Moscow is facing greater resistance to its military draft in the North Caucasus because of increasing quotas and the disproportionate impact of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine on the region.
The Russian government is applying more repressive pressure on North Caucasians to serve, a policy that is generating further anti-Moscow sentiment.
The Kremlin’s strong-arm efforts to enforce the draft in the North Caucasus may trigger a new wave of armed resistance in the region.
Moscow has been cautious about drafting men from the North Caucasus since the end of the Soviet Union. Between 1991 and 2013, the Kremlin called no Chechens and only tiny numbers of men from the other non-Russian, predominantly Muslim republics to military service (see EDM, July 10, 2012, April 19, 2016, July 26, 2018, March 31, 2022).
Moscow feared that providing men from the North Caucasus with military skills would enable them to possibly use them against the Russian Federation, as was the case during the two post-Soviet Chechen wars. Russian commanders who observed ethnic conflict within their ranks,
including among North Caucasians, were concerned that drafting North Caucasians would undermine unit cohesion in the Russian military (Window on Eurasia, October 27, 2015, February 27, 2016). Faced with Russia’s demographic decline and increased demands for manpower after the beginning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however,
Moscow has concluded that it has no choice but to draft more North Caucasians. The Kremlin appears to be raising draft quotas in the region, although these remain lower relative to the population than in non-North Caucasian regions (Mediazona, April 25, 2022, accessed June 20; see EDM, January 20, 2023; Vazhnie Istorii, October 13, 2023).
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