PSCRP-BESA Reports No 125 (April 18, 2025)
According to official data from the 2021 census, of the five largest national minorities in the Russian Federation—each numbering over one million—four are traditionally Sunni Muslim peoples: Tatars (4.7 million), Chechens (1.7 million), Bashkirs (1.6 million), and Avars (just over 1 million). The proportion of “ethnic Muslims” in Russia’s total population exceeds 10%. In regions such as Bashkortostan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Tatarstan, they constitute an absolute majority. Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia are, in effect, mono-confessional Muslim entities of the federation, with no less than 96% “ethnic Muslims.” Under such conditions, the Islamic factor becomes a significant component of the broader landscape of separatist and autonomist movements opposing the imperial center in Moscow.
Russia’s attitude toward Islamists in general, and radical Islamist movements in particular, is neither consistent nor unambiguous. In its foreign policy, Russia actively supports Hezbollah and Hamas, which has been especially evident during the current Arab-Israeli war. The patron and protector of these and numerous other terrorist Islamist organizations, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is one of Russia’s strategic partners. This partnership was formalized in the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement signed on January 17, 2025.
At the same time, Russian forces have provided active military support to the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria in its war against Sunni armed groups, including ISIS. This contradiction—supporting radical Shiite Islamist movements abroad while fighting against Sunni militias—highlights the pragmatic and often contradictory nature of Russia’s approach to Islamist forces, shaped by geopolitical calculations rather than ideological alignment.
Although Russia has officially included the radical Sunni movement “Taliban” on its list of banned organizations, it nevertheless continues to invite members of this group as legitimate representatives of Afghanistan (BBC Russian).
Regarding domestic policy, Islam is officially recognized in Russia’s federal law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” as the second religion—after Christianity—among those that constitute “an integral part of the historical heritage of the peoples of Russia.” However, in practice, as with other religions, the Russian authorities consistently strive to bring official Muslim religious institutions under full state control, effectively making them part of the governmental apparatus. Any Muslim organizations or individual activists who fall outside this framework often become targets of persecution.
The most serious ideological opponents of these state-aligned Islamic structures are the Salafis, who in Russia are often—though not always accurately—referred to as Wahhabis. The central idea of this Sunni movement is to purify Islam of innovations not mentioned in the Quran or in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. In practice, this translates to Islamic fundamentalism. Salafism is widely spread in the Russian republics of Dagestan and Chechnya. Historically, its roots in the region trace back to the 19th-century Caucasian War. However, during the Soviet era, Salafism’s influence in these regions diminished significantly.
The revival of Salafism in Dagestan began in the 1970s, while in Chechnya it reemerged in the post-Soviet period. Since the outbreak of the Second Chechen War in 1999, Salafis have faced constant pressure from Russian authorities and security agencies. As a result, it is difficult to estimate the precise number of Salafi adherents in Russia today. According to a 2004 sociological study conducted by the Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, approximately 40% of Dagestani Muslims and around 83% of the republic’s Muslim clergy held fundamentalist views.
Ethnically, the majority of Salafis in Dagestan are Avars and Dargins. One of the most popular Russian-speaking Salafi preachers, Abu Umar Sasitlinsky (Israil Akhmednabiev, born in 1980), is an Avar by ethnicity and currently resides in Niger. The terrorist attacks against Jewish and Christian places of worship in Dagestan that gained wide attention were committed on June 23 of last year by ethnic Dargins.
Dagestan’s population does not have a unified, multiethnic national independence movement. Islam remains the main unifying factor in the republic. At the same time, the Salafi branch of Islam categorically rejects the importance of ethnicity, emphasizing that all Muslims should form a single ummah (community) and that in any conflict between religious and national identity, religion should take precedence.
