Aslan Doukaev

Also by Aslan Doukaev

• November 09, 2011

  When The (Russian) Punishment Doesn't Fit The Crime

  The glaring disparity between sentences for manslaughter or murder handed to down to men from the North Caucasus, on the one hand, and ethnic Russians, on the other, sends equally pernicious messages to those two groups.

• December 21, 2010

  Russia's Minorities Have Plenty Of Questions For Putin

  In his recent, nationally televised question-and-answer session, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed that "the state exists to provide for the interests of the majority." Fair enough, but what about minorities? Who will protect them from the majority?

• October 09, 2010

  Is Khloponin The Right Man For The North Caucasus?

  The Kremlin envoy's penchant for 19th-century imperialist policies, his clear pro-Russian and pro-Cossack stance, allied with his spectacular ignorance of the troubles that plague the North Caucasus, may prove disastrous for the future of the Russian Federation.

• January 25, 2010

  Can New Medvedev Vision Bring Stability To North Caucasus?

  Russia observers have spent a great deal of time trying to explain the rationale behind President Medvedev's appointment of Aleksandr Khloponin to oversee the new North Caucasus Federal District. But questions still remain.

• October 19, 2009

  Dmitry Medvedev's Theater Of The Absurd

  The parties that stormed out of the State Duma in protest last week cannot possibly have believed Dmitry Medvedev would respond any differently than Vladimir Putin would have. So far in his term, Medvedev has not made a single statement that required courage, or taken a single step that could have upset the status quo.

• August 17, 2009

  Russia's U-Turn Toward Zakayev

  Russian rulers, courtiers, and bureaucrats have been anything but uncreative, inflexible and lacking in ideas. Even today, a Russian politician can perform U-turns and somersaults that would turn any acrobat green with envy. Witness the Kremlin's overtures to Akhmed Zakayev.

• June 02, 2009

  Connoisseur's Guide To Chiaroscuro In The Caucasus

  Just as in perusing Rembrandt's canvases you should never overlook the patches that look as though they were infused in dark-brown gravy, it makes sense every now and then to shine candlelight into the dark corners of the Russian state to glean insights into its internal politics. And what could be darker than the North Caucasus?

• April 13, 2009

  Moscow's Tactics In Chechnya Draw On Stalinist Legacy

  Josef Stalin is dead, but his spirit lives on in Ramzan Kadyrov. The Chechen leader and his Kremlin backers seem to have closely studied Stalin's methodology: propaganda, information warfare, internments, mop-up operations, and the creation of a personality cult.

• February 10, 2009

  The Perils of Flogging A Dead Metaphor

  Why would a politician in a democracy, even for the sake of winning a few extra votes, want to resurrect (and be tied to) the rhetoric and slogans of an autocrat who has dismantled virtually every democratic institution in his country?

• October 31, 2008

  Putin's Long-Ended War

  Nine years and thousands of destroyed lives later, Chechnya remains a bleak and desolate place, its cemeteries filled with fresh graves, evidence of the war still visible amid the Potemkin villages hastily erected by the local strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, to impress the occasional visitor. Kadyrov, Putin's cherished protege and the chief purveyor of violence and corruption, runs Chechnya in despotic style and with little regard for the laws of the country.

• August 11, 2008

  West Fails To Deter Georgia From Playing Into Russian Hands

  For years, Russia has made repeated attempts to provoke Georgia into taking military action against its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Behind that plan was a basic belief that a Georgian crackdown would discredit Tbilisi in the eyes of its Western backers and cast permanent doubts on its aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.

• July 29, 2008

  Chechen Leader Faces Powerful Foes

  There are three targets which the young and temperamental leader of Russia's Chechen Republic seems particularly fond of assailing: the Islamic insurgency, Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft, and the Russian armed forces in Chechnya.