. 

Locations included the village of Bezopasnoye (whose 

name ironically means “safe”), in Stavropolskaya 

Oblast’; Mirny, in Ulyanovsk oblast (which equally 

ironically means “peaceful”), the cosmopolitan capitals of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg;204 Kondapoga 

in the Karelia, Pugachev (Saratov oblast’);205 Nizhny 

Novgorod; and Kirov, to mention just a few.

Most of society, even if not openly protesting, 

holds peoples from the North Caucasus in low esteem, 

refusing to see them as “Russians” and often limiting 

them to low-skilled, menial jobs such as farmer market traders in the major cities. Yet, the demographic 

dynamic suggests that the number of Russian citizens 

with Muslim roots is growing, and they occupy increasingly important socio-economic positions. For 

example, Rashid Nurgaliyev, who served as Russia’s 

Interior Minister from 2003 to 2011, and Elvira Nabiullina, former Minister of Economic Development and 

Trade and current Head of Russian Central Bank, as 

well as many journalists, businesspeople, government 

officials, and law enforcement personnel. Putin, having to struggle with economic, political, and social 
73

problems throughout all of Russia, cannot risk having the North Caucasus reappear as a national crisis 

flashpoint, since it may lead to partial or even full loss 

of government control over the country. The Kremlin, 

therefore, has little choice but to continue its robust 

anti-terrorist policies with auxiliary economic and 

political support. 

A favorable future in which the region prospers 

and Islamism becomes less appealing looks increasingly unlikely today. The outlook of the North Caucasus is bleak, and the possible scenarios range from a 

muddle through, more of the same/business as usual, 

including low intensity conflict, to a disastrous outcome in which the Russian state is unable to control 

the area, abandons the region, and Islamism takes a 

central role.

U.S. SECURITY INTERESTS AND THE 

NORTH CAUCASUS CHALLENGES

In order to secure the best outcome for the region, 

the United States and its allies must continue to focus 

their attention on the North Caucasus. The following 

are the scenarios:

1. A significant improvement in socio-economic 

and political dynamics if there is a drop in terrorist 

recruitment and activity. This should decrease the 

need for governmental counterterrorist operations 

against the enemy and create a positive climate for 

investment;

2. A status quo, as the region continues its reliance 

on Moscow for subsidies, legitimacy, and support. 

The status quo would also continue to stigmatize the 

North Caucasus Muslims as citizens of lesser stature; 

in short, a muddle through;
74

3. Russian and local authorities’ failures to maintain the order in the region, and the North Caucasus 

descends into chaos.

The status quo/muddle through remains the 

most likely long-term outcome for the region, unless 

Ramzan Kadyrov is killed or incapacitated; however, 

maintaining the status quo only makes the crisis more 

likely in the long term, since any significant economic 

deterioration may bring patience and acquiescence 

among the population to an end.

In light of the current situation, the United States 

must act to protect its interests in the American homeland, as well as in Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle 

East, and Central Asia. The United States must be 

committed to curbing the growth of Islamist terrorism and radicalism in the North Caucasus. The United 

States must engage its allies and work with Russia to 

strengthen its border security, invigorate law enforcement, and counterterrorist cooperation with national 

and international agencies, improve intelligence capabilities, and appeal for international cooperation to 

eliminate the financial support of terrorism that helps 

North-Caucasus militant groups flourish. 

Without immediate, thorough, and concerted 

international action, the challenges that the North 

Caucasus presents to the world will grow into major 

problems. As the terrorist threat grows in the North 

Caucasus, the United States needs to improve the capabilities of the agencies most engaged in fighting it. 

Specifically, the United States can work with Georgia 

and Azerbaijan to improve their border security with 

Russia. The inability to track and to stop those who 

illegally cross the porous borders poses a great risk to 

the energy infrastructure in the South Caucasus. En-
75

gaging with Russia as well as American friends and 

allies in the region to prevent infrastructure attacks, 

as well as the smuggling of human beings, drugs 

and arms, would greatly help to protect the region 

from terrorism.

The United States may also help train and build 

relationships with intelligence, counterterrorist, and 

law enforcement agencies in South Caucasus, including Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The United 

States can explore expanded cooperation with other 

foreign law enforcement and intelligence services for 

the collection of, prevention, and disruption of terrorist operations, including against American and 

friendly targets. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement 

agencies would benefit from cultivating regional ties 

and cooperating against such future threats as described in this monograph. Such cooperation will give 

the United States a better understanding of the North 

Caucasus threat from sources who know the languages, religions, cultures, history, and geography of 

the region. 

The United States also needs to strive to uncover 

the North Caucasus terrorist networks that have connections to international terrorism. One effective way 

for the United States to stop North Caucasus-based 

terrorism is to hamper the means by which the groups 

grow and operate in the region and beyond. For example, this means that the United States should encourage Middle Eastern states to stop the transfer of funds 

to the North Caucasus extremists and cease their indoctrination and Salafi/Wahhabi education for global 

terrorist cadres, including recruiters and propagandists from the North Caucasus.
76

CONCLUSION

Over 2 centuries of abuses of the Russian imperial 

policy in the North Caucasus resonate even today. 

The North Caucasus has been a subject of the tsarist 

expansionist policies, communist oppression, Stalin’s 

cruelty, and post-Soviet Russia’s crippled and corrupt 

institutions, which, while providing some modernization drivers, sewed inter-ethnic and inter-religious 

discord and perpetuated the violent culture. The national reaction gave way to religious extremism. Russians did conquer the North Caucasus militarily, but 

they failed to assimilate the local population, extirpate 

the distinct identities of the North Caucasian peoples, 

or find a modus vivendi with Islam. The Chechens, the 

Ingush, the Circassians, and other local nations remember their tragic past and bear grudges against the 

Russians. Even though the Winter Olympics in Sochi 

in 2014 brought international attention to the tragedies of the region, fortunately, terrorist attacks never 

materialized during the games.

