Vladimir Putin has finally granted Yunus-bek Evkurov’s request to be relieved of his post as Moscow’s envoy to Ingushetia. In his place, Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov (pictured) has been appointed as the interim acting envoy, officially known as the «Head of the Republic of Ingushetia». The former paratrooper will be the deputy defense minister of the Russian Federation.
The new envoy, or rather his acting capacity, also wears epaulettes, as is customary in Putin’s Russia. In this case, however, they are not military or secret service epaulettes, but prosecutor’s epaulettes. Kalimatov headed the prosecutor’s office in Ingushetia in 2007, after which he went to work in the Samara region as an adviser to Governor Nikolai Merkushkin. Since 2015, he has headed the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources in the region.
Kalimatov is related to former «President of Ingushetia» Murat Zyazikov — they are both sons-in-law of Magomed Chakhkiev, which means they are relatives (in Ingush, «bazh»). Alikhan Kalimatov, an FSB colonel and sibling of the current envoy who investigated the abductions of Vainakhs in North Ossetia, was killed in Nazran in 2007.
Considering his family ties, Kalimatov is not the most irritating figure that could have been appointed to this position. But sober-minded people, who are becoming more and more common among modern Ingush, have no illusions about this. The head of the republic is a person who has no public authority, who does not rely on the support of the people and does not represent them.
First and foremost, he is a Russian security officer, i.e. a representative of the corporation that rules Putin’s Russia, and not the national leader of the Ingush people, who could have been nominated and elected only in free elections, which are impossible under the current regime.