Conflict In Chechnya Research Articles

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE RUSSIAN HYBRID WAR AGAINST UKRAINE: THE VIEW OF RUSSIAN RESEARCHERS

This article deals with works devoted to events on the Independence, during the Revolution of Dominion, the annexation of the Crimea and Russian aggression in general. The study raises the question of the impartiality and reliability of the facts presented by the researchers of the works which is covered by this article. The author is proposed to divide researches into three categories on a chronological basis. The subject of the study is extremely relevant as wars of a new format generate the formation of a new hybrid world order. The aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine became the starting point for shaping such a future world order. Investigating the work of Russian researchers, one can conclude that in Russia, aggression in Ukraine is called a civil war. The main challenge is to shift responsibility for the war to the Ukrainian leadership. Their position in the conflict is due to the alleged protection of the Russian-speaking population on the territory of Ukraine. The Russian Federation is trying to intensify the formation and support of the image of itself as a peacemaking country on the international scene. After all, creating a belt of external enemies unites people and distracting from the urgent domestic problems in the country. Analyzing Russian labor it becomes clear that the problems of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict are being paid little attention. Authors studying events highlight only certain beneficial aspects of the conflict and are often openly propagandistic. Also, an attempt is made to make a generalized analysis of the work of Russian authors on hybrid wars and to assess the degree of its objectivity. Generally analyzed works published in the period 2014-2017 and had a fairly large circulation and distribution. All of them, with rare exceptions, do not objectively highlight the chronicles of events and act in favor of pro-Russian propaganda. Most of the authors previously covered other conflicts related to the Russian Federation, such as the war with Georgia or the conflict in Chechnya, or they are fugitives from the east of Ukraine and are carriers of exclusively pro-Russian political thought. An interesting fact is that they are easily accessible and accessed online and even sold in some Ukrainian online stores.

Punitive House Burning in Chechnya: Is Collective Punishment Outside Armed Conflict Prohibited?

Collective punishment describes the punishment of a group for an act allegedly committed by one or more of its members and is prohibited in times of armed conflict. It is not explicitly prohibited in situations outside of armed conflict governed by human rights law. This contribution centers on a case study on collective punishment in Chechnya from the two Chechen Wars up until today. Recent years have witnessed the destruction of family homes of alleged insurgents in Chechnya. As it is unclear whether the armed conflict in Chechnya is still ongoing, it is equally unclear whether the law of armed conflict and the explicit prohibition of collective punishment apply to those punitive house burnings. This contribution explores the relation between the law of armed conflict and human rights law regarding collective punishment and concludes that, theoretically, human rights law could encompass such a prohibition.

Frankenstein in Grozny: vertical and horizontal cracks in the foundation of Kadyrov’s rule

Many scholars have suggested that organized violence in Chechnya has ended, and that Russia’s Chechenization policy and Ramzan Kadyrov’s presidency deserve the credit. We suggest that Putin has created a Frankenstein-like ruler over whom he risks losing control. As a result, the conflict only appears resolved, and we draw attention to both vertical and horizontal cracks in the foundation of Kadyrov’s rule that could lead to renewed violence. Vertically, the Chechen strongman and his growing clout in regional and federal politics have antagonized Russian siloviki. Horizontally, thousands of Chechens appear to be in a state of postponed blood feud toward Kadyrov, his clan, and the kadyrovtsy, his personal army. Backed by President Putin’s personal support, Kadyrov has put in motion a brutal machine of persecution over which some signs indicate he has lost control. Fear of extermination at the hands of the Kadyrov and his personal army has kept most prospective avengers at a bay. Once President Putin’s support wanes, locals will retaliate against Kadyrov and against Russian troops stationed in the republic, and Russian law enforcement circles will openly challenge Kadyrov’s rule. Putin’s support is only likely to wither if the costs of continued support (which grow with Kadyrov’s increasing independence) exceed the benefits (derived from an enforced peace). Either a renewed insurgency or ever more recalcitrant behavior would demonstrate a level of interest misalignment that could induce Putin to withdraw his support. Such a turn of events would render these horizontal and vertical cracks in the foundation of Kadyrov’s rule more noticeable and would likely to cause the frozen conflict in Chechnya to thaw, leading to a new civil war.