After two devastating wars at the end of the 20th 

century, Moscow has now largely rebuilt the destroyed Chechen infrastructure. On the surface, the 

Chechen capital Grozny looks more prosperous than 

ever. However, the Kremlin has failed to solve the 

underlying problems that fuel Islamist extremism

and terrorism. 

Improving the situation in the North Caucasus 

would ultimately require tackling corruption and ensuring government accountability to the local population—something that is highly unlikely to happen 

anytime soon. Soaring unemployment, unfair treatment of the North Caucasian ethnic minorities in Russia proper, the lack of opportunities, and a lack of be-
77

lief in a better future motivate some of the Chechens, 

Ingush, Dagestanis, etc., to join violent groups active 

against the local governments and against Moscow—

and in the cause of the global “holy war” against the 

“infidels.”

The North Caucasus still faces a precarious future, 

as well as economic collapse and devastation. The 

growth of radical Islam and the danger of global jihad impeding on the region imperil not only Russia, 

but also the security of the U.S. homeland and allies. 

What was a nationalist struggle against Moscow has 

mutated over a short period of time into a global menace that already has spread to the Middle East, Central 

Asia, Europe, and the United States. The United States 

must track the threats from the North Caucasus and 

strive to prevent their further integration with global 

militant Islamist actors. Today, no American strategy against global Islamism will be effective without 

detailed programs and plans to combat terrorist networks in the North Caucasus.

ENDNOTES

1. Ariel Cohen, “A Threat to the West: The Rise of Islamist 

Insurgency in the Northern Caucasus and Russia’s Inadequate 

Response,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, No. 2643, March 

26, 2012, available from www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/

a-threat-to-the-west-the-rise-of-islamist-insurgency-in-the-northerncaucasus.

2. “Designation of Caucasus Emirate,” Washington, DC: U.S. 

Department of State, May 26, 2011, available from www.state.gov/r/

pa/prs/ps/2011/05/164312.htm.

3. “Terakt v Kizlyare i Pervomayskom 9—18 yanvarya 1996 

goda” (“A Terrorist Attack in Kizlyar and Pervomayskoye on 

January 9–January 18, 1996”), Caucasian Knot, January 18, 2013, 

available from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/218853/.
78

4. “Doku Umarov prikazal modzhakhedam ne atakovat 

grazhdanskoye naselenie Rossii” (“Doku Umarov Ordered the 

Mujahedeen not to Attack the Russian Civilian Population”), 

Korrespondent.net, February 3, 2012, available from korrespondent.

net/video/world/1315131-doku-umarov-prikazal-modzhahedam-neatakovat-grazhdanskoe-naselenie-rossii.

5. “Greetings from Grozny: Explore Chechnya’s Turbulent 

Past: 1700s: Holy War,” PBS Wide Angle, July 25, 2002, available 

from www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/greetings-from-grozny/

explore-chechnyas-turbulent-past/1700s-holy-war/3304/.

6. Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murat, Chapter 12, 1917, available from 

www.ccel.org/ccel/tolstoy/hadij.xiii.html.

7. For more information on the background of the Russian/

Soviet-North Caucasus conflicts, see Ariel Cohen, “A Threat to 

the West: The Rise of Islamist Insurgency in the Northern Caucasus and Russia’s Inadequate Response,” Heritage Foundation 

Backgrounder No. 2643, available from www.heritage.org/research/

reports/2012/03/a-threat-to-the-west-the-rise-of-islamist-insurgencyin-the-northern-caucasus.

8. Paul B. Henze, “Islam in the North Caucasus: The Example of Chechnia,” Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, May 

1995, p. 3, available from www.circassianworld.com/pdf/Henze_

Islam_NorthCaucasus.pdf.

9. A. A. Alov and N. G. Vladimirov, “Rasprostranenie Islama sredi narodov Severnogo Kavkaza v VIII-XVIII vekax”/

Islam v Rossii/Islam na Severnom Kavkaze, (“The Spread of Islam 

Among the Peoples of North Caucasus in the ‘Eighth-Eighteenth 

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10. “Ethnic Groups in the Caucasus Region,” Washington, 

DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1993.

11. Henze, p. 4.
79

12. Moshe Gammer, “‘Proconsul of the Caucasus’: A Reexamination of Yermolov,” Social Evolution & History, Vol. 2, 

No. 1, March 2003, available from www.sociostudies.org/journal/

articles/140480/.

13. E. A. Yermolov, “Zapiski (str. 20)” (“Notes (p. 20)”), available from www.pandia.ru/text/77/390/36749-20.php.

14. “Zhizn i deyatel’nost A. P. Yermolova” (“Life and Work 

of A. P. Yermolov”), 2006, available from chechenasso.ru/?page_

id=2163.

15. I. Drozdov, “Poslednaya borba s gortsami na Zapadnom Kavkaze” (“The Last Battle with the Highlanders in the 

Western Caucasus”), 1877, available from www.vostlit.info/Texts/

Dokumenty/Kavkaz/XIX/1840-1860/Drozdov_I/text3.htm.

16. Vladimir Degoyev, “Imam Shamil (prorok, vlastitel, 

voin),” (“Imam Shamil [a Prophet, a Ruler, and a Warrior]”), 

2001, p. 131.

17. Vladimir Degoyev, “Imam Shamil i tekhnologiya 

vlastvovaniya” (“Imam Shamil and the Method of Ruling”), 

1998, available from www.russia-21.ru/xxi/rus_21/ARXIV/1998/

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18. “Ichkeriyskoye srazhenie” (“The Ichkerinsky Battle”), 

Caucasian Knot, February 15, 2011.

19. G. G. Lisicyna, “Vospominaniya neizvestnogo uchastnika Darginskoy ekspeditsii 1845 g.” (“Memoirs of an Unknown 

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20. N. N. Velikaya, “Kazaki Vostochnogo Predkavkazya v 

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21. Svante E. Cornell, “The ‘Afghanization’ of the North Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict,” Rus-
80

sia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, 

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. October 

2012, p. 125.

