| Wars in the Caucasus | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of thepost–Cold War era, theRevolutions of 1989, theRusso-Caucasian conflict, and thedissolution of the Soviet Union | |||||||
     Clockwise from top: A Chechenchild soldier stands in front of a burning house; a mourning ceremony for victims of theKhojaly massacre atAgdam Mosque; DutchOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitors inspecting a Georgian military installation near the South Ossetian line of contact;Zviadist soldiers hiding from gunfire behind theGeorgian Parliament Building; destruction in the Abkhaz capital ofSukhumi following theWar in Abkhazia, 2006 | |||||||
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Total deaths:c. 102,000–231,000+ Displaced:c. 1,500,000–2,000,000 | |||||||
TheWars in the Caucasus were a series of interrelated ethnic and political conflicts which engulfed theCaucasus in the period shortly before and after thedissolution of the Soviet Union.[3][4][5][2][6] The conflicts, resulting from centuries of ethnic tensions, reached a boiling point as the formerrepublics of the Soviet Union began to seek independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Exacerbated byethnic nationalist claims, they led to the establishment of severalde facto independent states, violent government change and arefugee crisis that led to the displacement of 1.5–2 million people.
Colonised by Russia during the 19th century, the Caucasus experienced significant unrest from 1917 to 1923, during theRussian Civil War. DuringWorld War II, several ethnic groups wereexpelled to Central Asia and Siberia by the Soviet government, and the land was subsequently settled by other peoples. After expellees returned to the Caucasus during theKhrushchev Thaw, they found that their homes were now occupied and that the Soviet government was continuing attempts to eradicate their cultures. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, dissent against the Soviet Union emerged in the North Caucasus, Georgia and Armenia. Between 1985 and 1989, this grew into a low-level uprising, asperestroika andglasnost led to increasingly-open dissent. Amidst the Soviet Union's dissolution, armed militants began engaging one another in combat.
The Wars in the Caucasus have at times been described as a series ofdecolonisation wars,[7]ethnic conflicts[8] or wars against Russianneocolonialism in the region. The Russian military was actively involved in all of the region's conflicts, pursuing strategies of securing strategic aims such as natural gas and railways or motorways. Russia intervened against nationalist leaders in Georgia (Zviad Gamsakhurdia), Azerbaijan (Abulfaz Elchibey)[9] and Chechnya (Dzhokhar Dudayev), killing the latter.
The Wars in the Caucasus had a destructive effect on the region, leading to one of the steepest declines in economic output in the world during the 1990s. Numerous war crimes were committed during the war, including acts ofethnic cleansing and, in the case of Chechnya, what is occasionally referred to asgenocide. As much as 10% of the population of the Caucasus was displaced by fighting, and organised crime, drug trafficking and Islamic extremism proliferated, leading to theinsurgency in the North Caucasus and the growth of theIslamic State.