Writers and Rebels: The Literature of Insurgency in the Caucasus

Writers and Rebels: The Literature of Insurgency in the Caucasus

Lost Cause-ism in American Southerners’ News Writing About the First Russo-Chechen War (1994–1996)

In this article, I analyze how writers for newspapers in the American South used a culturally salient story about the past—the Myth of the Lost Cause—to make sense of an event in the present—the First Russo-Chechen War (1994–1996). I take a Proppian approach, according to which a story’s plot is defined as a set of functions, or generalized acts that influence course of the story’s action. Stories that appear to be different thus can share the same plot, inasmuch as they are composed of the same functions. I argue that, to construct narratives about the First Russo-Chechen War, Southern news writers substituted concrete actions from the conflict in Chechnya into the familiar functions that make up the plot of the Lost Cause. I use a combination of discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis to show how those functions appear in five Southern news accounts of the First Russo-Chechen War.

Mental health problems among conflict-affected adults in Grozny, Chechnya: a qualitative study

BackgroundA decade of conflict in Chechnya destroyed infrastructure and resulted in widespread exposure to violence. Amidst substantial reconstruction, periodic violence has contributed to an ongoing atmosphere of insecurity. We conducted a qualitative study to understand the mental health and psychosocial problems affecting adult Chechens in this context to inform development of assessment tools for an evaluation study related to individual counseling.MethodsData were collected in July 2014. A convenience sample of 59 Chechen adults was asked to Free List all problems affecting people in the area. Four problems were explored further in 19 Key Interviewee (KI) interviews, with respondents identified using snowball sampling. Data analysis was conducted in Russian by the Chechen interviewers.ResultsMultiple mental health and psychosocial problems emerged, including ‘bad psychological health’, ‘depression’, ‘stress and nervous people’, and ‘problems in the family’. Aggression, ‘emotional blowing’, and ‘not adequate’ behavior were frequently reported indicators of these problems, with negative effects on the whole family. Chechens reported seeking help through informal social networks, psychiatric and psychological services, and Islamic Centers.ConclusionChechens reported mental health and psychosocial problems similar to those experienced in other post-conflict settings. The description of ‘emotional blowing’ mirrored prior findings in Chechen asylum seekers and fits within a cluster of cultural concepts of distress featuring anger that has been identified in other conflict-affected populations. Further exploration of the nature and prevalence of this construct, as well as evaluations of interventions aimed at reducing these symptoms, is warranted.

Misperceptions about the conflict in Chechnya: The influence of Orientalism

Misperceptions about the conflict in Chechnya: The influence of Orientalism

PROBLEM BEZPIECZEŃSTWA ENERGETYCZNEGO W KONFLIKCIE ROSYJSKO-CZECZEŃSKIM

The confl ict in Chechnya, was not only a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia but also to its energy security. Energy issues were one of the main means of pressure which Russia has used in relation to Chechnya. The ultimate goal of Russia’s actions was to transform Chechnya from an exporter of oil on one completely dependent on Russian energy sources. The article is an attempt to defi ne the importance of natural resources for Russia and Chechnya. The author concludes that the mere extraction of resources was more important for Chechnya, while insuring the security of supply and activity in the Caspian Sea made Chechnya very important for Russia.

Religious outbidding in Chechnya

An underexplored dynamic in the study of the conflict in Chechnya is the role of religion within Chechen society and the ideological competition that ensued between the radical Salafi insurgents and the Sufi establishment. Ahmad Kadyrov, the former grand mufti and ruler of Chechnya, played a key role in the conflict when he turned against the insurgency in part due to his concern over the pervasiveness of Salafism in the republic. His son and the current ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, has re-Islamized Chechnya – albeit in a direction he sees fit. Religion is an important source of contention in the conflict, thus it would be beneficial for scholarship to examine more closely Ramzan Kadyrov's Sufi alternative to radical Salafism. This paper seeks to examine the competition that took place between these two ideologies and factions. First, an overview of the relevant concepts will be discussed. Then a brief history of religion and conflict in the region, followed by an examination of the effects that the collapse of the Soviet Union had on religious networks, will be presented. Next an inspection of the Kadyrovs’ vision of Islam will be studied. Then a contextualization of Chechen Sufism and Salafism, especially the theology of the Caucasus Emirate, will be established. Finally, the theories of outbidding will be applied to the ideological conflict that has been taking place in the republic, showing how the ruling regime has successfully implemented its strategy to the detriment of the insurgency.