22. Z. Papaskiri, “Nekotoryye aspekty imperskoy politiki 

Rossii na Kavkaze” (“Some Aspects of the Russian Imperial 

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23. Drozdov, “The Last Battle with the Highlanders in the 

Western Caucasus.”

24. Henze, p. 4.

25. “Istoricheskiy obzor: tragediya adygov v Kavkazskoy 

voyne” (“A Historical Review: the Tragedy of the Circassians in 

the Caucasian War”), May 25, 2013, available from history-tema.

com/istoricheskij-obzor-tragediya-adygov-v-kavkazskoj-vojne.

26. Ibid.

27. S. M. Dmitrievskiy, B. I. Gvareli, O. A. Chelysheva, “Mezhdunarodnyy Tribunal Dlya Chechni” (“An International Tribunal 

for Chechnya”), Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, 2009, p. 68, available 

from old.novayagazeta.ru/file/pdf/t1.pdf.

28. D. Gakaev, “Grazhdanskaya voyna v Checheno-Ingushetii”/Ocherki politicheskoy istorii Chechni (XX vek) (“The Civil 

War in Checheno-Ingushetia”/Essays on the Political History of 

Chechnya (20th Century)), available from checheninfo.ru/12438-

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29. Victor A. Shnirelman, “Byt Alanami: intellektualy i politika na Severnom Kavkaze v XX veke” (“To Be Alans: Intellectuals 

and Politics in the North Caucasus in the 20th Century”), 2006, 

p. 38, available from old.ingushetiyaru.org/history/shnirelman_bit_

alanamy/files/shnirelman_bit_alanamy.doc. 

30. Yu. V. Yeremina, “Otechestvennaya istoriya. Uchebnoprakticheskoye posobiye dlya studentov vsekh spetsialnostey i 

vsekh form obucheniya” (“Domestic History. Educational and 
81

Practical Handbook for Students of all Specializations and all 

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31. “Deklaraciya prav narodov Rossii, 2(15) noyabrya 1917 g.” 

(“Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, November 

2(15), 1917”), Decrees of the Soviet Authorities, 1957, available 

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32. Cohen, p. 5.

33. “Remembering Stalin’s Deportations,” BBCNews, February 23, 2004, available from news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3509933.stm.

34. “Dokumenty iz arkhiva Iosifa Stalina” (“Documents from 

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35. N. F. Bugay, “Pravda o deportacii chechenskogo i ingushskogo narodov” (“The Truth about the Deportation of the Chechen 

and the Ingush Nations”), Voprosy istorii (Historical Issues), No. 7, 

1990, available from www.ingush.ru/repressii4.asp.

36. “Ukaz ot 12 oktyabrya 1943 goda O likvidacii Karachaevskoy Avtonomnoy Oblasti i ob administrativnom ustrojstve 

yeyo territorii” (“Decree of October 12, 1943, on the Liquidation 

of the Karachevo Autonomous Oblast and about the Administrative Organization of its Territory”), available from www.libussr.ru/

doc_ussr/ussr_4462.htm.

37. “Ukaz Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR O likvidacii Kalmyckoy ASSR i obrazovanii Astraxanskoy oblasti v sostave 

RSFSR” (“Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR On the Liquidation of the Kalmyk ASSR and the Creation of the Astrahkanskaya Oblast as part of the RSFSR”), available from www.memorial.

krsk.ru/DOKUMENT/USSR/431227.htm.
82

38. “Deportaciya narodov v SSSR. Spravka” (“Deportation of 

the Peoples of the USSR. Overview”), RIA Novosti, November 14, 

2009, available from ria.ru/society/20091114/193419498.html.

39. Alexander Janda, Nobert Leitner, and Mathias Vogl, 

Chechens in the European Union, Vienna, Austria: Austrian Integration Fund, 2008, p. 13.

40. Zeyno Baran, S. Frederick Starr, and Svante E. Cornell, 

“Islamic Radicalism in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Implications for the EU,” Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Silk Road 

Studies, July 2006, available from www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/

Silkroadpapers/0607Islam.pdf. 

41. Cornell, p. 127.

42. See Vakhit Akaev, “The History and Specifics of the Islamic Renaissance Today in the Chechen Republic,” Central Asia 

and the Caucasus, Vol. 12, Issue 3, 2011, pp. 97-102.

43. See Ianda et al., p. 31.

44. The ASSRs consisted of Chechen-Ingush ASSR, Dagestan 

ASSR, North Ossetian ASSR, Karbardino-Balkar ASSR, KarachaiCherkess ASSR, and Adigeian ASSR. These ASSRs became Autonomous Republics of the Russian Federation. (The ChechenInguish ASSR split in two along ethnic lines.)

45. Henry Sokolski, “Beyond Nunn-Lugar: Curbing the Next 

Wave of Weapons Proliferation Threats from Russia,” Washington, DC: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, April 

2002, p. 65.

46. A. V. Cherkasov and O. P. Orlov, “Khronika vooruzhennogo konflikta” (“A Chronicle of the Armed Conflict”), Memorial, 

available from www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/chechen/itogi/xp90.htm.

47. Cohen, p. 5.

48. Cornell, pp. 128-129.
83

49. See “Agreement between the Government of the Russian 

Federation and the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan,” 

Kazan, Tatarstan: Kazan State University, May 20, 2013. See also 

“Relations Between the Federal Centre and Tatarstan,” available 

from 1997-2011.tatarstan.ru/?DNSID=835e288e889a320f22475f56cf

81d5f1&node_id=836. 

50. “Naselenie po natsionalnosti i vladeniyu russkim yazykom po subyektam Rossiyskoy Federatsii” (The Population 

of the Russian Federation in Territorial Units by Nationality and 

Russian Language Fluency), available from www.perepis2002.ru/

ct/doc/TOM_04_03.xls.

