Ingushetia shows how the Kremlin's Caucasus policy is failing

On Tuesday Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the President of Ingushetia left hospital, vowing to hunt down those who had tried to assassinate him. On Wednesday Yevkurov's Minister of Construction (and a trusted lieutenant) was shot dead in his office. The backstory to this is that Yevkurov was put in place by the Kremlin last year, to replace Zyazikov, who was also a Kremlin appointment, to replace Ruslan Aushev, an Afghan war hero who had become too independent. Zyazikov was clearly a bad lot, and was removed by the Kremlin because his thuggish tactics were making him, and Moscow, more enemies than friends. Or maybe he was becoming too independent. Who knows? There is no press, you can't trust the investigators, and every side in the argument will accuse the other of corruption. But you can't argue with a bullet.
What seems to be happening now is that the opposition forces that were essentially created by Zyazikov's hardline tactics are now attacking Moscow's new man. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that these are working on the orders of Kadyrov in Chechnya, who has shown ambitions of moving beyond his republic. The key is that Moscow's mismanagement has allowed opposition forces to gather support, and to become stronger. The Caucasus are an excellent venue for civil war.
And now, on the back of this, you have the economic crisis which means that there is less money to go around. Although Putin has generally followed sound fiscal policies, he is always happy to throw money at a problem, and this is generally what they have done in the Caucasus. Now that there is less money to go around, this creates problems for Moscow's envoys, because all of their power is based on their ability to hand out cash. They may well have promised money to people or built up debts that cannot be repaid, because no money is coming from Moscow. Construction is key in this, because one of the main channels for money is for the region to come up with some ambitious project, like infrastructure or housing, Moscow allocates the money, the money is stolen at the regional level, and nothing is built, and the local authority either pays off the inspectors from Moscow, or they blame someone else for the project's failure. So a lot of the flows would have gone through the Minister of Construction, and you would only ever put a trusted person in that position.
Yesterday's killing is a clear signal that this is all about money, and that the opposition in Ingushetia has no respect for Moscow. Bear in mind that a lot of this is propagated by blood feuds - even if you come to terms with someone politically, you may have to remain opposed to them, because they are linked to the killing of a relative. This is the fuel that drives conflict in the region - one killing leads to a feud, which leads to another killing, and so on. The attraction of Sharia law is that it is actually able to break this cycle in a way that Russian law can't because the latter is so corrupt and arbitrary and lacking in respect.
The bottom line is that Russia's future is returning to its past. Russia has always had problems with insurrection in the Caucasus, and has always responded by cracking down harshly. One problem with having independent states in the South Caucasus is that they provide refuge for Russia's enemies in the region (or rather, enemies of the local thugs appointed by Russia). So it was no surprise when Russia was so angry about Georgia getting close to NATO - they really need to be able to intervene militarily in the Caucasus states, for their own security needs. And they get angry about it because America has no compunction about doing this in their own back yard, so why shouldn't Russia have the same privilege. So Russia's future here is that there will always be conflicts and terrorist incidents in the regions, and the small states in the region will have to do what Russia tells them, just as there are not many small poor Latin American states that feel able to defy Washington.