TheCaucasus, located in Eastern Europe and Western Asia,was colonised by theRussian Empire in the early and mid-19th century.[10] The region has long been noted by foreign observers for the frequency of conflict in the region, with Russian observers describing it as "anarchic". A combination of Russiandivide and rule tactics[c] and poor harvests led to mass migration amidst theFirst globalisation, which exacerbated conflicts over land use.[13] TheRussian Civil War further helped to lay the groundwork for future ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus. This was particularly true in Azerbaijan, asBolsheviks under the leadership ofStepan Shaumian formed an alliance with theArmenian Revolutionary Federation and subsequently began attacking Azerbaijanis.[14]
The Civil War continued in the Caucasus until 1923, asOttoman and British military interventions unsuccessfully sought the region's fragmentation. Upon its conclusion, the newly establishedSoviet Union initially accepted the ethno-religious differences in the Caucasus, declaring several ethnic groups to be formally self-governing.Sharia was initially maintained, as was theArabic script used to write most languages in the North Caucasus. In the mid-1920s, these freedoms were clamped down upon and the local populace was forced to hand over its weapons to the Soviet government. Fearing a pan-Islamic uprising in the region, the Soviets pursued a process of further delimitation in order to foster sectarian tensions. The most notable of these cases was the formal division ofCircassians into three separate ethnic groups (Adyghe, Cherkess andKabardians) In other cases, multiple ethnicities were placed together under a single administrative unit, asKarachays were with the Cherkess andBalkars with the Kabardians.[15]
AmidstWorld War II, the Soviets yet again shifted course regarding the Caucasus. Fearing that Muslims in the North Caucasus would defect toNazi Germany, the government ofJoseph Stalin recognised Islam and established amuftiate over the region. This policy, however, was limited in response to the brief German occupation, in which the German military reopened closed mosques, closedcollective farms, and promised sovereignty to ethnic groups which collaborated. Once the Soviets regained control of the region, a series of decrees by Stalin from November 1943 to March 1944 led to theforced relocation of the entire Balkar,[d]Chechen,Ingush,[e] and Karachay[f] populations toCentral Asia andSiberia. The autonomous governments which existed in the region were dissolved and residents' homes were given over to new inhabitants, who were primarily ethnic Russians. Thousands died during the forced migrations, andNeil Melvin wrote in 2007 that they were "one of the darkest periods in the history of the native peoples of the North Caucasus."[16]
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Peoples who had been deported from the North Caucasus were permitted to return home in the 1950s, amidst theKhrushchev Thaw, but found their homes occupied by the new settlers.[17] The political, military, religious and economic elites of the region had been completely destroyed by the Soviets and the government began pushing for the adoption of industrial agriculture and Russian educators, seeking to destroy the surviving identities of the returning populations. This was resisted by women, who became responsible for reviving local village traditions that had been lost in the deportations,[18] and, in the Northwest Caucasus,tariqas adhering toSufism.[19]
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, nationalism throughout the Caucasus continued to grow in strength. In Armenia and Georgia,Soviet dissidents increasingly came to be recognised by the Soviet government and public as a political force, particularly becoming violently anti-Soviet in Georgia.[20] Georgian nationalism led to protests byAbkhazians, who felt threatened, and the Soviet government institutedaffirmative action policies of "Abkhazisation" in theAbkhaz ASSR from 1978. These policies gave more or less opportunities to people based on the ethnicity listed on theirinternal passport, which could not be changed. Soviet policies led to the formalisation of ethnic divides in Abkhazia, where marriages between Georgians and Abkhazians had previously been common.[21]
Meanwhile, North Caucasian ethnic groups who had lost land during the deportations began to organise, most notably the Ingush at the1973 Grozny meeting [ru], which demanded the return of formerly-Ingush territory held by theNorth Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.[22] Protests by Armenians demanding recognition of theNagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), which was governed separately from Armenia as part of Azerbaijan, began to intensify, spurred on by centralisation in Azerbaijan that restricted the Autonomous Oblast's rights and encouraged Azerbaijani supremacy over Armenians.[23]