51. V. Zaytsev, “Nayomniki v Chechne” (“Mercenaries in 

Chechnya”), Journal “Ogonyok” (“Little Fire”), No. 11, 5170, March 

21, 2011, available from www.kommersant.ru/doc/1604045.

52. “Posledneye intervyu Pavla Grachova: ‘Po Belomu 

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‘Running Fire at the White House!’”), Forbes, October 16, 2012, 

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53. Svante E. Cornell, “The ‘Afghanization’ of the North Caucasus,” Stephen J. Blank, ed., Russia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad 

in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 

Army War College, 2012, p. 127.

54. Ilyas Akhmadov and Miriam Lanskoy, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 

2010, p. 12.

55. Ibid., pp. 12-13.

56. Ibid.

57. “Vzyat’ Groznyy silami odnogo parashyutno-desantnogo polka” (“To Capture Grozny with One Airborne Regiment”), RIA Novosti, April 17, 2011, available from ria.ru/history_

tochki/20110417/365652355.html.

58. Cornell, p. 130.
84

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. David Zucchino, “Chechen Commando Chief Recounts 

Budyonnovsk Raid, Events that Preceded It,” Knight-Ridder News 

Service, July 16, 1995, available from articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-

07-16/news/1995197017_1_basayev-budyonnovsk-chechen-war.

62. “Khronologiya zaxvata zalozhnikov v gorode Budyonnovsk. Spravka” (“A Chronology of the Hostage Taking in the 

Town of Budyonnovsk: Overview”), RIA Novosti, June 11, 2011, 

available from ria.ru/history_spravki/20110610/386717117.html.

63. “Budyonnovsk, June 1995, Chronicles of a Deadly 

Terrorist Attack,” RIA Novosti, No Date, available from en.rian.ru/

photolents/20100618/159475084_12.html.

64. Cornell, p. 131.

65. “Zakhvaty zalozhnikov. Kak eto bylo v mire” (“Hostage 

Taking: How It Was in the World”), Izvestiya, October 24, 2002, 

available from izvestia.ru/news/268869.

66. “Snayperskaya voyna v Chechne” (“Sniper War in Chechnya”), available from www.bratishka.ru/zal/sniper/3_7.php.

67. O. Lukin, “Pervaya chechenskaya voyna: Mif o ‘malenkoy pobedonosnoy voyne’ rasseivaetsya” (“The First Chechen 

War: The Myth about the ‘Short Victorious War’ Is Dissipating”), 

Journal “Mostok” (“Little Bridge”), March–June 1995, available 

from www.vestnikmostok.ru/index.php?categoryid=19&view=arhiv&

view_num=19&id_item=118&action=view.

68. E. A. Fedosov, “Polveka v aviatsii: Zapiski akademika,” 

(“Half a Century in Aviation: Notes of an Academic”), Moscow, Russia, 2004, available from militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/

fedosov_ea/05.html.

69. “Organizatsii, svyazannye s Al-Kaidoy” (“Organizations 

Linked to Al Qaeda”), September 3, 2010, available from www.

un.org/russian/sc/committees/1267/NSQE9903R.shtml.
85

70. Arkady Babchenko, “Uncivil War,” The Washington Post, 

March 30, 2008, available from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

content/article/2008/03/27/AR2008032702932_pf.html.

71. Arthur L. Speyer III, “The Two Sides of Grozny,” Santa 

Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, available from www.rand.

org/content/dam/rand/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF162/CF162.appc.pdf.

72. Ibid., p. 71.

73. Ibid., p. 90.

74. Ibid., p. 70.

75. D. Ivanov, “Aslan Maskhadov proigral voynu” (“Aslan 

Maskhadov Lost the War”), Lenta.Ru, March 9, 2005, available 

from lenta.ru/articles/2005/03/08/maskhadov/.

76. I. Yegorov, “Al-Kaida v Rossii” (“Al Qaeda in Russia”), Rossiyskaya Gazeta, May 2, 2011, available from www.rg.ru/2011/05/02/

alkaida-site.html.

77. Ibid.

78. Lev Gudkov, “Pokornoe bessilie rossiyskogo obshchestva” (“Obedient Powerlessness of the Russian Society”), BBC, 

December 1, 2004, available from news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/russia/

newsid_4059000/4059361.stm.

79. “Pervaya Chechenskaya voyna 1994-1996” (“The First 

Chechen War of 1994–1996”), December 12, 2009, available 

from history-of-wars.ru/war_hrono/343-pervaya-chechenskaya-vojna1994-1996.html.

80. Alexei Malashenko and Dmitri Trenin, “Vremya yuga. 

Rossiya v Chechne, Chechnya v Rossii” (“The Time of the South: 

Russia in Chechnya and Chechnya in Russia”), Moscow, Russia, 2002, pp. 47-48, available from carnegieendowment.org/files/

pub-35864.pdf. 

81. Ibid.
86

82. “Chechnya i Sostoyaniye Rossiyskoy Armii” (“Chechnya 

and the State of the Russian Military”), 2001, available from www.

mfit.ru/defensive/vestnik/vestnik6_1.html.

83. S. E. Miller and Dmitri Trenin, “Vooruzhonnye sily Rossii: 

vlast i politika” (“Russia’s Armed Forces: Power and Politics”), 

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, p. 61, available from www.

amacad.org/publications/russian_mil_russian.pdf.

84. Liz Fuller, “Why Is The North Caucasus An Unholy Mess?” 

Radio Free Europe, July 11, 2013, available from www.rferl.org/content/north_caucasus_why_is_it_such_an_unholy_mess/24297384.

html.

85. Alexei Kudryavtsev, “Vakhabbism”: problemy religioznogo ehkstremizma na Severnom Kavkaze” (“‘Wahhabism’: 

Problems with Religious Extremism in the North Caucasus”), 

Lulea, Sweden: Central Asian and Central Caucasus (CA&CC) 

Press, September 2000, available from www.ca-c.org/journal/cac09-2000/14.Kudriav.shtml.

