Russia: The Chechen Cease-fire

Stratfor

Summary

Under a new peace treaty that will take effect in Chechnya on Aug. 1, fighters loyal to exiled militant leader Akhmed Zakayev will lay down their arms and recognize the authority of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a Kremlin favorite. While Russia has fought long and hard to end the insurgency in Chechnya, the cease-fire could create a whole new set of problems for the Kremlin, including the possibility of an independent Kadyrov.Analysis

A new peace treaty will take effect in Chechnya on Aug. 1 requiring fighters faithful to exiled militant leader Akhmed Zakayev to lay down their arms against Chechen authorities and recognize Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s legitimacy. The move comes after more than a week of negotiations between Zakayev and Kadyrov’s representative parliamentarian, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, in Oslo. Zakayev and Kadyrov’s factions have held such negotiations for years, but this round of talks came as the very last of Kadyrov’s enemies are being eliminated at home and abroad, leaving very little room for the president’s opponents to hide.
Chechnya’s Militant Groups

Zakayev and Kadyrov were a part of a broader militant movement at the start of the Chechen wars, which lasted from 1994-1996 and from 1999-2009. At the beginning of the first war, the Soviet Union had just fallen, and Chechnya collapsed into a civil war among its various clans. But from that struggle emerged the Chechens’ fight for independence from Russia, which united many of the Chechen groups against a common Russian foe. There were still competing forces among the Chechen militant groups, especially between those that considered themselves Chechen nationalists and those with an Islamist/jihadist ideology tied to a trans-Caucasian agenda. The confrontation with Russia however, necessitated the pragmatic formation of alliances between clans with their various nationalist and Islamist agendas and the subordination of those differences for the common cause of independence.

The strained harmony among the groups during the first war was shattered during the second war, when Moscow split the factions, leading them to fight each other again. This Kremlin tactic of taking advantage of the differences between the clans was masterminded by then-Russian President Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man, Vladislav Surkov — who is half Chechen.

The fracturing became more obvious as the second war continued. Various Islamists — like
Shamil Basayev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Dzhokhar Dudayev — adopted more extremist methods of guerrilla warfare. The nationalists split into two factions — one that, like Aslan Maskhadov, still fought for the nationalist cause, and one that surrendered the cause to work for the Russian side — such as Kadyrov, his father, and other clans like the Yamadayev brothers.

The tactic seemed to be working by 2004, when many of the Islamist leaders began to be picked off after staging a series of high-profile attacks such as the Beslan school massacre and the Moscow theater siege. The last of the true nationalists, like Maskhadov, also met their end. But those nationalist groups that survived tied their loyalty to Moscow and were rewarded. The Yamadayevs took over security in Chechnya, and the Kadyrovs took the Chechen political helm. Of course, since then, Kadyrov has consolidated all nationalist groups under him.

This left a hodgepodge of Islamists and a few nationalist groups without a leader since Basayev, Maskhadov, Yandarbiyev and Dudayev were all killed. However, there has been one remaining uniting force for these groups: Zakayev, Maskhadov’s former spokesman who lives in exile in the United Kingdom.
Shadow Islamists

Zakayev considers himself a nationalist and not an Islamist, though he has had to learn to work with the Islamist side since his former leader, Maskhadov, was killed. Now he calls himself a “spokesman” for all factions aligned against Kadyrov and Moscow. It is rumored that Maskhadov sent Zakayev to the United Kingdom in 2002, during the wave of killings of Islamist and nationalist militant leaders. London’s harboring of the Chechen has triggered years of spats with Moscow, which has requested Zakayev’s extradition. Moscow believes that Zakayev was sent to the United Kingdom to manipulate foreign connections to raise money, arms and support for the remaining Islamists in Chechnya.

Zakayev, one of the few non-Kadyrov loyalist leaders left, became the voice of Chechen militants against Kadyrov and the Kremlin while receiving political protection from British politicians and celebrities. Being outside the republic, Zakayev had more contact with Islamist Chechens than with nationalists, since the Islamists are the ones who fled (most nationalists eventually joined Kadyrov).

But the tide has been turning back in Chechnya. Kadyrov has eliminated any opposition within the pro-nationalist forces and organized a 40,000-strong Chechen military. He also has the Kremlin’s full support. Kadyrov feels so secure in his power that he has even on occasion deployed his forces outside Chechnya to the restive neighboring region of Ingushetia and to the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia.

Chechnya is far from quiet; attacks occur daily in the republic, but these attacks are nothing that can rival the ruling power in the country. The cease-fire can change the overall threat in the republic, since Zakayev’s pacification will cut the flow of money and arms from abroad. Zakayev has been closely watching Kadyrov’s consolidation of power — though he is against it — and has seen Kadyrov start to eliminate the remainder of his enemies hiding in foreign lands. Zakayev knows that his days could be numbered. It is also becoming increasingly dangerous for foreign groups to continue funding the Islamists or lingering anti-Kadyrov nationalists in Chechnya — something Moscow has accused the United States, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia of doing in the past. Russia is not afraid to strike at locations important to those foreign groups continuing to fund Chechen Islamists.

Kadyrov has also reportedly extended an invitation to Zakayev to return to Chechnya, meaning the Chechen president plans on making him a symbol of transformation from Islamism toward pro-nationalism — and make it easier to clamp down on Zakayev. This will be one of the last major accomplishments for the pro-Kremlin Kadyrov in his quest to eliminate or pacify Islamist militant leaders and their foreign connections.
The Future of the Russian Caucasus

The next step for the Caucasus will involve pan-regional power consolidation and then balance — heavy tasks for the Kremlin.

Kadyrov has proven that he has Chechnya nearly under control. But there are still quite a few other neighboring regions, like Ingushetia and Dagestan, which are still dealing with Islamists and foreign influence. Kadyrov is willing to expand his totalitarian control by deploying forces to these regions and has even proposed merging one of more of these regions with Chechnya for him to oversee. With Russian forces pulling further back due to the end of the Chechen wars, it will be up to Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed forces to ensure the old ways and conflicts do not seep back into the region.

But this is where things get tricky.

Many within Moscow fear that once Kadyrov is left to his own devices and has no Chechen enemies to fight, he will cease depending on and listening to the Kremlin. Moscow also fears that Kadyrov has designs to create eventually an even more consolidated and dangerous anti-Russian Caucasus movement than has been seen before — one that depends not on Islamist fundamentalism, but on the age-old independent streak in the Caucasus, for consolidation.

Previously, Russia fought a fractured, unorganized and mostly untrained group of guerrilla fighters. Then, the Russians helped to organize, train and arm the Chechen forces and gave incredible monetary support to Kadyrov. As the Chechen president expands his influence across the Caucasus, the possibility of backlash from other regions is expected — but the potential for Kadyrov to create a pan-Caucasus movement in Russia is what really worries the Kremlin.