The North Caucasus is back in the news. This time, the region has emerged in connection with the arrests of those accused of shooting opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on 27 February. Social and mass media is awash with talk of a plan to undermine Kadyrov, whereby the accused are seen as an instrument to discredit the Chechen leader; they talk of a conspiracy of radical Islamists; and a banal domestic crime; and foreign plots designed to separate the Kremlin from its trustees in the Caucasus.
I’m no criminologist. I wouldn’t want to lay out my own amateur versions of what happened, even more so to contribute to the ever-expanding number of conspiracy theories. But no matter who says what about the ‘Caucasian trace’ in the Nemtsov murder, the facts suggest – more and more – that, when it comes to Russia's least stable region, the talking points have fundamentally changed.
If before events in the North Caucasus were viewed primarily in the context of inter-ethnic relations, regional politics, and the terrorist threat in the Russian borderlands, then today the topic has been transformed into a story with consequences for Russia in its entirety.