The policies ofperestroika andglasnost, initiated by Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev in 1985, marked the beginning of low-level conflict between local nationalists and the Soviet government; while a union-wide phenomenon, this was particularly present in the Caucasus. From September 1985 to August 1989 the number of those killed in such clashes was assessed by researcher Astrid S. Tuminez as being in the "low hundreds". This conflict served as a reflection of growing discontent with Soviet rule over non-Russians at the time – in the same period, forty-seven large demonstrations occurred in the Soviet Union, almost entirely in republics that sought secession.[24]
During the Karabakh Movement, in 1988 the government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast petitioned to Soviet government that it be united with Armenia. The Soviets refused, as this was impossible under theConstitution of the Soviet Union. Despite the refusal, the fact that the NKAO government had made such a request led to an outbreak of ethnic infighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Pogroms against Armenians occurred inBaku andSumgait, while Azerbaijanis were expelled from Nagorno-Karabakh.[25]
As the Soviet Union dissolved, the situation became increasingly militarised. Increasing numbers of Armenians and Azerbaijanis were displaced. The Soviet government sought in vain to prevent Armenia and Azerbaijan from declaring their independence. TheNagorno-Karabakh Republic declared independencevia referendum,[26] while the Azerbaijan SSR formally abolished the NKAO. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the clashes escalated into a full-fledged war between the newly independent states of Armenia and Azerbaijan.[27]
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces immediately began perpetrating massacres against civilians belonging to the other side. The 26 February 1992Khojaly massacre, during which 200 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, was the largest of such massacres.[26] A string of defeats in early 1992 led to the post-communist government ofAyaz Mutallibov being overthrown and replaced byAbulfaz Elchibey, a former Soviet dissident.[28] Armenia received direct military support from Russia, which sent the366th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment to Nagorno-Karabakh.[26] In backing Armenia, Moscow primarily sought to topple Elchibey, a nationalist who sought to increase his country's connections to the Western world.[1] Azerbaijan, on the other hand, was backed by the AfghanHezb-e Islami, which provided thousands of soldiers to fight Armenia as mercenaries.[29]
Throughout 1993 theUnited Nations Security Council passed four resolutions[g] relating to the conflict. Each of them called for respect to be given to the territorial sovereignty of Azerbaijan, the withdrawal of Armenian forces and a ceasefire.[30]
Elchibey was overthrown in acoup d'état bySurat Huseynov (which journalistThomas de Waal and researcher Murat Gül have claimed was done with the support of Russia), andHeydar Aliyev became president. In 1994, theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe established theMinsk Group under the auspices of France, Russia and the United States, with the aim of negotiating a ceasefire.[30] A Russian-backed truce was subsequently approved that May, though Aliyev rejected a plan to station 18,000 Russian peacekeepers in the region. The Nagorno-Kabarakh Republic acquired all of its claimed territories as well as swathes of undisputed land within Azerbaijan.[31]
Ethnic relations between Georgians andAbkhazians began to fall apart in 1989. Increasing Abkhaz demands for further autonomy led to Georgian protests,[32] which were subsequentlyviolently suppressed by the Soviet government.[33] In July, the Abkhaz capital ofSukhumi was rocked byviolent civil unrest over Georgian demands for the Georgian branch of theAbkhazian State University to be transformed into a local branch ofTbilisi State University.[34][35]
In theSouth Ossetian Autonomous Oblast in northern Georgia, meanwhile, a legal struggle was evolving, as the Georgian and South Ossetian governments began passing contradictory laws. South Ossetia unilaterally declared itself anAutonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on 20 September 1989, a decision that was reversed by theGeorgian SSR's government on 10 November. A series of riots inTskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital, caused casualties and led the Soviet central government to impose a state of emergency in the region. On 12 December 1990, gunmen driving a car in Tskhinvali opened fire from asubmachine gun, killing three Georgians and wounding two in what has been described as a terrorist attack and an act of ethnic violence.[36][37] The Georgian government responded by blockading South Ossetia[38] and eventually declaring the region's autonomy defunct on 11 December 1990. TheSouth Ossetian war began shortly thereafter.[39]
Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a nationalist anti-Soviet dissident, was elected as the first President of Georgia with 87% support after his partyRound Table—Free Georgia won the1990 Georgian Supreme Soviet election. Georgia seceded from the Soviet Union in aMarch 1991 referendum.[40] After few months, the opposition started to demonstrate against President Gamsakhurdia, accusing him of violating the political pluralism and freedom of the press.[41]
Though Abkhazia had voted in the 1991 referendum to remain as part of the Soviet Union, they initially accepted becoming part of a post-Soviet Georgia, unlike South Ossetia. In return for remaining under Georgia, Abkhazia was allowed to retain its autonomy and permitted an electoral system that disproportionately favoured Abkhazians over Georgians in thePeople's Assembly of Abkhazia.[42] Meanwhile, fighting continued to escalate in South Ossetia; hundreds of villages were destroyed, 100,000 Ossetians fled to the neighbouringNorth Ossetian ASSR, within Russia and 23,000 ethnic Georgians fled from South Ossetia.[43][38]
From September to December 1991, protests against Gamsakhurdia's government gradually evolved into street violence between his supporters and opponents. These protests culminated in a January 1992coup d'état,[44] overseen by members of the former communistnomenklatura, theGeorgian mafia and disgruntled former allies of the President.[45] Gamsakhurdia refused to surrender, fleeing toChechnya, and his native region ofMingrelia (in Georgia's west) rose up in revolt against the new government.[46] After two months of political deadlock, former Soviet leader of Georgia and foreign ministerEduard Shevardnadze was offered the office of President, which he accepted.[45] The Russian military, via theTranscaucasian Military District's headquarters in the Georgian capital ofTbilisi, provided support to the putschists against Gamsakhurdia in retaliation for his nationalist and pro-Western views.[31]
Theelections in Abkhazia were held in September 1991, resulting in the legislature with different ethnic factions; 28 seats were reserved forAbkhazians, 26 forGeorgians and 11 for the other ethnic groups.[47] As Georgia's political order collapsed, Abkhazia's government issued a request to the putschists to renegotiate the Abkhaz–Georgian relationship in June 1992. Meanwhile, on 24 June 1992 a political crisis erupted in Abkhazia between the Abkhazian and Georgian parliamentary factions: the chairman of the Abkhaz legislatureVladislav Ardzinba ordered the republican guard to attack the building of Abkhazian Ministry of Internal Affairs and remove ethnic Georgian minister Givi Lominadze from office, which led to Lominadze's hospitalization. Lominadze was replaced byAlexander Ankvab, a member of Abkhaz ethno-nationalist movementAidgylara. After this, on 30 June, Georgian deputies of the Supreme Soviet organized a walk-out.[48] On 23 July, the Abkhazian faction unilaterally readopted the 1925 constitution of theSocialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia, tantamount to declaring independence, without the presence of the Georgian deputies.[49] Eduard Shevardnadze, the leader of Georgia, condemned the decision, saying that it was taken without consulting the opinion of the majority of population.[50] In August 1992, Shevardnadze's government deployed the Georgian military near and in the region amid the increased presence of the Gamsakhurdia loyalists in those areas.[51] This was treated as a declaration of war by Abkhazia's government, leading to the beginning of theWar in Abkhazia.[44]
The dissolution of the Soviet Union and its replacement by theRussian Federation led Russia to further increase support for separatists; North Ossetia threatened not to accede to the Federation via signing theTreaty of Federation unless Russian PresidentBoris Yeltsin provided support for South Ossetia. In late May 1992, North Ossetia closed the natural gas pipeline to Georgia. This led Yeltsin and Shevardnadze to sign theSochi agreement on 24 June 1992, declaring a ceasefire to be enforced by Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia.[52] Russia also provided support to Abkhazia by supplying them with heavy weapons and securing air supremacy.[31] The Abkhazians were also backed by theConfederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, a militant political group led byMusa Shanibov that called for the North Caucasus to become independent from Russia.[53]
