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After six months of protests and controversy, Republic of Daghestan head Ramazan Abdulatipov has been constrained to abandon his stated intention of privatizing (reportedly at a knockdown price) one of the region’s flagship enterprises and largest tax-payers, the Kizlyar Brandy Distillery. On August 28, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree transferring the distillery to federal ownership, meaning that Moscow, not Makhachkala, will take the decision on its fate at some point in the next two years.

The planned privatization encountered one obstacle after another. Not only did the distillery’s 300+ work-force take to the streets to protest and formally appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin; they also filed a formal complaint against Abdulatipov with the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office after he asserted in an interview with the internet portal Kavpolit.com that for the past two decades distillery employees have systematically stolen part of the output.

Meanwhile, the republican Prosecutor –General’s office challenged the legality of the parliament’s December 2013 decision to privatize the distillery and secured from a Makhachkala district court a ruling that the Agriculture Ministry’s dismissal in April of the distillery’s director since 2008, Yevgeny Druzhinin, was in violation of labor law. Druzhinin had said late last year that he enjoys Abdulatipov’s “full support.”

And Umakhan Umakhanov, a State Duma deputy from Daghestan whom at least one observer regards as a possible successor to Abdulatipov, asked the federal prosecutor’s office to rule on whether the proposed privatization is legal.

Located in the lowlands of northern Daghestan, the Kizlyar Brandy Distillery was founded in 1885 and until very recently its output was prized as being of the highest quality. Its employees, like the population of the town of Kizlyar, are overwhelmingly Russians or Cossacks. (It was the heads of two local Cossack regiments, Vladimir Starchak and Nikolai Spirin, who solicited Umakhanov’s help in the campaign to thwart the planned privatization.)

Abdulatipov first expounded his vision of the distillery’s future at a press conference in Moscow in early February, several weeks after the National Assembly had approved a list of enterprises up for privatization in the next few years in which it was included. He advocated transforming the distillery into a joint-stock company by September 2014, and then privatizing it, mentioning a minimum price of 4 billion rubles ($112.2 million).

Abdulatipov also said Magomed Sadulayev, whom he described as one of Daghestan’s leading experts on viticulture, had been named to the newly created post of general director of the Kizlyar distillery to oversee the privatization process. Abdulatipov apparently failed to mention on that occasion that Sadulayev is the owner and general director of the Derbent Sparkling Wines Plant, the republic’s second-largest producer of alcoholic beverages. Analysts in Daghestan swiftly inferred that Sadulayev was the likely purchaser of the Kizlyar distillery which, they say, is worth a minimum of 10 billion rubles, possibly 20 billion. But in light of the controversy surrounding the planned privatization, Sadulayev declined the post.

Abdulatipov for his part was apparently not prepared for the backlash his announcement triggered. Having agreed, and then failed, to meet with the workforce to discuss the situation, he then changed tack, offering new and not entirely convincing explanations why the distillery should be privatized. He claimed that the distillery failed in 2013 to pay 1 billion rubles to the local and republican budget; that it had “stopped planting its own vineyards”; and that it had purchased substandard spirits at a cost of 1.5 billion rubles.

In fact, as Daghestan’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Gaydar Shuaybov has pointed out, the distillery’s current legal status as a state-owned unitary enterprise (GUP) precludes applying for government subsidies to plant vineyards to replace those destroyed 25 years ago at the time of then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign -- a campaign which, according to Druzhinin, inflicted “irreparable damage” on Daghestan’s viticulture sector.

Once the distillery is transformed into a joint-stock company, Shuaybov explained, it will be eligible for such subsidies. Meanwhile, it is obliged to purchase either grapes or grape-based alcohol from elsewhere in Daghestan. Abdulatipov claimed that in 2012 the distillery purchased surrogate alcohol of dubious quality from construction material enterprises in Kabardino-Balkaria that had no access to vineyards.

At the same time, Shuaybov echoed Abdulatipov’s complaints about the distillery’s performance. He said that over the past three years, as a result of what he termed the management’s lack of professionalism, the quality of the product has declined, along with the profits. One Daghestani expert, however, claims that the distillery posted a profit in 2012 of half a billion rubles ($13.5 million), making it the third most profitable enterprise in the entire North Caucasus.