Reflections on the Chechen Conflict: Geopolitics, Timing and Transformations

The Chechen Conflict is the most fatal and protracted conflict in the post-Soviet space. While it is the most discussed conflict there, it is also the least understood. Many contradicting accounts of it exist, and still many questions remain unanswered. One reason is that the nature of this conflict has changed over time. Unlike what many - particularly Western - analysts think, it is not a religious conflict. It began as an ethno-nationalist separatist conflict but only later was it infiltrated by extremist Salafis/Wahhabis. At this moment a war is going on between the local Chechen and the central Russian governments against the Salafi/Wahhabi Emirate of the Caucasus. Chechnya is the only autonomous region in Russia in which a separatist movement had been successful. The possible reasons are the peculiarities of the Caucasus; especially its mosaic type of ethnogeographic configuration and the traumatic past of many of its peoples. Another important factor in the explanation of such a separatist conflict in Chechnya - and nowhere else in the North Caucasus - is the fact that only in Chechnya has a titular minority enjoyed a dominant demographic position. This paper also discusses issues such as the nature of Islam in Chechnya and the Russian geopolitical codes.

Shifting Dynamics of the Insurgency and Counter-insurgency in the North Caucasus

This paper seeks to provide an explanation of the shifts and trends in the insurgency and Russian counter-insurgency strategy in the North Caucasus. The article first identifies the multiple factors that initially contributed to the radicalization and Islamization of the conflict in Chechnya and how this fostered increased instability in the North Caucasus by the late 1990s, representing a serious threat to the security and integrity of the Russian state. The subsequent section sets out how the incoming prime minister and then president Vladimir Putin seized on the growing crisis in the North Caucasus to develop and refine a new strategy that not only gained the support of the general Russian public, but also was a critical factor in cementing his personal popularity. The strategy also had some notable successes, not least in the relative pacification of Chechnya and the start of the reconstruction of the war-damaged republic. However, the strategy also had its less successful and more negative consequences, which have revived and changed the nature of the insurgency towards a more Islamist and diffuse character and presented new challenges for Russia's counter-insurgency strategy. The final section makes a division between the social, economic and political factors and the religious and ideological factors that are driving the insurgency and argues that greater weight should be accorded to the religious and ideological factors than is often accorded by analysts.

The Chechen War and an Emerging Gender Gap in Russia

Scholarship on the impact of gender on political attitudes has shown that women have more liberal attitudes than men do, both generally and in relation to specific policy areas. One area of an especially large gender gap is in attitudes about foreign policy and the use of force, where women are much less likely to support war and armed conflict. An exception to this gender gap is found in post-communist countries, where men and women often do not display significantly different political attitudes. Employing a variety of survey data on public opinion about the Chechen conflict in Russia, we investigate whether a modern gender gap has emerged in Russia, and the form that this gender gap has taken. We find strong, diverse evidence of a gender gap in Russia, with women expressing more dovish attitudes towards the conflict in Chechnya.

The Agency of Force in Asymmetrical Warfare and Counterinsurgency: The Case of Chechnya

The use of force in asymmetrical warfare, and in counterinsurgency operations in particular, has been written off as strategically dangerous and politically irrational. The goal of the article is to examine the role of force in a modern military context and determine if victory through its application is theoretically feasible. This hypothesis will be tested against the backdrop of the conflict in Chechnya. The work will examine the Russian military and public policy as a subordinate subject to the overall inquiry of the article in an attempt to show that force was one of the major factors behind Russian military success in 2001.

Effective Investigations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Securing the Right to Life or an Onerous Burden on a State?