Despite being weakened by simultaneously fighting both Abkhazia and Gamsakhurdia's supporters,[45] the Georgian government successfullycaptured Sukhumi in mid-1992. The Abkhaz government underVladislav Ardzinba's leadership evacuated toGudauta in the north, while fighting continued along the banks of theGumista River. In the countryside, ethnic Abkhazians and Armenians formed armed militias against local Georgian populations, who did the same. The Abkhaz government launched an offensive that succeeded in retaking much of Abkhazia, including Sukhumi, though theKodori Valley was secured bySvan militias.[54] At least 200,000[55] ethnic Georgians were displaced by the Abkhaz government after their victory as part of aprocess of ethnic cleansing.[44][56] A ceasefire agreement was signed on 14 May 1994, with Russian peacekeepers under the flag of theCommonwealth of Independent States enforcing thede facto border.[45]
Following the defeat of the Georgian government in Abkhazia, Gamsakhurdia returned from his Chechen exile to lead another rebellion against Shevardnadze. In order to secure his rule, Shevardnadze turned to Russian military support. He joined the Commonwealth of Independent States and theCollective Security Treaty Organisation, a military alliance led by Russia.[31] Further Russian peacekeepers were also deployed to the region in what academic Stephen Blank describes as part of a strategy of neocolonialism.[7] Gamsakhurdia was later defeated by the Georgian government and Russia, and died under disputed circumstances that were officially ruled a suicide.[57]
Rather than joining theChechen Revolution, Ingushetia chose to remain as part of Russia in the hopes that formerly-Ingush parts ofPrigorodny District, which had been seized by North Ossetia following the 1944 expulsions would be returned, allowing them to resettle in the region.[58] In 1991, the Soviet government passed the Law on the Rehabilitation of the Repressed Peoples, which allowed for the repatriation of people and the transfer of territory in cases where borders or populations had been exchanged under Stalin's rule. No concepts on managed repatriation were written in the law, and following its passage, a disorganised movement of Ingush people seeking to return to Prigorodny District began,[59] led by Ingush nationalist groupNijsxo.[60] This disturbed North Ossetians and served as the basis for future conflict.[59]
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, local armed groups began to emerge in North Ossetia and Ingushetia.[61][62] Trought late 1991 and early 1992, low-level clashes between Ossetians and Ingush continued, further inflamed by the settlement of South Ossetian refugees in Prigorodny District.[63][64] This culminated in a series of battles on 30[65] or 31 October[63] between Ingushetia and North Ossetia across the latter's territory.[h]
The conflict continued for five days, during which time over 400 Ingush and 200 Ossetians were killed. Fourteen Ingush villages were destroyed by North Ossetian forces,[66] who expelled 40,000 Ingush from the region.[67] The Russian government intervened in the war on 2 November 1992, declaring a state of emergency and the installation of a "Provisional Administration" over both North Ossetia and Ingushetia, which the Russian Armed Forces directed. The military, however, would not arrive until 5 November; in the interim between Yeltsin's decree and the arrival of Russian forces, during which time fighting and casualties continued.[68] An agreement between Ingush presidentRuslan Aushev and North Ossetian presidentAkhsarbek Galazov was negotiated by Yeltsin and signed in 1994, as a result of which Ingushetia surrendered its formal claims over Prigorodny District.[69]
The East Prigorodny conflict was the least bloody of the Wars in the Caucasus.[70] Despite this, it further worsened tensions between Ingush and Ossetians, leading to theInsurgency in Ingushetia in the early 21st century.[67] The Russian military administration, in contrast to Yeltsin's pro-Ingush views, expressed favouritism towards the Ossetians as Orthodox Christians, and sought to use the conflict as a basis to invade thede facto independentChechen Republic of Ichkeria. During their occupation of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, Russian forces continued pushing east into Chechnya until the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus threatened a regional uprising if Russia did not withdraw.[71]
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria became independent from the Soviet Union in 1990, though it remained unrecognised by the international community. Unlike other Muslim-majority republics that had significant independence movements from Russia (such asTatarstan andBashkortostan), Chechnya's ethnically homogenous nature and large support among local elites for independence led them to refuse accession into the Russian Federation.[72] Russia had a vested strategic interest in securing Chechnya: the separatist region was home to a large natural gas pipeline, as well as a motorway and a railway. The government was also concerned about the possible spread of separatist sentiments to otherrepublics.[73]