86. Ilya Maksakov, “Shariatskoye pravo po-chechenski” 

(“Sharia Law in Chechen”), Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 29, 

2000, available from www.ng.ru/specfile/2000-02-29/14_shariat.html.

87. Leon Aron, “Chechnya. New Dimensions of the Old Crisis,” Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, February 1, 

2003, available from www.aei.org/article/foreign-and-defense-policy/

regional/europe/chechnya-outlook/#mbl.

88. Cohen, p. 5.

89. “Ekonomika chechenskogo terrora” (“Economics of the 

Chechen Terror”), Kommersant, No. 36, 240, September 15, 1999, 

available from www.kommersant.ru/doc/23319/.

90. A. K. Bekryashev, I. P. Belozerov, and N. S. Bekryasheva, 

“Tenevaya ekonomika i ekonomicheskaya prestupnost” (“The 

Shadow Economy and Economic Crime”), 2003, p. 207, available 

from rrc.dgu.ru/res/economika/ten_ec.doc. 

91. Akhmadov et al., pp. 123-124.
87

92. Cornell, p. 133.

93. Ibid., p. 133-134.

94. Sanobar Shermatova and Leonid Nikitinsky, “Generaly 

rabotorgovli” (“The Generals of the Slave Trade”), Moskovskiye Novosti, March–April 2000, available from www.memo.ru/hr/

hotpoints/N-Caucas/ch99/000328/mn0328a.htm.

95. Vladimir Ardaev, “Kem byl Arbi Barayev” (“Who Was 

Arbi Barayev”), BBC, June 25, 2001, available from news.bbc.co.uk/

hi/russian/news/newsid_1407000/1407433.stm.

96. Gennadiy Troshev, “Moya voyna. Chechenskiy dnevnik 

okopnogo generala” (“My War. The Chechen Diary of a 

Trench General”), 2001, available from www.lib.ru/MEMUARY/

CHECHNYA/troshew.txt_with-big-pictures.html.

97. “Chistoserdechnoye Priznanie—Kavkazskiye Plenniki” 

(“Open-Hearted Confession—Caucasian Captives”), NTV, 2005, 

available from www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QKyOwPeNa8.

98. Timur Aliyev, “Chechnya: biznes na voyne” (“Chechnya: 

the War Business”), BBC, December 10, 2004, available from news.

bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/russia/newsid_4044000/4044675.stm.

99. “Open-Hearted Confession—Caucasian Captives.”

100. Ibid.

101. Cornell, p. 135.

102. Akhmadov, pp. 173-176.

103. Cornell, p. 138.

104. Cohen, p. 5.

105. Alexander Cherkasov, “Demografiya, poteri naseleniya i migracionnye potoki v zone vooruzhonnogo konflikta v 

Chechenskoy Respublike. Kritika istochnikov” (“The Book of 

Numbers, Demographics, Civilian Losses and Migration Flows 

in the Conflict Zone in the Republic of Chechnya: A Critique of 
88

the Sources”), Stavropol, Russia: Kniga chisel, Memorial, September 2001, available from www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/N-Caucas/misc/

numbook.htm.

106. U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights 

Practices 1996-Russia, Washington, DC: United States Department of State, January 30, 1997, available from www.refworld.org/

docid/3ae6aa7b0.html.

107. Maria Mstislavskaya, “Vysshaya chechenskaya arifmetika” (“Higher Chechen Arithmetic”), Lenta.Ru, August 16, 2005, 

available from lenta.ru/articles/2005/08/16/losses/.

108. “Kak okhotilis na Akhmata Kadyrova” (“How Akhmat 

Kadyrov Was Hunted”), Kommersant, May 11, 2004, available 

from www.kommersant.ru/doc/473143.

109. D. Ivanov, “Aslan Maskhadov proigral voynu” (“Aslan 

Maskhadov Lost the War”), Lenta.Ru, March 9, 2005, available 

from lenta.ru/articles/2005/03/08/maskhadov/.

110. “Sledstvie: Maskhadova zastrelil okhrannik” (“Investigation: Maskhadov Was Shot Dead by his Bodyguard”), Agentura.

Ru, October 28, 2005, available from www.agentura.ru/news/21800/.

111. “Shamaev Akhmad-khadzhi,” October 17, 2000, available from www.religio.ru/dosje/24/63.html.

112. “Osuzhdyonnyye za ubiystvo Yandarbiyeva vernulis v 

Rossiyu” (“Those Sentenced for Killing Yandarbiyev Returned to 

Russia”), Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 23, 2004, available from 

www.rg.ru/2004/12/24/katar-anons.html.

113. “Russian Justice Ministry Knows, Yandarbiyev’s Killers 

Serve Sentence in Russia, Doesn’t Know Where,” Regnum, December 14, 2005, available from www.regnum.ru/english/560154.html.

114. Interview with Sergey Markedonov, Visiting Fellow, 

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies 

(CSIS), July 20-24, 2013.
89

115. Ildar Bedretdinov, “Vtoraya Chechenskaya voyna” (“The 

Second Chechen War”), 2004, available from www.airwar.ru/

history/locwar/chechnya/sw/sw.html.

116. “Kavkaz: Vtoraya chechenskaya vojna” (“The Caucasus: 

the Second Chechen War”), 2000, available from razumkov.org.ua/

ukr/article.php?news_id=565.

117. “PVO i poteri udarnykh vertolyotov” (“Air Defense Systems and Losses of Attack Helicopters”), Newsland.com, January 

15, 2013, available from newsland.com/news/detail/id/1106730/. 

118. Ibid.

119. “Na Argunskoe ushhelye sbrasyvayut obyomno-detoniruyushhiye bomby” (“Thermobaric Weapons are Being Thrown 

Down on the Argun Gorge”), Lenta.Ru, February 9, 2000, available 

from lenta.ru/vojna/2000/02/09/argun/.

