RUSSIA'S TINDERBOX - Belfer Center for Science and International ...

2. The secession of Chechnya from Russia in October 1991. This spurred Ingushetia to separate
from Checheno-Ingushetia and seek its own autonomy within the Russian Federation.
3. North Ossetia’s decision in May 1992 to increase its autonomy unilaterally and create a
National Guard. This led to the formation of Ingush militias in direct response to a perceived
Ossetian threat to the security of the Ingush population in the Prigorodny district.
4. The June 4, 1992 Law on the Formation of an Ingush Republic Within the Framework of the
Russian Federation. All the state institutions, educational facilities, and centers of
communication and information for Checheno-Ingushetia were located in Grozny, now the
Chechen capital. The June 1992 Law, however, had no provisions for the recreation of these
state institutions in the new Ingush capital, Nazran, nor for the demarcation of the state
borders of the new republic. 78
5. The July 3, 1992 Law on the Imposition of a Transitional Period for State-Territorial
Delimitation in the Russian Federation. This was, in effect, a moratorium on territorial
change in the Russian Federation. The transitional period was established for a total of five
years—equivalent to President Yeltsin’s term of office—and confirmed in November 1992.
The Ingush greeted the July 1992 Law as a betrayal by the Russian government as it came so
close on the heels of the law creating their new republic and implied that there would be no
official demarcation of their state borders.
6. The July 23, 1992 agreement between the Ingush and the Chechens regulating their mutual
border in defiance of the Russian government’s moratorium. For Ingushetia this agreement
left only the issue of its western border with North Ossetia unresolved.
With respect to the actual object of the dispute between Ingushetia and North Ossetia–the
Prigorodny district––the territory was of perceived vital importance to both parties. Their respective
claims were also complicated by the emergence of a third party with aspirations for the territory, the
Terek Cossacks. The Cossacks viewed the Prigorodny district as an integral part of their traditional
lands which had been taken from them during the Russian Revolution–before it was assigned to the
Ingush in the 1920s by the Soviet government. In the conflict between the Ingush and the Ossetians,
the Cossacks have tended to side with North Ossetia, going so far as to provide volunteer forces for
the North Ossetian National Guard.
For the Ingush, the Prigorodny district represents one third of the non-mountainous territory
of the traditional Ingush lands, with significant Ingush populations concentrated in several key
villages. In addition, with the inclusion of the right bank quarter of Vladikavkaz, Prigorodny was the
primary urban area for the Ingush, and thus the major political economic and cultural center. Since
1957, however, the Ingush population in the Prigorodny district has experienced discrimination at
the hands of the North Ossetians. In 1982, for example, the official registration of Ingush in the
78 A state committee was established in the Russian Federation Supreme Soviet to discuss the implementation of
the law ipso facto, but violence erupted in the Prigorodny district before it could make any rulings.
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