Yeltsin made his first military effort to secure control over Chechnya by launching acoup d'état against the government of Chechen leaderDzhokhar Dudayev in November 1994. The coup attempt failed, humiliating the Russian government.[74] On 11 December 1994, Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya by presidential decree. Russia initially believed that the war would be short; Minister of DefencePavel Grachev claimed that he would secure the Chechen capital ofGrozny with two divisions of theRussian Airborne Forces by the new year, This attempt failed dramatically; in theensuing battle, several Russian brigades were destroyed by the Chechen military.[75] The Russian military pursued a strategy ofshock and awe, launching astrategic bombing campaign against most Chechen population centres. As a result of the bombings, tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Most of Chechnya was occupied by Russia within two months of fighting, forcing the government into the southern highlands.[76] Chechen military fatalities remained low during this period, particularly in comparison to their Russian counterparts: within the first fifteen days of the war, 1,000 Chechen soldiers were killed in action compared to 12,000–13,000 Russian soldiers (between 48% and 52% of the initial invasion force).[77]
From the highlands, the Chechen rump state continued to wage a guerrilla war. Russian counter-insurgency tactics relied on inflicting further civilian casualties, with German OSCE monitor Jürgen Heiducoff noting that "thousands of civilians are exterminated in order to kill ten or perhaps fifteen rebels."[78] Following theBudyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis in June 1995, Chechen morale significantly improved as a result of the perceived victory.[79] Russia killed Dudayev in April 1996, but this had little effect on the insurgents' morale or effectiveness.[80] In the August 1996Third Battle of Grozny, the city was rapidly recaptured by Chechen forces, leading to the signing of theKhasavyurt Accord ceasefire a few weeks later.[76]
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It is commonly agreed by scholars that several instances ofwar crimes were committed during the Wars in the Caucasus. These crimes includeethnic cleansing, as well as allegations ofgenocide. In particular, the Russian government role in the First Chechen War was condemned by theInternational Court of Justice, which attempted to sway United States and Western European governmental policy to be more critical of Russian military actions.[81] Heiducoff, the OSCE monitor, referred to Russian military tactics as an attempt to annihilate the Chechen people; Russian generalSergei Stepashin also was reported as having said "to win this war the whole male Chechen population would have to be eradicated."[78]
The refusal of involved countries, such as Russia, to both sign and ratify theRome Statute, has been cited by Georgian Ajarian politicianAslan Abashidze and Russian legal theorist Elena Trikoz as being the key obstacle toInternational Criminal Court proceedings regarding the Wars in the Caucasus. The reasons for this are dependent upon the respective country, but primarily based on issues of criminal justice reforms within theCommonwealth of Independent States and perceived threats to state sovereignty by the ICC's policies. As of 2009, the only nation in the Caucasus to sign and ratify the Rome Statute is Georgia, which did so in the hopes that what its government alleged to be genocide would be investigated in Abkhazia. Armenia has signed the Rome Statute and expressed support for it, but its laws continue to remain incompatible with the statute.[82]
The Wars in the Caucasus dramatically depressed the local economy of Caucasus states and regions, slowing economic growth and increasing both poverty and corruption. As a result of the economic downturn during the wars, several million left the region in addition to those displaced by fighting, with most leaving to Russia. By 2000 only Azerbaijan had returned to 50% of its 1989 production levels. The economic changes were unprecedented in history, with a rapid decline in conditions from high standards of living to among the lowest in the world. Only Moldova and Tajikistan, both of which also suffered civil wars, experienced similar declines within the former Soviet Union during the same period.[83]
The Wars in the Caucasus had the effect of a massive refugee crisis, ultimately resulting in the flight of 1.5[84] to as much as[85] or more than[86] two million people, comprising 10% of the South Caucasus population at the time.[84] The majority of these refugees were displaced within Russia or the South Caucasus states,[86] though others fled to other countries, such asEuropean Union member states.[87] Significant groups of the Chechen diaspora now exist in Ukraine,[88] Poland[89] and France,[90] whileKurdish refugees from Georgia and Armenia settled with other parts of theKurdish diaspora in the European Union and Canada.[91]
