An ethnography of counterinsurgency: kadyrovtsy and Russia's policy of Chechenization

Emil Souleimanov

Post-Soviet Affairs, 2015, vol. 31, issue 2, 91-114

Abstract: Exploring the case study of the Moscow-led counterinsurgency in Chechnya, this article shows the crucial importance of cultural knowledge understood in an ethnographic sense in terms of patterns of social organization, persisting value systems, and other related phenomena – in the relative success of the eradication of the Chechnya-based insurgency. Using a range of first-hand sources – including interviews by leading Russian and Chechen experts and investigative journalists, and the testimonies of eyewitnesses and key actors from within local and Russian politics – the article explains the actual mechanisms of Moscow's policy of Chechenization that have sought to break the backbone of the local resistance using local human resources. To this end, the study focuses on the crucial period of 2000–2004, when Moscow's key proxy in Chechnya, the kadyrovtsy paramilitaries, were established and became operational under the leadership of Akhmad Kadyrov, which helped create a sharp division within Chechen society, reducing the level of populace-based support for the insurgents, thereby increasing support for the pro-Moscow forces.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2014.900976

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