Abdulatipov finally told the newspaper “Novoye delo” last month that it had been decided to hand over ownership of the distillery to the federal government in order the remove any grounds for speculation about the legality of the planned privatization that could reflect negatively on himself, because “I value the trust of the president and the people.” Whether that decision was in fact taken because of the republican prosecutor’s intervention or, as seems more probable, under pressure from Moscow to yield to the demands of Kizlyar’s predominantly Russian and Cossack population, is not clear.

Isa Munaev (3rd from left) poses for a photo in Ukraine with members of his battalion.
Isa Munaev (3rd from left) poses for a photo in Ukraine with members of his battalion.

Eighteen years after the signing of the Khasavyurt Accord that ended the 1994-96 Chechen war, a veteran Chechen field commander has issued a timely reminder that there are still three sides to the ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds of the Chechen people.

In a statement dated August 28, Isa Munayev appeals to the United States and "the countries of the democratic world" to provide "comprehensive military assistance" to the Ukrainian people, whom Munayev describes as victims of Russian imperial aggression, just as the Chechens were 20 years ago.

Munayev identified himself in that statement as commander of the Dzhokhar Dudayev international volunteer peacekeeping battalion and a brigadier general of the armed forces of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) of which Dudayev was the first president. He spoke to RFE/RL's Radio Marsho a week ago, shortly before he travelled to Ukraine to show "international support for the Ukrainian people." The strength of his battalion, and who is bankrolling it, is not known.

Now in his late 40s, Munayev played a key role in the defense of Grozny at the start of the 1999-2000 war, and continued fighting after the resistance forces retreated south to the mountains, acquiring a reputation for his courage and tactical skills. In late 2007, however, he distanced himself from ChRI President Doku Umarov following the latter's abandonment of the cause of Chechen independence and proclamation of a Caucasus Emirate. Munayev left Chechnya soon afterward, but continued to serve until December 2008 as ChRI prosecutor-general.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount of the presence on the side of the pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine of hundreds of fighters sent by Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov. Those fighters are apparently primarily volunteers from among the various police and security forces subordinate to Kadyrov, who has consistently denied that there are any "Chechen battalions" in Ukraine, even after the "Financial Times" quoted a fighter named Zelimkhan who said he and his comrades in arms had been sent to Ukraine in mid-May on Kadyrov's orders.

Kadyrov has admitted, however, that a few dozen Chechen volunteers from among the 2 million (according to his estimate) Chechens living outside Russia have travelled to Ukraine on their own initiative to fight, and that a handful of them have been killed.

Republic of Ingushetia head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov similarly said in early June that 25 residents of his republic had travelled to Ukraine to fight, of whom four had been killed. In a subsequent interview, Yevkurov, a former Russian military-intelligence officer, affirmed his readiness to head to Ukraine himself "to defend those who are being humiliated and killed."

In contrast, both the Defense Ministry and the presidential and government press service of the largely unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia in May denied media reports that the breakaway Georgian region had sent volunteers to fight in Ukraine.

How many "kadyrovtsy" either volunteered or were sent to Ukraine is unclear, but separate, unconfirmed casualty reports suggest the figure may have been as high as 1,000. Between 35-45 corpses were reportedly sent back to Chechnya in late May, and between 120-150 in August. In addition, Ukrainian military sources claimed to have killed some 200 Chechens near Slovyansk in late June.

Other reports, also unconfirmed, suggest that Kadyrov's men did not distinguish themselves in battle. There have been several such reports over the past few weeks that Chechen units fighting under the command of Russian officers in eastern Ukraine have been disbanded and sent home for cowardice and/or desertion, surrendered to Ukrainian government forces, or asked for safe passage to retreat to the Russian border.

Kadyrov immediately rejected as untrue reports that any Chechens had surrendered: he declared that "once a Chechen takes up arms, he doesn't surrender."

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About This Blog

This blog presents analyst Liz Fuller's personal take on events in the region, following on from her work in the "RFE/RL Caucasus Report." It also aims, to borrow a metaphor from Tom de Waal, to act as a smoke detector, focusing attention on potential conflict situations and crises throughout the region. The views are the author's own and do not represent those of RFE/RL.

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