Yesterday, I wrote about how the unrest in Pugachev, where anti-Chechen riots broke out following the murder of a local paratrooper, was the result of the weak migration regime that has allowed ethnic resentments to grow unhindered. Ethnic tension, however, are only part of the puzzle. The bigger picture comprises the ineffective way in which […]
We’ve been following growing tensions in the North Caucasus town of Pugachev after anti-Chechen protests erupted in the wake of a murder of a half-Tatar and half-Russian former paratrooper at the hands of a Chechen youth. At the end of last week, the police arrested at least 13 people in a sweep related to the […]
Due to the disorders gripping the city of Pugachev, the district administration has introduced a “dry law “in the city. Mikhail Babich, Russian Federation presidential representative to the Privolzhsky Federal District has arrived to investigate the situation in Saratov Region. Babich announced that the ban on the sale of alcohol is a justified measure because […]
[Last week, Interpreter contributor Sasha de Vogel admiringly replied to Peter Pomersantsev’s essay, “Cracks in the Kremlin Matrix,” about the system of “managed democracy” in Russia and how opponents of the Putin regime have struggled to combat it. Below, Peter has expanded on some of the key themes in his original piece as well as […]
[In this article, Yulia Latynina argues that arrest last week of the powerful Mayor of Makhachkala, Said Amirov, has signaled the FSB’s assertion of direct control in the republic of Dagestan. Latynina speculates that this is partly motivated by the desire to stem the growing power of salafists in the region.—Ed.] In a Hollywood movie-type, […]
The late Gore Vidal once said that the three saddest words in the English language were Joyce Carol Oates. Now here are the ten saddest: “The CODEL’s visit to Chechnya was facilitated by Steven Seagal.” CODEL stands for Congressional delegation, and the speaker here is the spokeswoman for Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California. […]
So far, and in spite of the American media’s best effort to acquaint its audience with a country called Chechnya (and the Czech embassy’s best efforts to remind that audience of the excellence of Bohemian pilsner), there is little evidence linking the Boston marathon bombings to any jihadist organization or cell headquartered in the North Caucasus. CNN cited an […]