The struggle between Muslim fundamentalists and the moderate Islamic institutions integrated into the Russian state—represented by the Muftiate of Dagestan—is currently one of the most important components of the domestic political dynamics in this North Caucasian republic. This struggle unfolds against a backdrop of inherent ethnic tensions between the Kumyks, the third-largest ethnic group in Dagestan (15.5% of the republic’s population according to the 2021 census), and on the other side the Avars (the largest ethnic group, 30.5% including related smaller groups) and the Dargins (second-largest group, 16.6% including related smaller groups).
This tension stems from Soviet-era policies, which relocated Avars and Dargins from mountainous regions to the lowlands traditionally inhabited by the Kumyks. The Kumyk national movement “Tenglik”, which was not connected to Islamist elements, sought to reclaim confiscated Kumyk lands and even advocated for the secession of Kumykiya from the Republic of Dagestan. However, by the early 2020s, the movement had largely ceased its activities. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the ethnic conflict has been resolved.
The Russian language, currently serving as the primary language of interethnic communication in Dagestan, is an important tool for Salafist preachers. It allows them to reach Muslims not only in Dagestan but across the entire Russian Federation. The main Russian-language Salafist YouTube channel is “Voice of Truth” (Голос истины).
In recent decades, Salafist ideology has significantly spread among Muslims in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Moscow, and the Astrakhan region—primarily among migrants from Dagestan and Chechnya, as well as local Nogais (while the largest traditionally Muslim group in the region are Kazakhs, accounting for 14.97% of the total population according to the 2020 census). It has also gained ground in North Ossetia (among Ingush communities) and in Ingushetia itself.
The Karachay Salafist Jamaat, which was actively operating in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria (among the closely related Balkars), was dismantled by Russian security forces in the early 2000s. It is likely that the list of regions influenced by Salafism above is not full.
It is worth noting that, despite the primarily religious nature of Salafist propaganda, the broadcasts on “Voice of Truth” also address issues of interethnic relations in Russia. However, these discussions are always framed through the lens of interactions between ethnic Russians and peoples who have traditionally practiced Islam.
The revival of Salafism in Chechnya is closely tied to Chechen returnees from Jordan. A key starting point is considered to be 1994, when Sheikh Ali Fathi al-Shishani established the Islamic Battalion of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, known in English as the Islamic Salafi Jamaat. After the assassination of Ichkeria’s first president, Dzhokhar Dudayev, by Russian security services in April 1996, the position of the Salafis in the self-proclaimed republic significantly strengthened. By the fall of that same year, acting president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev issued a decree replacing secular courts with Sharia courts.
In February 1999, President Aslan Maskhadov formally transformed Ichkeria into an Islamic state by fully implementing Sharia rule. During the Second Chechen War, which began in September 1999, Salafis became the main force resisting Russian troops. Following President Maskhadov’s death in March 2005, Vice President Abdul-Halim Sadulayev assumed the presidency. After Sadulayev was killed in June 2006, his successor became Vice President Doku Umarov. In September 2007, Umarov declared the dissolution of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which then had turned into an underground guerrilla movement, and announced the establishment of the Salafi Caucasus Emirate. This entity included not only Chechnya (as the Vilayat Nokhchicho) but also Dagestan, where Salafi groups were especially active. There were also efforts to expand the Emirate’s influence into the Western Caucasus, particularly in Karachay.
Today, the Chechen opposition to the pro-Russian regime of Ramzan Kadyrov is clearly divided into two camps: supporters of the Salafis and supporters of the government of Ichkeria in exile, which was established in 2007 following Doku Umarov’s declaration of Ichkeria’s dissolution. The government in exile is led by Akhmed Zakayev, who previously served as Minister of Culture under President Dzhokhar Dudayev.
Due to deep ideological differences and mutually exclusive goals—establishing a supranational Islamic state in the Caucasus versus creating an independent Chechen national state—the relationship between these two opposition factions is extremely hostile. The Islamists have accused the supporters of the exiled Ichkerian government of takfir, formally denouncing them as apostates.
