Detailed Story of the Russian Disassembly - Ichkeria and Dagestan

Republic of Ichkeria has a long history of upprisings against the Russian rule, the first dating back to the XIX century. During the last 150 years there was no single generation of Chechens who would not attempt to liberate their Homeland. The most recent Second Chechen War of 1999-2000 was only won by the russian army terrorists under the command of Vladimir Putin by using the genocide against Chechen civilians. During the war and the following decade of Chechen insurgency up to 80'000 of Chechen and Ingush civilians (out of the total population around 1'500'000) were killed and almost 500'000 were displaced by the russian terrorists. Many Chechen political and military leaders fled to EU, Turkey, or UAE after the war, and they still dream of liberating their homeland once Russia is weak again.

There are two scenarios how this can happen in the observable future. At the start of the Russian Civil War, russian ethnic leaders would seek for ways to neutralize non-russian Ramzan Kadyrov. A direct and simple way for that would be to give independence to the dicontent Chechen Republic and proclaim Ramzan Kadyrov its president. This would ultimately remove his from the pan-russian competition and crystallize Chechen Republic as the bandit state. The other (more probable) option is that Ramzan Kadyrov will be assassinated immediately after (or even before) Vladimir Putin as his militias and bodyguards are rather non-professional even by the russian standards. That would result into the vacant place that will soon be occupied by a different Chechen leader, potentially from a different clan; who will soon proclaim the independence.

So, one way or another, Republic of Ichkeria will quickly become independent at the start of the Russian Civil War. That would motivate many of over 500'000 Chechen expats (to EU, Turkey, Russia, and other countries) to repatriate into the newborn homeland, just like Jews repatriated into Israel when it was reborn. Many of them are ready warriors (some fighting against Russian in Ukraine in the Volunteer Legion) who will not lose a second chance to restore Ichkeria during their lifetime. Most probably, this reborn state will include current territories of ethnically close Chechen Republic and Republic of Ingushetia. From ethnic perspective Ichkeria will be dominated by two close ethnicities - Chechens (over 75%) and Ingushes (over 20%). With the capital in the city of Grozny, the total land area of the state will be over 20'000 sq km and the total population over 2'000'000, Ichkeria will be a small landlocked country, comparable to Slovenia. Still, repatriates from EU, Turkey, and UAE might succeed to build a modern and prosperous islamic society based on its oil & gas industries.

Soon after the independence of Ichkeria, the neighbouring multi-ethnic Republic of Dagestan will also seek for the independence. And that help might come from both Ichkeria and the regional powers of Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, all of which would be interested in the independent buffer state between their spheres of influence and Russia. Even Kazakhstan and Georgia are interested in the formation of independent Dagestan and will support it economically; but most probably they would not be overly active during the first phase. The complex ethnic (9 ethnicities with over 3% population - Nakh-Dagestanians: 27% Avars, 16% Dargins, 5% Laks, 4% Tabasarani, 3% Chechens; Turks: 13% Cumans, 4% Azerbaijani; 9% Russians), linguistic (3 language families), and religious (90% sunni, 5% christian, 3% shia) situation in the newborn state will require to quickly find an accurate balance in internal affairs (by example of e.g. Turkey) in order to prevent internal conflicts. In fact, all Dagestan citizens should be maximally interested in a secular multi-ethnic state as no single group inside the country has dominance in almost any big geographic area. With the capital city Makhachkala, the land area of over 50'000 sq km and the population of over 3'000'000 citizens, Dagestan will be a medium state comparable to Georgia or Lithuania. Although Dagestan economy is weak at the moment, it has a chance to become as prosperous as e.g. Azerbaijan without the Russian kleptocracy syphoning funds from its oil & gas industries.

In both use cases Russia, bound by its internal struggle and having a bigger trouble at the far east, will not have enough military power to oppose these independence proclamations. More so, the northern Caucasus will not have enough economic value for the competing Russian elites compared to the problems on other fronts.

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