Protecting the state: Russian repressive tactics in the North Caucasus^*

* The paper uses the following terms in a value-neutral sense: terrorists and insurgents as synonyms to illegal armed groups and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency as synonyms to Russian counter strategy.

Abstract

Since the end of the second Chechen campaign, the North Caucasus counterinsurgency has experienced the shift from military involvement toward prevalence of law enforcement instruments. This paper discusses the composition of repressive tactics that the Russian state developed as a result of the two decades long evolution of a counter strategy designed to eliminate illegal armed groups operating in the North Caucasus. It is focused on the late stages of conflict (2007–2014) when the violence that had spread across the region started in the early 2000s had symbolically culminated in 2007 with the proclamation of the Caucasian Emirate. This paper advances a reconceptualization of the Russian counterinsurgency by devising an analysis of indiscriminate and discriminate repressive tactics. It demonstrates that security agencies incorporated more selective uses of violence into their tactics, thereby reducing the number of indiscriminate violent actions to an insignificant level. Moreover, along with selective violence, security institutions reinforced their effort by conducting preventive work such as the detection of secret caches of weapons, seizures, and arrests. Findings regarding the current composition of repressive tactics are illustrated by means of new disaggregated media-based data that were especially collected and analyzed to form the basis of this research.

Keywords:

• Russia
• North Caucasus
• counterinsurgency
• repressive tactics
• indiscriminate violence
• discriminate violence

Acknowledgements

This paper, initially produced as a part of the thesis, would not have been written without the careful and diligent guidance of my supervisor, Professor Rick Fawn, which I sincerely appreciate. I would also like to thank Dr. Helge Blakkisrud for his detailed comments on the early draft of the paper presented during ASN conference in 2016.

Notes

* The paper uses the following terms in a value-neutral sense: terrorists and insurgents as synonyms to illegal armed groups and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency as synonyms to Russian counter strategy.

1 Sources: NGOs including Human Rights Centre Memorial, Anti-war movement; official reports of the state agencies including the Ministry of Interior, the National Antiterrorist Committee, Russian government newspaper; and media including Russian national such as Gazeta, Novaya Gazeta, Interfax, Vzglyad, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Trud, Lenta, Vesti, NTV, AIF, Regnum, Izvestiya, RIA, Echo Moskvy, Rosbalt, Baltinfo, Novye Izvestia, Newsru; regional such as Caucasian Spot, Caucasus News; local such as Groznyy-Inform.

2 KBR “Weapon” 2007–2014: 2007: 15 of August-15 of September (kavkaz-uzel.ru 2007); 2008: 1 of April-1 of May (KBR Government Statement 50 2008); 2008: 17 of October-15 of November (card.sk-news.ru 2008); 2009: 10 of March-15 of April (kavkaz-uzel.ru 2009); 2009: 20 April-20 of November (KBR Government Statement 63 2009); 2010: 15 of April-15 of October (KBR Government Statement 49 2010); 2011: 10 of June-10 of October (card.sk-news.ru 2011); 2013: 1 of July-1 of November (07.mvd.ru 2013). Dagestan “Weapon”, “Weapon-Redemption” 2007–2014: 2007: 25 of October-25 of December (news.bbc.co.uk 2007); 2008: 21 of March-1 of October (regnum.ru 2008); 2014: 10 of June-31 of December (clrr-rd.ru 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a FP7/Marie Curie ITN action [grant agreement no: 316825].