120. Lester W. Grau and Timothy Smith, “A ‘Crushing’ Victory: Fuel-Air Explosives and Grozny 2000,” August 2000, available from fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/fuelair/fuelair.htm.

121. Gordon M. Hahn, “Caucasus Emirate Jihadists: The 

Security and Strategic Implications,” Stephen J. Blank, ed., Russia’s 

Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, October, 2012, 

p. 29, available from www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/

PUB1116.pdf.

122. Liz Fuller, “Chechnya: Resistance Leadership Affirms 

Readiness for Peace Talks,” RFE/RL, July 14, 2006, available from 

www.rferl.org/content/article/1069862.html.

123. Gordon Hahn, “The Caucasus Emirate Jihadists,” 

Stephen J. Blank, ed., Russia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in 

the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 

Army War College, October, 2012, p. 3. (The Jamaat reference 

comes from Cohen, “A Threat to the West,” p. 7.)

124. Ibid., pp. 5-6.
90

125. Ibid., p. 7.

126. Cohen, p. 6.

127. Hahn,“Amir Doku Abu Usman o bin Ladene, Imarate 

Kavkaz I poteryakh modzhakhedov” (“Amir Doku Abu Usman 

on bin Laden, the Caucasus Emirate and Losses of the Mujahedeen”), Kavkaz tsentr, May 17, 2011, p. 10, available from www.

kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2011/05/17/81607.shtml.

128. Cohen, p. 7.

129. From Cohen, “Top Al Qaeda Envoy Killed in Chechnya,” 

RT, May 4, 2011, available from rt.com/news/qaeda-terrorism-killedchechnya/. 

130. From Cohen, p. 7, Rachel Ehrenfeld and Jonathan Halevi, 

“Al Qaeda’s Global Reach,” New York: American Center for Democracy, May 12, 2010, available from acdemocracy.org/Al Qaedasglobal-reach/.

131. “ESPCh: operatsiya na Dubrovke byla provedena s narusheniyami” (“The Operation in Dubrovka Was Conducted with 

Violations”), BBC Russian, December 20, 2011, available from 

www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2011/12/111220_strasbourg_court_

nord-ost.shtml.

132. “Nord-Ost. Neokonchennoye rassledovanie”—doklad 

pod takim nazvaniem predstavili segodnya obshhestvennosti rodstvenniki pogibshikh i postradavshiye pri terakte na Dubrovke.” 

(“Nord-Ost. An Unfinished Investigation—A Report under this 

Name Was Released Today by Relatives of the Victims and by 

Those Injured”), Ekho Moskvy, May 15, 2006, available from www.

echo.msk.ru/news/322802.html.

133. “Minzdrav oyavil sostav gaza iz “Nord-Osta” gosudarstvennoy taynoy” (“The Ministry of Health Has Declared the 

Composition of the Gas Used in Nord-Ost a Government Secret”), 

Lenta.Ru, December 11, 2002, available from lenta.ru/terror/2002/

12/11/gas/.
91

134. “Veteran Alfy: primeneniye gaza pri shturme “Nord-Osta” bylo opravdano” (“An Alpha Veteran: Using Gas at Freeing 

Nord-Ost Was Justified”), RIA Novosti, October 26, 2012, available 

from ria.ru/society/20121026/906935884.html.

135. “Sentyabrskiye vzryvy 1999 goda” (“September 1999 

Blasts”), RIA Novosti, September 12, 2011, available from ria.ru/

history_comments/20110912/436010306.html.

136. From Cohen, p. 6, “QI.U.190.11. Doku Khamatovich 

Umarov,” New York: UN Security Council, March 10, 2011, 

available from www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQI29011E.shtml; 

“Designation of Caucasus Emirate Leader Doku Umarov,” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2010; “Designation of Caucasus Emirate,” Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2011.

137. “Khronika zakhvata zalozhnikov v shkole nomer 1 g. 

Beslan. Spravka” (“A Chronicle of the Hostage Taking in School 

No. 1 in Breslan: Overview”), RIA Novosti, September 1, 2009, 

available from ria.ru/society/20090901/183228293.html.

138. Roman Osharov, “‘Golos Beslana’: Narod pomnit. . . . 

A vlasti?” (Roman Osharov, “‘The Voice of Beslan:’ The People 

Remember. . . . And the Authorities?”), Voice of America, September 3, 2012, available from www.golos-ameriki.ru/content/beslanrussia/1500567.html.

139. “Doklad komissii Torshina razocharoval ‘Materey Beslana’” (“The Report of the Torshin Commission Has Disappointed 

the ‘Mothers of Beslan’”), Lenta.Ru, December 28, 2005, available 

from lenta.ru/news/2005/12/28/beslan1/.

140. Fedor Maksimov, “Beslan obyasnili vzryvtexticheski” 

(“Beslan Explained through Blasts”), Kommersant, September 4, 

2006, available from www.kommersant.ru/doc/702175/.

141. From Cohen, p. 6, National Consortium for the Study of 

Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, “Suicide Attack at Moscow Airport,” Background Report, January 24, 2011, available from 

www.start.umd.edu/start/publications/br/Background_Report_2011_

January_Moscow_Airport.pdf.
92

142. Meeting with Vladimir Putin, Valday Club, Moscow, 

Russia, September 2004 (author’s notes).

143. Sergey Markedonov, personal interview, July 23, 2013.

144. Ibid.

145. “Adhmad Kadyrov’s Death Marked the End of an 

Era,” RIA Novosti, May 13, 2005, available from en.rian.ru/analysis/20050513/39977649.html.

146. C. J. Chivers, “Investigation Links Critic’s Death to 

Top Chechens,” The New York Times, April 25, 2010, available from www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/world/europe/26chechen.

html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 

147. Anatol Lieven, “Gracious Grozny,” The National Interest, September 18, 2008, available from nationalinterest.org/article/

gracious-grozny-2865.

