A Perfect Counterinsurgency? Making Sense of Moscow’s Policy of Chechenisation

Jean-François Ratelle and Emil Aslan Souleimanov

Europe-Asia Studies, 2016, vol. 68, issue 8, 1287-1314

Abstract: This article assesses the successes and setbacks of Moscow’s policy of counterinsurgency and beyond. It challenges the general consensus in scholarship positing that military successes associated with Chechenisation have been obtained against the backdrop of Chechnya’s increasingly autonomous status within Russia, considered by some as a case of ‘systemic separatism’. The article tracks how four key mechanisms (Chechnya’s institutional design, internal opposition to the Kadyrov clan, the tradition of blood feud among kadyrovtsy—initially Chechen paramilitary forces named after both Kadyrovs, gradually transformed into seemingly regular Ministry of Interior (MVD) units—and Chechnya’s economic dependency on Moscow) have enabled Moscow to maintain control over Chechnya while simultaneously allowing its elites to consolidate power within the republic.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2016.1230842

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