Articles 1 and 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, when read together, require a proper and adequate official investigation into deaths resulting from the actions of state agents, both from the use of lethal force, and also in situations arising from the negligence of agents that leads to a death. The article considers the extent of the obligation to carry out an effective investigation since its explicit recognition by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of McCann and Others v. United Kingdom. The article assesses the jurisprudence of the duty to investigate in order to determine whether the obligation is now placing too onerous a burden on member states in order to comply with their duties under the Convention, or whether the duty does indeed secure the right to life, as is intended. To assess the original proposition, the article considers the jurisprudence of the duty to investigate in relation to the following applications: early forays into the application of the duty; fatalities arising from non-lethal force; the influential quartet of cases arising out of the Northern Ireland troubles; recent judgments concerning cases arising out of the conflict in Chechnya; and finally through to a critical review of the effectiveness of the European Court.

Legal Remedies for Human Rights Violations in the Armed Conflict in Chechnya: The Approach of the European Court of Human Rights in Context

AbstractThe article discusses the efficacy of the remedies offered to successful applicants by the European Court of Human Rights in the cases coming from the armed conflict in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. It submits, firstly, that proper establishment of facts constitutes a remedy in itself for victims of human rights violations in an armed conflict. It then analyses the establishment of facts by the Court in the Chechen cases and argues that the assessment of evidence under the Court's burden of proof 'beyond reasonable doubt' was applied unevenly in different cases. The paper suggests that the Court obtains evidence proprio motu, which it has never done in the Chechen cases. Secondly, this paper evaluates the European Court's practice to limit the just satisfaction by monetary awards and to consistently deny the applicants' requests for non-monetary awards. It then discusses the developments in the international law on reparations for human rights violations under the ECHR and in the Inter-American and UN systems, and argues for a need to enhance the European Court's awards of just satisfaction. Finally, the paper assesses the supervision of the execution of judgments in the Chechen cases, finds it ineffective, and suggests that more actions are required from the Court in order to deal effectively with alleged human rights violations arising from armed conflicts.

Perceptual Stability Analysis of a Graph Model System

Perceptual graph model systems are designed to be employed when there are discrepancies in decision makers' (DMs) perceptions of a conflict, which may be caused, for instance, by the presence of negative emotion or asymmetric information among DMs. In this case, conventional stability analysis cannot be used; perceptual stability analysis is proposed as a new theoretical procedure that extends existing stability algorithms to situations when DMs have independent perceptions or awarenesses of a conflict. The overriding objective of perceptual stability analysis is to predict possible resolutions, and unveil the dependence of these predictions on variability in a DM's awareness. Perceptual stability analysis takes a two-phase approach. In Phase 1, individual stability analysis is applied to each DM's graph model (a perceptual graph model) from the point of view of the owner of the model, for each DM in the model, using standard or perceptual solution concepts, depending on the owner's awareness of others' perceptions. Then, in Phase 2, metastability analysis is employed to consolidate the stability assessments of a state in all perceptual graph models and across all variants of awareness-i.e., in all possible graph model systems. The distinctive modes of equilibria thus defined reflect the incompatibilities in DMs' perceptions and viewpoints, but nonetheless provide important insights into possible resolutions of the conflict. To demonstrate the practical application of these new developments, a model of the conflict in Chechnya is presented and analyzed.