148. Tom Parfitt, “The Battle for the Soul of Chechnya,” The 

Guardian, November 22, 2007, available from www.guardian.co.uk/

world/2007/nov/22/chechnya.tomparfitt.

149. Cohen, p. 8.

150. Parfitt.

151 . Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Large-Scale Clash with Insurgents Reported in Chechnya in Bamut,” Jamestown Foundation, July 11, 2013, available from www.jamestown.org/regions/

thecaucasus/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=41110&tx_ttnews[backPid]

=639&cHash=0f6f9cca3d2d62e7b7af0d435ed9dd3d#.Ueyk5W008mU.

152. Alexei Malashenko, personal interview, July 20, 2013.

153. Ibid.

154. “U.S. Congress: Russia Uses Terrorist Tactics in Caucasus,” Kavkaz Center, April 24, 2011, available from www.

kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/04/24/14158.shtml.
93

155. “The Committee of the USA for International Religious 

Freedoms Advises the USA to Block Ramzan Kadyrov’s Bank 

Accounts,” Caucasian Knot, May 5, 2011, available from eng.

kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/16966/.

156. “Chechen Leader Kadyrov Laughs off Magnitsky List 

Rumors,” RIA Novosti, April 13, 2013, available from en.rian.ru/

russia/20130413/180621103.html.

157. Vakhit Akaev,“The History and Specifics of the Islamic 

Renaissance Today in the Chechen Republic,” Central Asia and the 

Caucasus, Vol. 12, Issue 3, 2011, Lulea, Sweden: CA&CC Press, pp. 

97-104.

158. Akaev, pp. 101-102.

159. “Valovoy regionalnyy produkt po subyektam Rossiyskoy Federatsii na dushu naseleniya v 1998-2010” (“Gross Regional Product per Capita by Territorial Units of the Russian Federation in 1998–2010”), available from www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/

vvp/dusha98-10.xls.

160. “V 2012 godu v Chechenskoy Respublike nablyudalos 

snizhenie urovnya bezrabotitsy” (“Chechnya Saw a Decline 

in Unemployment in 2012”), January 11, 2013, available from 

chechnya.gov.ru/page.php?r=126&id=12197.

161. Anastasia Kirilenko, “Chechne neobxodimy investitsii ne 

tolko v stroitelstvo” (“Chechnya needs Investment not only in the 

Construction Sector”), Caucasian Knot, February 23, 2010, available from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/165773/.

162. Michael Schwirtz, “Russian Anger Grows Over Chechnya Subsidies,” The New York Times, October 8, 2011, available 

from www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/europe/chechnyas-costsstir-anger-as-russia-approaches-elections.html?pagewanted=all%20

2013,%20http:\\www.nytimes.com\\2011\\10\\09\\world\\

europe\\chechnyas-costs-stir-anger-as-russia-approaches-elections.

html%3fpagewanted=all”.

163. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Continuing Human Rights 

Abuses Force Chechens to Flee to Europe,” Washington, DC: 
94

Jamestown Foundation, March 7, 2013, available from www.

jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=40559&tx_

ttnews[backPid]=623#.UdxnI231bYQ.

164. Timur Malsagov, “Chechentsy po-evropeyski” (“Chechens in a European Way”), Caucasus Times, March 19, 2009, available from www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=19774.

165. World Chechen Congress registration, 2005, available 

from www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/tsv_pdf/2005/09/27/05134537.pdf.

166. “Zayavleniye Chechenskaya Diaspora Norvegii,” 

(“Statement of the Chechen Diaspora of Norway”), Chechenews.

com, December 9, 2010, available from chechenews.com/world-news/

breaking/1739-1.html.

167. “Virtual ‘World Chechen Congress’ Was Staged,” 

Kavkazcenter.com, September 26, 2010, available from www.

kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2010/09/26/12582.shtml.

168. Ibid.

169. Timur Malsagov, “Chechentsy po-evropeyski” (“Chechens in a European Way”), Caucasus Times, March 19, 2009, available from www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=19774.

170. Hahn, pp. 47-49.

171. “Khishcheniya 275 mln rub vyyavleny v kompanii Kurorty Severnogo Kavkaza” (“Theft of 275 million Rubles in the 

Resorts of the North Caucasus Company Has Been Discovered”), 

Argumenty i Fakty, May 8, 2013, available from www.aif.ru/money/

corruption/303920.

172. Anastasia Bashkatova, “Korrupciya ustanovila olimpiyskiy rekord” (“Corruption Has Set an Olympic Record”), Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 7, 2010, available from www.ng.ru/economics/2010-06-07/1_corrupciya.html.

173. Thomas Grove, “Special Report: Russia’s $50 

Billion Olympic Gamble,” Reuters, February 21, 2013, 

available from www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/21/us-russia-sochiidUSBRE91K04M20130221.
95

174. Maria Makutina, “Nemtsov ustanovil rekord Olimpiady” (“Nemtsov Set an Olympic Record”), Gazeta.Ru, May 

30, 2005, available from www.gazeta.ru/politics/2013/05/30_a_

5362917.shtml.

175. “Federalniy zakon Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 6 marta 2006, 

No. 35-FZ O Protivodeistvii terrorizmu” (“Federal Law of the 

Russian Federation No. 35-FZ of March 6, 2006, On Combatting 

Terrorism”), Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 10, 2006, available from 

www.rg.ru/2006/03/10/borba-terrorizm.html.

176. Murad Makhmudov and Lee Jay Walke, “Russian Federation: Doku Umarov: An Islamic Terrorist Vows to Stop Civilian 

Attacks,” Modern Tokyo Times, February 18, 2012, available from 

moderntokyotimes.com/2012/02/18/russian-federation-doku-umarovan-islamic-terrorist-vows-to-stop-civilian-attacks/; the quotes provided within the article are provided by Valery Dzutsev of the 

Jamestown Foundation.

