Introduction
The past two weeks in the North Caucasus have been marked by frequent Ukrainian drone attacks, affecting almost all republics in the region. However, no significant damage to infrastructure has been reported. The local economy continues to be shaped by the war in Ukraine, and regional authorities remain engaged in informal competition over the number of individuals mobilised. Chechnya retains a leading position in terms of the number of recruits. At the same time, rumours regarding the deteriorating health of Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, continue to circulate. There have also been several arrests of individuals linked to terrorist organisations, although no terrorist attacks have been reported.
Statistical updates
As of 31 December, the total number of North Caucasian residents killed in Ukraine has reached 3397. This includes: Dagestan – 1761, North Ossetia – 533, Kabardino-Balkaria – 358, Chechnya – 255, Ingushetia – 177, Karachaevo-Cherkessia – 177, and Adyghea – 136.
Adyghea
Two residents of Adyghea, Aleksey Dmitriev and Yuriy Sergeyechev, were convicted of recruiting individuals into an extremist organisation. Both men are Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is designated as an extremist organisation in Russia. The principal evidence cited by the prosecution consisted of audio recordings of conversations with an individual who had expressed interest in the Bible. The defence argued that these conversations contained no elements of extremism or violence. The prosecutor sought a five-year sentence for Sergeyechev and a six-year sentence for Dmitriev.
This is not the first instance of the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the North Caucasus. Earlier this year, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses from Karachayevo-Cherkessia received suspended sentences for alleged membership in an extremist organisation. Such repression intensified after 2017, when the Russian Ministry of Justice added Jehovah’s Witnesses to the list of extremist organisations and closed more than 300 offices belonging to the movement across Russia, including in the North Caucasus.
Karachaevo-Cherkessia
The Karachaevsk-Maykov highway, connecting Karachayevo-Cherkessia with the Krasnodar region, has undergone renovation. As stated by the head of the republic, Rashid Temrezov, 40 kilometres of the highway have been refurbished in recent years, and, in 2025 alone, seven kilometres of road between Pregradnoye and Psemen had their asphalt surface replaced.
The renovation of road infrastructure in Karachayevo-Cherkessia is significant beyond the republican level. The highway in question forms part of Russia’s core road network and provides a direct route from the mountainous areas of Karachayevo-Cherkessia to the Black Sea. It has both economic and military significance. Furthermore, in the future, it could be extended into occupied Abkhazia and connected to the Kodori Gorge via Dombay.
Kabardino-Balkaria
Human rights activists in Kabardino-Balkaria have called on the head of the republic, Kazbek Kokov, to disclose data on the choice of mother tongues in local schools. The Ministry of Education of Kabardino-Balkaria has thus far refused to release information on how many ethnic Circassian and Balkar pupils have chosen Russian as their mother tongue instead of their respective native languages. Activists fear that pressure may be put on Circassian and Balkar parents to select Russian-language instruction. A similar incident previously occurred at a school in Nalchik, where more than 200 pupils were reportedly forced to choose Russian instead of their native languages; following public backlash, the school reversed this decision.
In 2018, the Russian State Duma adopted a law on mother-tongue instruction that allows pupils and their parents to choose their language of study, meaning that ethnic Russians living in non-Russian-majority regions are no longer required to study the local language. Within the 2025–26 curriculum, mother-tongue classes are no longer mandatory, but optional. This legislation encourages pupils from Caucasian backgrounds — particularly those living in urban areas — to choose Russian as their mother tongue and to discontinue the study of their native languages. As a result, the policy accelerates the decline of Caucasian languages, many of which are already classified as vulnerable or endangered.
North Ossetia
The initiative group Sberegi Bashnyu has called on the government of North Ossetia to impose a ten-year moratorium on changes to the official status of agricultural land. The movement has been campaigning against chaotic construction on agricultural territories. Earlier this year, residents of the village of Nogir, located near the city of Vladikavkaz, appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to protect their agricultural land from a large-scale urban development project. The movement has been actively working to safeguard forested and rural areas from predatory construction and the building of high-rise apartment blocks.
The population of Vladikavkaz has been growing, and the city has been expanding accordingly — a trend common across the North Caucasus. However, this rapid urbanisation often lacks proper planning, resulting in chaotic construction, corruption, the destruction of suburban rural communities, environmental damage, inadequate infrastructure, and poor-quality architecture. These conditions frequently give rise to grassroots initiative groups. Sberegi Bashnyu is one such example in what is often regarded as the relatively stable republic of North Ossetia.
Ingushetia
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia has requested the imposition of restrictions on activist Zarifa Sautieva, including limiting her travel outside the republic without prior permission. Sautieva, a former deputy head of the Ingushetia memorial complex, was one of the organisers of the 2018–19 protests in Ingushetia against the transfer of land to Chechnya. She served her sentence in a women’s penal colony and was released in 2024. The proposed restrictions may also include a night-time curfew and mandatory visits to a police station, with required sign-ins twice a month.
