--- title: "When There's Unrest in Russia, Watch the North Caucasus" description: "Of all of Russia’s constituent regions, the North Caucasus stands out as easily the most problematic. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the North Caucasus has been the scene of near-constant unrest, ranging from the two Chechen Wars of the 1990s to the low-level insurgency that continues even today. In many ways, Vladimir Putin’s own rule has been defined by his relationship with the region: almost his first action as de facto leader in August 1999 was to launch the conquest of then-independent Chechnya, while his security forces then would spend the better part of two decades crushing the organized resistance across the North Caucasus and its cities and mountains." url: https://fronts.co/article/when-theres-unrest-in-russia-watch-the-north-caucasus.md canonical: https://fronts.co/article/when-theres-unrest-in-russia-watch-the-north-caucasus/ datePublished: 2026-09-07T14:00:23.000Z dateModified: 2026-09-07T14:00:24.000Z author: - name: Neil Hauer url: https://fronts.co/authors/neil-hauer/ publisher: Fronts image: "https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,height=630,fit=cover,gravity=auto,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/when-theres-unrest-in-russia-watch-the-north-caucasus-1a676357.jpg" type: NewsArticle language: en tokens: 4452 --- Of all of Russia’s constituent regions, the North Caucasus stands out as easily the most problematic. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the North Caucasus has been the scene of near-constant unrest, ranging from the two Chechen Wars of the 1990s to the low-level insurgency that continues even today. In many ways, Vladimir Putin’s own rule has been defined by his relationship with the region: almost his first action as de facto leader in August 1999 was to launch the conquest of then-independent Chechnya, while his security forces then would spend the better part of two decades crushing the organized resistance across the North Caucasus and its cities and mountains. While the threat of large-scale organized violence emanating from the North Caucasus has largely been quelled, acts of insurgent violence continue to occur on a semi-regular basis until today. As the Russian state is forced to contend with the expanding and destabilizing consequences of its war on Ukraine - from economic contraction to long-range Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory and a seemingly impending need for a new round of mobilization - it’s worth examining the situation in the North Caucasus today, and whether further unrest could be in the offing. **Internal Abroad** The North Caucasus has always existed for Russia as a sort of ‘internal abroad.’ Lying on the periphery of the state, it is the only part of the country that features multiple republics where non-Russian ethnicities are the majority. Even this is underselling it: according to the [2021 census](https://rosstat.gov.ru/vpn/2020/Tom1_Chislennost_i_razmeshchenie_naseleniya), only 1.2% of Chechnya’s population is ethnic Russians, with the titular Chechens dominating at 96.4% of the inhabitants. Ingushetia, just to the west, is even more extreme - only 0.7% of the republic’s nearly 500,000 inhabitants are ethnic Russians - while Dagestan, the largest North Caucasian republic, has a mere 3.3% Russian total. The difference is stark enough that locals in these autonomous republics often use the term ‘Russia’ to refer to the rest of the country, pointedly excluding themselves and the rest of the North Caucasus from the total. The relationship between the Russian federal government and the North Caucasus has always been one defined first and foremost by security concerns. Putin’s reign began with the successful reconquest of the de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which had split away from the Russian state in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, and survived a previous attempt by Boris Yeltsin to reincorporate it in 1994-96.  By mid-2000, most of Chechnya had been reconquered by Russian troops, with surviving secessionists retreating to the mountains to wage a prolonged guerilla campaign. As part of their strategy, the Chechen resistance - increasingly dominated by hardline Islamist factions - launched a campaign to spread the violence beyond the republic’s borders, undertaking dramatic hostage-taking operations in locations like Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in 2002 and the North Ossetian town of Beslan in 2004. These efforts helped spark a broader Islamist insurgency that took root in three other majority non-Russian republics of the North Caucasus: Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. These additional fronts were not secondary, but quickly grew to rival the scope and potency of the insurgency in Chechnya itself, something born out by statistics. Caucasian Knot, a Caucasus-focused media outlet that has monitored the security situation in the region for the past two decades, [reported](https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/34546/) that in 2010 - the peak of insurgent violence across the North Caucasus in terms of overall casualties - Dagestan and Ingushetia both outpaced Chechnya in total attacks and resulting casualties. A decade after retaking Chechnya, Russia found itself facing down an insurgency that was gaining in momentum across the region rather than being successfully quelled. Despite this seeming failure by the Russian security forces, however, the turn of the decade marked the high-water point for the North Caucasus militant underground. Russia’s intelligence services proved successful in continually identifying and targeting the command structures of the insurgency, killing high-profile commanders with regularity in a campaign that would effectively dismantle the organized insurgency by the middle of the 2010s. Another development - the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 - would further siphon off manpower from the insurgency, drawing off experienced fighters to fight another Russian-backed regime - that of Bashar al-Assad - in a new front. Russian intelligence agencies actively aided would-be militants in traveling to Syria instead, where North Caucasian fighters, and particularly Chechens, would become a crucial element of anti-government Islamist forces on the Syrian battlefield. The split between al-Qaeda - the traditional hegemon of the North Caucasus insurgency, with whom the regionwide