Domitilla Sagramoso

King's College London | KCL · Department of War Studies

This article intends to revisit the role of foreign fi ghters in the Chechen war and its aftermath, looking particularly at their impact on Islamic developments in Chechnya and Dagestan during the 1990s–2010s. The article challenges the argument, which is predominant in the literature, that foreign jihadists were primarily responsible for transform...

This article analyses the mechanisms and the logic behind the large flow of young Dagestani Muslims to the Middle East, to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq-either to fight jihad or simply to live under Shari' a law. It examines the reasons behind the decision taken by many Dagestanis to fight jihad in Syria and Iraq, rather than at home in the North Cau...

This essay shows how the various Islamic communities or jamaats that emerged in the Muslim republics of the Russian North Caucasus during the early 1990s have evolved since then. Originally conceived as peaceful religious organisations embracing strict Islamic Salafi principles, many of these communities have transformed themselves into fighting un...

Since 2006 there has been a significant reduction in the level of fighting in the Russian republic of Chechnya between federal troops and Chechen rebels, indicating a substantial weakening of the insurgency. However, violence in the region has not entirely subsided; indeed, it has been spreading to neighbouring regions in the North Caucasus. Today,...

Soon after 11 September 2001, the Italian government moved quickly to address the new terrorist threat, both by modifying its national legislation in order to enforce decisions adopted at international levels, and by introducing new measures at the operational level aimed at better protecting Italian territory from a possible terrorist attack. The...

Après la morosité des années 1990, l'économie russe a montré des signes significatifs de redressement, dus à la combinaison de politiques monétaires et budgétaires prudentes, d'une conjoncture mondiale favorable, de la dévaluation du rouble et de réformes structurelles judicieuses. Toutefois, de sérieuses faiblesses demeurent, comme la trop grande...

The Chechen war has focused world attention on the politically fragile and potentially explosive Caucasus region. Beset by domestic instability, economic crises, failing states and widespread corruption, the entire area has been in a very precarious state since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

This thesis analyses Russia's military, economic and diplomatic policies towards the newly independent states, particularly towards the members of the CIS, during Boris Yeltsin's first term as President of an independent Russia (December 1991 to July 1996). The objective is to determine whether after the collapse of the Soviet Union the new Russian...

[Summary]. The South Caucasus contains three states that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Geographically, the region is populated by some fifteen million people, and links the Caspian Sea basin to the Black Sea on the east-to-west axis, and is the juncture between the greater Middle East, Turkey and I...