Seven Ingush activists were charged with forming and participating in an extremist organisation following a protest rally in Magas, where participants opposed the border agreement with Chechnya. In December 2021, the court sentenced Akhmed Barakhoev, Musa Malsagov, and Malsag Uzhakhov to nine years in a penal colony; Ismail Nalgiev, Bagaudin Khautiev, and Barakh Chemurziev to eight years; and Zarifa Sautieva to seven and a half years’ imprisonment. On 18 September 2024, it became known that the European Court of Human Rights had ruled that the Russian authorities violated the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment in their treatment of Ingush activist Zarifa Sautieva, and awarded her €1,000 in compensation.
Chechnya
The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has commented on the prospects for constructing a road connecting Chechnya with Georgia. He stated: “Georgia has not proven favourable to us. Although documents were signed and everything was done, unfortunately, our neighbours are not yet willing to allow a road through Georgia.”
The proposed route would connect Chechnya’s Itum-Kale district via the Argun Valley to Georgia’s Khevsureti region in the Dusheti municipality.
Contrary to Kadyrov’s claims, officials in Tbilisi have repeatedly stated that there are no negotiations or plans concerning the construction of such a road.
The idea of constructing a road connecting Chechnya with Georgia is not new. For landlocked Chechnya, Georgia represents the only route to access the sea and the broader Islamic world while bypassing Russia. Chechen leaders have sought to build such a road since the 1990s. The first attempt was made by the de facto president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, who constructed an unpaved road up to the Georgian border. Kadyrov later modernised the infrastructure on the Chechen side.
However, the Georgian authorities have been reluctant to proceed with construction on their territory. First, the project — particularly on the Georgian side — would be extremely costly, as it would require the construction of a tunnel through the Datvisjvari Pass, with estimated costs exceeding USD 1 billion. Second, Georgia fears that the road could pose a security risk, as it might serve as a military corridor for troop deployment in the event of a conflict with Russia. Finally, there are concerns that the sparsely populated Khevsureti region could undergo demographic change as a result of settlement by ethnic Chechens.
Dagestan
Families of ethnic Lak settlers in the Novolaksky district, who more than ten years ago were granted the right to indefinite use of agricultural land, have been ordered by landowners to demolish their houses. The settlers have appealed to the Investigative Committee of Russia. As their lawyer has noted, leasing out this land is unlawful, yet the settlers are required to defend their rights through the courts. The families have complained of neglect by the local authorities. Approximately 700 families in the Novolaksky district have yet to be resettled to new territories, a situation that continues to fuel land disputes.
Ethnic tensions in the Novolaksky district date back to the deportation of Chechens in the 1940s. Following the deportation, Lak settlers from mountainous villages were resettled in territories previously inhabited by Chechens. When Chechens returned from Central Asia in the 1950s, the Laks did not leave these areas, resulting in prolonged land disputes and periodic ethnic tensions. In the 1990s, the Dagestani authorities launched a programme to resettle ethnic Laks from the Novolaksky district to new settlements along the Caspian Sea coast. However, not all Lak families received new housing; a shortfall that continues to contribute to the problem today.
Diaspora
The conference “The Circassian Genocide in the Context of History and Contemporary Politics,” dedicated to the Circassian Genocide, was held at the Lithuanian Seimas. The event was organised by the Council of United Circassia. The conference sought to promote historical truth and justice through recognition of the Circassian Genocide committed by the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, to raise awareness among policymakers and the wider public, and to strengthen international cooperation on issues of human rights and historical memory, including oppression during the Soviet era and in the contemporary Russian Federation. Participants included members of the Turkish and Middle Eastern Circassian diaspora, Circassian activists from the North Caucasus living in exile, as well as a number of Western researchers and advocates of the Circassian cause. The participants called on the Lithuanian Seimas to recognise the Circassian Genocide.
Recognition of the Circassian Genocide is one of the central objectives of the Circassian nationalist movement. In the nineteenth century, as a result of Russia’s conquest of the Caucasus, more than 80 per cent of the Circassian population was expelled from the vast territories of the North-West Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire, while lands previously inhabited by Circassians were settled by ethnic Russians and other groups. Circassian activists regard these events as constituting genocide.
To date, the Circassian Genocide has been recognised only by two constituent entities of the Russian Federation — Kabardino-Balkaria and Adyghea — and, among sovereign states, by Georgia and Ukraine. Against the backdrop of rising tensions between Russia and the West, as well as the strong anti-Russian stance of the Baltic states, Circassian activists are seeking to harness these political conditions to secure recognition of the Circassian Genocide by the Lithuanian Seimas.