Caucasus Emirate jihadist organization was aligned - and the new Islamic State (IS) drove another wedge between the remaining militants, further diluting their manpower and capacity. The last major attack conducted by either force was in December 2014, when Caucasus Emirate fighters [entered Grozny](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30323751), the Chechen capital, and seized a local highrise in a spectacular raid. The last publicly known leader of the Caucasus Emirate was [killed](https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/36587/) in August 2016; the final local IS leader of any stature was [eliminated](https://www.dw.com/en/islamic-state-militant-killed-in-north-caucasus-russian-security-forces-report/a-36632062) just three months later, marking the effective defeat of the organized insurgency in the region. **New Challenges** It would not be accurate to mark the destruction of the Caucasus Emirate and local Islamic State structures as the end of unrest in the region, however, but rather a transition. Attacks on security forces have continued in the decade since, but with a different character, generally marked by a lack of sophistication indicative of little organization or resources. Many attackers in recent years have [not even had access to firearms](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/isis-terror-attacks-news-latest-russia-moscow-balashikha-police-gun-axe-allegiance-video-chechen-a7198731.html), instead assaulting security forces with [knives or axes](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/russia-attack-isis-claims-responsibility-stabbing-siberia-surgut-latest-a7902176.html) or even [ramming them with cars](https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/49602) before retrieving the weaponry of their victims. Chechnya fell into a pattern of barely organized violence, the result of the extreme crackdown on any possible militant activity. The exception to the rule was Ingushetia, which saw several examples of decently well-organized violence, with a significant [attack on police forces](https://www.specialeurasia.com/2024/03/04/terrorism-ingushetia-karabulak/) by a group of militants in April 2023, followed by [another such attack](https://apnews.com/article/russia-caucasus-islamic-state-shootout-ingushetia-militants-4b0ef208fd8232f494272531d16208dd) nearly a year later. Dagestan also saw two significant attacks on security forces in 2024, with [coordinated ambushes](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-is-known-about-attacks-russias-dagestan-2024-06-24) in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala resulting in the deaths of more than 15 police officers as well as six attackers. Notably, however, these localized cells have shown little ability to project violence beyond the borders of the region as they once did: the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack, which resulted in over 700 casualties (killed and wounded) in the deadliest terrorist action in Russia in decades, was notably linked to the [Islamic State’s Central Asian branch](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/why-vladimir-putin-is-refusing-to-blame-islamic-state-over-moscow-terror-attack), without any evident connection to the North Caucasus. While the Russian state may have managed to quell the violence from organized insurgent groups in the North Caucasus, recent events suggest that society in these republics is more than capable of mass organization in response to specific events. The biggest of these is likely the [2018 protest movement by 100,000 Ingush](https://cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/13553-ingushetias-land-dispute-sparks-civil-awakening.html) (more than 20% of the republic’s population) in response to the annexation of roughly 10% of the republic’s territory by Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya. This particular incident was only suppressed with great difficulty by the security forces, who were constrained by the fact that local and national security forces outside the Chechen Republic are unwilling to engage in the kind of wanton violence that prevents similar such gatherings in Chechnya itself.  Even despite this tendency for violence, though, Chechen (and Russian) security forces were unable or unwilling to prevent the 2018 [gathering of tens of thousands in Chechnya](https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/44125) for the funeral of Yusup Temerkhanov, a local man convicted of the killing of a Russian military officer who raped and killed a Chechen girl in an infamous case in 2000. The sudden outpouring of public support for Temerkhanov, who had become a sort of folk hero for his act of retribution in the absence of justice, underscored that the resentments incurred during the Russian wars in Chechnya have not at all been mollified.  For today’s purposes, though, the most-relevant example of spontaneous mass mobilization in the North Caucasus likely occurred in Dagestan following Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization for the Russian army in September 2022. The initiative was followed almost immediately by mass protests in Dagestan, with demonstrators blocking streets and chanting anti-war slogans in both [rural localities](https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-mobilization-daghestan-protests/32051446.html) and [major urban centers](https://meduza.io/amp/en/feature/2022/09/26/women-in-dagestan-and-other-regions-protest-mobilization), including the capital Makhachkala. The protests only abated after [more than 200 demonstrators were arrested](https://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/13736-quelling-anti-). Alongside this, a group of women [launched their own protest](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/09/21/7368513/) in Chechnya - an almost unthinkable act, and one reminiscent of the regular pickets by the mothers of Russian conscripts deployed by Boris Yeltsin into Chechnya in the First Chechen War.  **The Ukraine Factor** As with nearly everything in Russia today, the course of events in the near and medium term in the North Caucasus depends on one factor: Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The North Caucasus has been a crucial source of manpower for the Russian military, with Dagestan producing a particularly [outsized pool of recruits (and casualties)](https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-63917502), seeking the immense monetary benefits of a service contract in the economically depressed region.  