Having sacked his entire government in November for its failure to cope with the refugee crisis, the Ingush President, Ruslan Aushev, said at the end of February that his republic could accommodate no more refugees because of a severe shortage of tents, food and medicines. According to him, it costs more than three million roubles ($114,000) a day to feed them. This is not covered by the ‘catastrophically insufficient’ aid his republic receives from Moscow.
Aushev has been a fierce critic of Russian policy towards Chechnya, expressing suspicions that the latest war was the culmination of plans that had been concocted by the Kremlin well in advance to achieve political objectives: ‘The Caucasus in general is the testing ground for Russia’s political forces. It is here that they score points before elections, boost their ratings, break into the Duma and fill their pockets. We in Ingushetia are hostages to this policy.’