Russia’s Conventional Armed Forces and the Georgian War

Russia's rapid military victory over Georgia in August 2008 surprised any commentators, since it stood in stark contrast to the manner in which Russian forces had once become bogged down in a protracted conflict in Chechnya. On the other hand, the conflict might be thought of as the final war of the twentieth century, fought by a Soviet legacy force, desperately seeking to make do with dated equipment and a top-heavy command and control system more suited to conducting the kind of large-scale conventional warfare that had passed into the annals of military history. Damage to Russia's international reputation also ensued, jeopardizing the nation's relations with the European Union and NATO and raising questions regarding the legality of what Moscow dubbed a peace enforcement that precipitated its unilateral recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (1) Russia's military actions provoked widespread international condemnation, spread panic among foreign investors, and left the East European and Baltic members of NATO calling for protection from a resurgent Russia. In the following analysis, the lessons learned by the Russian military will be examined in the context of an announced military reform and rearmament program aimed at producing a more efficient, combat-capable conventional force by 2020. Despite the rapid victory, the war itself exposed fundamental weaknesses and shortcomings in Russia's armed forces, reinforcing conditions that were already known and served as a catalyst for the military reform program. Before proceeding to the lessons learned from the campaign, there needs to be an important precursor: a brief explanation of what worked and how the otherwise beleaguered Russian military managed to deliver swift success. Within a few hours of the commencement of the operation the 76th (Pskov) Airborne Division's 104th Regiment was already in action in the Tskhinvali suburbs with 1,550 soldiers and more than 100 vehicles, accompanied by no fewer than 200 men from the Pechora GRU brigade Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff). Russian mobility was arguably far superior to that seen in previous conflicts. Within 24 hours the deployed forces almost doubled in size even though Russia could not begin an immediate airlift, owing to Georgian air defenses, and the army columns' slow movement toward Tskhinvali via the Rokki Tunnel forced commanders to commit troops piecemeal. (2) A key factor in the speed of the Russian military victory was the opening of a second front in Abkhazia using mechanized infantry. In South Ossetia, Russian forces captured Tskhinvali and then crossed into undisputed Georgian territory to effectively cut the main highway and railway routes west of Gori. At least 2,000 soldiers occupied Zugdidi, a Georgian town ten kilometers from the border, and an armored column continued another 30 kilometers to Senaki, capturing a military base and airfield, severing the main highway and railway at a second location, enabling de facto Russian military control of all heavy traffic movement across Georgia. Abkhaz separatists subdued Georgian positions in the Kodori Valley, while Russia's Air Force (Voyenno-Vozdushnyye Sily--VVS) destroyed military facilities in Tbilisi and Poti. (3) In the final phase of combat operations the Russian Army made efficient use of the Uragan multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS), Tochka-U missiles, and also, possibly, the Smerch MLRS for attacks against the Georgian Army's positions. Those systems, coupled with support from the Russian Air Force, inflicted sufficient losses on Georgian forces to bring about their rapid demoralization and retreat. (4) After hostilities ended, the General Staff particularly praised the 76th Pskov airborne personnel operating in South Ossetia and called attention to the need to strengthen air assault battalions and possibly give the airborne units their own aviation assets. …

The Internationalisation of the Russian–Chechen Conflict: Myths and Reality

The article provides a critical reading of various related discourses, depicting the political motives behind the conflict in Chechnya as a battlefield of the global jihad. These narratives have sought to present the involvement of external Islamist groups as a major factor in the conflict, and to portray many of the main groups within Chechnya as subscribing to a jihadist ideology. The authors suggest an alternative narrative focusing on the significance of the blood feud in the societies of the North Caucasus. It is argued that it is necessary to differentiate between the radicalisation of the resistance as such and the strengthening of the ideology of jihad. It is concluded that the resistance currently assumes a supranational character, yet one which is delimited regionally rather than globally.

‘Selective Affinities’: The Reactions of the Council of Europe and the European Union to the Second Armed Conflict in Chechnya (1999 – 2006)

This article aims to compare how the main bodies of the European Union and the Council of Europe reacted to the issues raised by the armed conflict in Chechnya: human rights violations; the necessity (or otherwise) of political negotiations between the Chechens and the Russians; and Chechen terrorism. While the requests for political negotiations were quickly dropped by nearly all organs of the Council of Europe (CoE) and European Union (EU), the issue of human rights abuses uncovered a chasm between the legislative and decision-making bodies. The terrorist acts had no impact on either the EU's or the CoE's definition of the conflict in Chechnya, but they did influence EU policy. In sum, this comparison suggests the presence of ‘selective affinities’ between the CoE and EU bodies depending on the issue involved.

The Chechnya Conflict: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?

The term terrorism is one of the most politicized and contested concepts in the modern era. Russia has consistently framed the conflict in Chechnya as an issue of terrorism and banditry. Western policy has been inconsistent, oscillating between criticism of Russia's excessive application of force and sympathy for Russia, in particular after 9/11 and the start of the war on terror. This article examines the debates over the nature of terrorism and explores whether terrorism is an analytically meaningful and useful concept to explain the conflict in Chechnya. It demonstrates that if we employ the most widely accepted and plausible definition of terrorism—the targeting of noncombatants—then the use of such tactics has been peripheral to the Chechen resistance, although it has gradually becoming more systematic in response to Russia's disproportionate brutality against Chechen civilians.