The Kadyrov regime in Chechnya has also dispatched a steady stream of new servicemen to the frontlines in Ukraine, albeit recruited through more novel means. One key method has been the growth of the ‘Akhmat’ special forces units, which consist of non-Chechens from elsewhere in Russia ([up to 90% of ‘Akhmat’ is non-Chechens](https://novayagazeta.eu/en/articles/2023/06/28/akhmat-to-the-rescue-how-do-chechen-special-forces-operate-en)) drawn by high-paying contracts fulfilled at Chechnya’s Special Forces University. Dovetailing with this is a consistent flow of locals [recruited via coercion](https://www.euaa.europa.eu/russian-federation-country-focus/442-forced-recruitment), often in the form of falsified drug charges or threats against family members. Another instance saw four members of one family [forced to sign contracts and subsequently sent to Ukraine](https://www.svoboda.org/amp/chechenskie-aktivisty-rasskazali-o-nasiljnoy-otpravke-v-ukrainu-chlenov-odnoy-semji-odin-iz-nih-podrostok/33595601.html) after one of their teenage relatives was accused of anti-regime sentiments. Increasing pressure from Moscow on Russia’s regions to provide ever greater amounts of manpower for the Ukrainian front will undoubtedly fall on the North Caucasus in disproportionate amounts. At the present moment, the North Caucasus finds itself in a state of restive quiet. As with much of Russia, there is a growing unease over the course of Putin’s seemingly interminable war in Ukraine, buoyed by the fact that Ukrainian drones are now [striking targets in the region](https://oc-media.org/several-injured-in-ukrainian-drone-strikes-on-ozon-warehouses-in-adygea-and-daghestan/) with regularity. It is worth noting that 2026 has so far been nearly devoid of attacks on security forces in the region, with only a [small](https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/76570) [handful](https://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/74175) of incidents through the first eight months of the year. The most dramatic events of the year, however, are likely still to come if the widely-expected [new wave of mobilization](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/23/europe/zelensky-ukraine-russia-mobilization-intl) comes to pass following September’s Duma elections. Even nearly three decades into Putin’s rule, one maxim remains true: when there is unrest in Russia, the North Caucasus is usually at the leading edge. <!-- generated-faq --> ## FAQ ### What does 'internal abroad' mean for the North Caucasus? The term ‘internal abroad’ refers to how the North Caucasus has always existed for Russia as a region lying on the periphery of the state, featuring multiple republics where non-Russian ethnicities are the majority. Locals in autonomous republics like Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan often use the term ‘Russia’ to refer to the rest of the country, pointedly excluding themselves. For example, according to the 2021 census, only 1.2% of Chechnya’s population is ethnic Russians, with Chechens dominating at 96.4%. ### How did Russia dismantle the Caucasus Emirate insurgency? Russia’s intelligence services successfully dismantled the organized insurgency by continually identifying and targeting command structures, killing high-profile commanders with regularity through the mid-2010s. The outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 also siphoned off manpower, with Russian intelligence agencies actively aiding would-be militants to travel there. The split between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State further divided remaining militants, and the last publicly known leader of the Caucasus Emirate was killed in August 2016. ### What sparked the 2018 protests in Ingushetia? The 2018 Ingush protest movement saw 100,000 people—more than 20% of the republic’s population—demonstrate against the annexation of roughly 10% of Ingushetia’s territory by Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya. The protests were only suppressed with great difficulty because local and national security forces outside Chechnya were unwilling to engage in the wanton violence used to prevent similar gatherings there. ### How did the North Caucasus respond to 2022 mobilization? In September 2022, Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization was followed almost immediately by mass protests in Dagestan, with demonstrators blocking streets and chanting anti-war slogans in both rural localities and major urban centers including Makhachkala. The protests abated only after more than 200 demonstrators were arrested. Women also launched a protest in Chechnya, an almost unthinkable act reminiscent of mothers’ pickets during the First Chechen War. ### Why is Dagestan a major source of military recruits? Dagestan has produced a particularly outsized pool of recruits and casualties for the Russian military, driven by the immense monetary benefits of service contracts in the economically depressed region. Increasing pressure from Moscow to provide ever greater manpower for Ukraine will undoubtedly fall on the North Caucasus in disproportionate amounts. ### How does Chechnya recruit soldiers for Ukraine? The Kadyrov regime dispatches servicemen through the growth of ‘Akhmat’ special forces units, which consist of up to 90% non-Chechens from elsewhere in Russia drawn by high-paying contracts fulfilled at Chechnya’s Special Forces University. Locals are also recruited via coercion, often through falsified drug charges or threats against family members. ### What new threat could destabilize the North Caucasus? A widely-expected new wave of mobilization following September’s Duma elections could spark dramatic unrest in the North Caucasus. Ukrainian drones are already striking targets in the region with regularity, and while 2026 has seen only a small handful of attacks on security forces, the author notes that the region is usually at the leading edge when there is unrest in Russia. ### Was the Crocus City Hall attack tied to the North Caucasus? The March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack, which resulted in over 700 casualties in the deadliest terrorist action in Russia in decades, was notably linked to the Islamic State’s Central Asian branch without any evident connection to the North Caucasus. This demonstrates that localized cells in the region have shown little ability to project violence beyond the region’s borders as they once did. <!-- /generated-faq -->