177. Olga Gritsenko, “Terrorist v otstavke” (“A Retired Terrorist”), Vzglyad.Ru, August 2, 2010, available from vzglyad.ru/

politics/2010/8/2/422440.html.

178. “Amir Imarata Kavkaz Doku Abu Usman otmenil 

svoyu otstavku, nazvav eyo sfabrikovannoy, i vystupil po etomu povodu so specialnym zayavleniyem” (“Doku(Abu Usman) 

Umarov, Emir of the Caucasus Emirate, Canceled his Resignation and Made a Special Statement on this Issue”), Kavkaz Center, August 4, 2010, available from www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/

content/2010/08/04/74303.shtml.

179. Andrey Sharyy, “Andrey Babickiy—o Doku Umarove i 

vooruzhonnom podpolye” (“Andrey Babicky about Doku Umarov and the Armed Underground”), available from www.svoboda.

org/content/article/2000202.html.

180. D. V. Makarov, “Nacionalnye otnosheniya. Radikalizaciya islama v Dagestane: Vozmozhnosti i predely dzhixadizma” 

(“Ethnic Relations. Radicalization of Islam in Dagestan: Possibilities and Limits of the Jihadism”), 2004.
96

181. Alexei Malashenko, “Kuda idyot Dagestan” (“Where Is 

Dagestan Going”), November 19, 2012, available from carnegieendowment.org/2012/11/19/%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0-

%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%82-%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%

B3%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD/elzq.

182. Tanzila Chabieva and Michail Roshin, “Konflikt pokoleniy v ingushskom islame: sufii i salafity” (“A Conflict of Generations in Islam in Ingushetia: the Sufis and the Salafis”), Caucasus Times, April 29, 2013, available from www.caucasustimes.com/

article.asp?id=21140.

183. “Konets ‘rezhima antiterroristicheskoy operatsii’ v 

Chechne” (“The End of ‘Regime of Anti-Terrorism Operation’ in 

Chechnya”), RFI, April 16, 2009, available from www.rfi.fr/acturu/

articles/112/article_3026.asp. 

184. Anton Krivenyuk, “Cherkesskiy mir mezhdu nacionalizmom i islamskoy globalizaciey” (“The Circassian World between 

Nationalism and Islamic Globalization”), Caucasus Times, May 2, 

2013, available from www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=21144.

185. “NAK: ubityye v Kabardino-Balkarii boeviki sobiralis 

sovershit terakty na Rozhdestvo” (“National Antiterrorist Committee: Rebels Killed in Kabardino-Balkaria Were Preparing to 

Commit Terrorist Attacks on Christmas”), Caucasus Knot, January 

7, 2013, available from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/218308/.

186. “Kabardino-Balkariya: khronika vzryvov, obstrelov i 

teraktov” (“Kabardino-Balkaria: A Chronicle of Blasts, Firings, 

and Terrorist Attacks”), Caucasus Knot, originally published 

July 23, 2010, available from kabardino-balkaria.kavkaz-uzel.ru/

articles/172027/.

187. Andrei Rezchikov and EkaterinaEermakova, “Chechenskiy sled doshol do Asada” (“The Chechen Trace Has Reached 

Assad”), Vzglyad.Ru, November 27, 2012, available from vz.ru/

politics/2012/11/27/609131.html.

188. A. Malashenko, e-mail message to author, July 20, 2013.
97

189. Interview with Sergey Markedonov, Visiting Fellow, 

CSIS, July 20-24, 2013.

190. Ibid.

191. Ibid.

192. Olga Ivshina, “Radical Islam Raises Tension in Russia’s 

Tatarstan,” BBC Russian, August 8, 2012, available from www.bbc.

co.uk/news/world-europe-19179399.

193. Ibid.

194. Ibid.

195. “Four Arrested in Anti-Terror Operation,” RT, February 

8, 2011, available from rt.com/news/bashkortostan-terror-suspectsbomb/.

196. Gordon M. Hahn, “Getting the Caucasus Emirate Right,” 

Washington, DC: CSIS, August 2011, p. 4, available from csis.org/

files/publication/110930_Hahn_GettingCaucasusEmirateRt_Web.pdf.

197. “Afghan Drug Traffic Aids Terrorists in North Caucasus—Drugs Official,” RIA Novosti, June 9, 2010, available from 

en.rian.ru/world/20100609/159354900.html.

198. Hahn, “Getting the Caucasus Emirate Right,” p. 5.

199. Ibid.

200. Ibid., pp. 10-11.

201. Hahn, “The Caucasus-Emirate Jihadists,” pp. 41-42.

202. Thomas Grove and Mariam Karouny, “Militants from 

Russia’s North Caucasus Join Jihad in Syria,” Reuters, March 6, 

2013, available from www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/us-syriacrisis-russia-militants-idUSBRE9251BT20130306.

203. Interviews with government officials, Baku, Azerbaijan, 

May 2013, sources requested anonymity.
98

204. Marina Yegorova, “Moskvich o napadenii kavkaztsev: 

‘Mne rezali lob, ostavlyaya krovyanyye poloski, vtykali lezvie 

snachala v odnu nogu, potom v druguyu’” (“A Muscovite about 

Being Attacked by Caucasians: ‘They cut my forehead, leaving 

blood stripes; they stuck a blade in one of my legs, then in the 

other one’”), Komsomolskaya Pravda, September 16, 2012, available 

from www.kp.ru/daily/25950.5/2893267/.

205. Nataliya Demidyuk, “V Saratovskoy oblasti mestnye zhiteli podralis s kavkaztsami” (“A Scuffle between 

the Locals and Caucasians in Saratovskaya Oblast”), 

Moskovskiy Komsomolets, July 8, 2013, available from www.mk.ru/

incident/article/2013/07/08/880538-v-saratovskoy-oblasti-mestnyiezhiteli-podralis-s-kavkaztsami.html.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Anthony A. Cucolo III

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