Word: kremlins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Kremlin is absolutely powerless," says Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at Moscow's Carnegie Institute. "They brought this situation on themselves by letting the local élite rule." After the fall of communism, Moscow, knowing that a secular or Orthodox Christian government would have little influence over the region's Muslim population, struck an informal deal with the republics: Moscow would appoint a governor who would be loyal to the Kremlin and, in return, that governor would remain in power provided no large-scale conflicts erupted...
...solution. Sending Russian troops into these areas would not be effective, as keeping track of insurgents is an almost impossible task. Blocking funds to the republics is also not an option. "It would just result in a massive social upheaval and that's the last thing the Kremlin wants," says Malashenko...
...Moscow, it's important that the violence in the North Caucasus stays simmering well below boiling point. But if the Kremlin cannot protect its own governors, such as Magomedtagirov, then Russia's leaders are faced with the fact that the tight grip they have on the rest of the country just doesn't apply to the North Caucasus. And the consequences are felt well beyond the region. With unemployment reaching as high as 50% according to some estimates, many people move to other Russian cities looking for work, while holding onto their clan alliances - and the conflicts that follow them...
Moscow has tried to put out fires in the region before, but with little success. In August 2008, Magomed Yevloyev, an opposition journalist in Ingushetia, was shot dead while in police custody. Many blamed Ingushetia President Murat Zyazikov for allowing the murder to happen, so the Kremlin replaced him in October with Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a highly decorated career soldier. While Yevkurov struggles to cope with corruption among local authorities and attacks on officials by Muslim radicals, he seemed to have calmed the violence in the area - until the killing of the deputy chief judge on Wednesday...
...despite Medvedev proclaiming it time for Moscow to step up to the challenge of stopping the violence in the North Caucasus, many observers think the Kremlin is keen to maintain the status quo. "This is the stability that the Kremlin wants," says the Carnegie Institute's Malashenko. "In Europe or anywhere else, the regular deaths of government workers in one region would not be classified as stability. The North Caucasus are not stable; they are just in a constant state of 'not war.'" And as long as they stay that way, the Kremlin seems happy to turn its back...