TheArmed Forces of Ukraine were deployed to the Caucasus to evacuate 250,000 Georgian refugees fleeing Abkhazia in autumn 1993, marking the first overseas deployment of Ukraine's military.[92] United Nations-organised refugee camps were established in Russia after the Wars in the Caucasus. Conditions in these camps were extremely poor, with most residents living in squalor.[93] Refugees also faced problems from the Russian government, which sought to close the camps and relocate refugees to their countries of origin in spite of continued violence. In 2002, Russia was accused byHuman Rights Watch of forcibly relocating 20,000 Chechen refugees back to Chechnya,[94] while Ingush inhabitants of East Prigorodny were forced to live in camps within the Republic of Ingushetia.[95]
Iran also established refugee camps in Azerbaijan as part of an effort to prevent the entry of migrants toIranian Azerbaijan. Iran claimed to have taken in 40,000 refugees from the Wars in the Caucasus by November 1993. In establishing refugee camps within Azerbaijan, Iran was primarily motivated by antipathy towards the Azerbaijani government and popular support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh War.[96]
Tied to the refugee crisis was the expansion of organised crime groups, both within and outside their home countries. TheGeorgian mafia played a significant role in the Georgian Civil War, with bosses such asTengiz Kitovani andJaba Ioseliani bringing Shevardnadze into power before later coming into conflict with his government. Following the civil war, a new generation of organised criminals emerged and asserted near-total dominance over the country's economy.[97] In Chechnya, theChechen mafia were among the leaders of efforts to maintain Chechen independence, providing support for Dudayev in return for members of their government being placed into government positions.[98]
The Chechen mafia also grew outside Chechnya during the Wars in the Caucasus, with two causes; on one hand, the refugee crisis allowed members of the mafia to establish themselves in different areas. On the other hand, Chechen guerrillas turned to the arms and narcotics trade out of desperation during the First Chechen War.[99] Members of the mafia have established themselves among Chechen refugee communities in Georgia[100] and France.[101] A 2002 report by theLibrary of Congress to the United States government further alleged that the Caucasus had become a transit hub for heroin from theGolden Crescent.[102]
The Wars in the Caucasus additionally had the effect of promoting radical nationalism andIslamism on a local level. Particularly in the North Caucasus, Islamism grew in strength following the wars and massive migration to cities. Some of these extremists would later fight as part of theSyrian opposition orIslamic State during theSyrian civil war.[103] Typical depictions of the North Caucasus in Russia since the wars have depicted the region as a centre of Islamism[104] (referred to asWahhabism by the Russian government),[105] although the general population of the region has rejected the concept.[104] Islamism in the North Caucasus has been used since the war as a demonstration of nationalistic and pro-independence sentiment in the region, and researcherGordon M. Hahn has stated that the laterCaucasus Emirate militant group "includes but is not reducible to"Al Qaeda.[105] The growth of radical Islam in the Caucasus in the aftermath of the wars was recognised byAyman al-Zawahiri, a high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda, as a potent source of recruits, and he noted that the North Caucasus was "one of three primary fronts in the war against the West".[106]
Violence relating to the Wars in the Caucasus at times spilled outside of the region, primarily from North Caucasian Islamists into other parts of Russia. The first such instance happened during the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis on 14 June 1995, when Chechen militants led by commanderShamil Basayev took several hostages at a hospital in southern Russia. Afterspetsnaz units failed to neutralise the militants, Prime MinisterViktor Chernomyrdin entered negotiations with Basayev. Chernomyrdin eventually agreed to some of Basayev's demands, including safe passage back to Chechnya. 129 people were killed during the attack, with an additional 415 injured.[79] This was followed byanother attack inKizlyar, Dagestan the next year.[107] The1999 Russian apartment bombings, which served as a pretext for theSecond Chechen War, were blamed on Chechen militants, though the extent to which this is true has been significantly debated.[108]