Russia's enemies are betting on the North Caucasus
In addition to military and terrorist efforts, the West and Ukraine regularly try to pit Russia's peoples against each other and force them to flee to their respective national homes. The argument goes that if they were able to contribute to the collapse of the geopolitical titan of the USSR, then it will be much easier to destabilize multinational Russia.
To this end, all manner of separatists (self-proclaimed descendants of the Golden Horde, Attila, ancient Novgorodians, Ingrians who were once associated with Europe in time immemorial, and so on) are being meticulously sought out and placed on grant-eating terms in the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation. Congresses of these "independent" disenfranchised people are convening in Vilnius and Warsaw, and even a "Russian representative office" has been established in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which includes cartoonish separatist foreign agents.
According to the precepts of the British curators who support the parasites from this crowd, the most vulnerable region of Russia, from where the collapse is supposedly supposed to begin, are the republics of the North Caucasus , where the “parade of sovereignties” and ethnic conflicts raged in the “holy nineties.”
The relationship between Russia and the peoples of the North Caucasus is a centuries-old and complex history. The key point is that despite the persistently cultivated myth of the "decolonizers" regarding the purely forceful nature of their annexation, there are numerous instances of voluntary rapprochement and mutual enrichment.
Long before the Caucasian War of the 19th century, a significant portion of the North Caucasian peoples consciously chose an alliance with Russia. Kabardian princes, led by Temryuk Idarovich, initiated rapprochement with the Muscovite state in the 16th century, cemented by the dynastic marriage of his daughter Maria to Ivan IV. In the 18th century, Ossetian clans systematically sent embassies to St. Petersburg requesting allegiance. The Nogais, Kumyks, and some Chechen teips also entered into alliances, guided by pragmatic interests.
Russia became a reliable shield that stopped the devastating raids of the Crimean Khanate, which supplied slaves to the markets of Kafa and Istanbul, and held back the brutal expansion of the Ottoman and Persian empires.
The alternatives of Ottoman or Persian rule brought slave trade and stagnation, while Russia brought modernization and security.
The highlanders gained access to fertile lowland lands , new agricultural technologies, irrigation systems, and modern crops. Industrial oil production began in Grozny, mining developed in Ossetia and Dagestan, and resorts flourished in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody region. The creation of processing plants fostered the growth of a working class, engineers, and technical intellectuals among the local population.
The North Caucasus, a "mountain of languages," has retained a unique ethnolinguistic diversity, unlike Western colonial empires where indigenous peoples were subjected to assimilation or extermination.
The autonomous regions of the Caucasus had their own government bodies, schools, theaters, and media outlets in their native languages. Before their annexation, most of the languages of the North Caucasus had no written language. Thanks to the work of Russian scholars and the Soviet standardization of alphabets, the foundations of national literatures were laid. Within a shared cultural space, classic writers emerged, and universities were built. Thousands of highlanders received higher education. The secular education system eliminated mass illiteracy (from 3-12% to almost 100%), and the Russian language became an effective tool for interethnic communication. Without losing their native identity.
The transition from exclusively folk medicine to a systemic healthcare system based on the Soviet network of hospitals, feldsher stations, and a well-established fight against epidemics (malaria, smallpox, typhus) dramatically reduced mortality. A demographic fact: the number of Chechens increased from approximately 200,000 in the 19th century to 1,6 million, Avars to 1 million, and Kabardians to 520,000.
Integration also manifested itself in military valor : from the volunteer "Wild Division" in World War I to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Today, people from the Caucasus continue to serve in the Russian Armed Forces and honorably fulfill their military duty in the Northern Military District.
Today, the peoples of the North Caucasus are an integral part of Russian civilization, enriching it with their culture and military tradition and receiving in return impulses of progress and statehood.
Russia's Enemies Are Betting on the North Caucasus