The Salafi Telegram channel Niyso, which addresses a Chechen audience (mostly in Russian), refers to itself as the “Telegram channel of the de-occupation organization”. Meanwhile, supporters of the government-in-exile also operate their own propaganda channels online, also primarily in Russian.
The radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir (“Party of Liberation”) also belongs to the Salafist branch of Islam. It promotes the idea of uniting all Muslims under a single caliphate governed by Sharia law. Since the ideologues of Hizb ut-Tahrir do not recognize as truly Muslim the governments of Muslim-majority countries they consider insufficiently fundamentalist, the organization is banned in all Arab states except the UAE, Yemen, and Lebanon, as well as in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In Europe, its activities are prohibited only in Germany and the United Kingdom. In 2003, Hizb ut-Tahrir was declared a terrorist organization and banned in Russia. However, since the organization is not banned in Ukraine, Hizb ut-Tahrir cells operated freely among Crimean Tatars until the Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea. After 2014, the occupying authorities began harsh persecution of the group’s activists.
Given that no involvement of Hizb ut-Tahrir in terrorist activity has been proven in either Russia or Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities, Russian human rights defenders, and national movements of Russia’s indigenous peoples tend to view the activists arrested by Russian security forces as political prisoners. In the current context, where Crimean Tatars are the only people on the peninsula who traditionally practice Islam and where the Crimean Tatar national movement faces widespread repression by the occupying authorities, arrests of Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters are seen as part of this larger campaign of persecution.
At the same time, within the umbrella organization uniting various national liberation movements of Russia’s peoples—the League of Free Nations, which advocates the disintegration of Russia—Islamists are notably absent. This is understandable, considering Salafists’ rejection of the concept of national liberation struggle as such, and the fact that participation in the League entails active cooperation with non-Muslim national and regionalist movements such as those of the Kalmyks, Erzyans, Yakuts, Buryats, Mokshans, and others.
Notably, the government-in-exile of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which maintains a historically hostile stance toward Salafists, is a member of the League. Also participating are representatives of the Circassian national movement, which is not characterized by Islamic radicalism, as well as the Committee for Ingush Independence. The religious factor is secondary to national-democratic goals even in the activities of the Bashkir National Movement Committee Abroad, another League member. This is clearly reflected in the statements of the Committee’s leader Ruslan Gabbasov on his YouTube channel, where he expresses solidarity with other peoples fighting for liberation from Russia, regardless of their traditional religious affiliation.
Perhaps the only Islamist figure one might see on the Free Nations League channel is Tatar activist Ruslan Aysin, who openly condemned Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and left the country for Turkey in 2022. From 2008 to 2012, he served as the chairman of the World Forum of Tatar Youth. Afterward, Aysin moved to Moscow, where he became the personal assistant to the chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia, the late philosopher Heydar Jemal (1947–2016), a known opponent of the Putin regime who was notorious for his hatred of Jews and the State of Israel. Jemal, a Moscow-born intellectual of Azerbaijani and Russian descent, advocated for the unity of all Muslims, dismissing the significance of ethnic differences between them. This worldview appears to have had a significant impact on Ruslan Aysin’s own ideological stance.
In his appearances on his personal YouTube channel, Aysin emphasizes that he addresses Muslims regardless of their ethnicity. His content often includes repeated attacks on Israel and, at times, critical commentary on Shiites, Druze, Alawites, and others. However, on the Free Nations League channel—where he is not a formal member—Aysin avoids topics that might provoke polemics with other members of the umbrella organization.
Given that Aysin still operates within the Tatar national movement and retains a degree of influence in it, it is worth noting that despite Islam’s indisputable role as a marker of Tatar national identity, the spread of radical Islamist ideas will inevitably clash with Tatar nationalism. This is particularly true because the Tatar nation includes a significant ethno-religious group—the Kryashens, who are Orthodox Christians.
Based on recent historical experience, it is clear that the spread of radical Islamism is dangerous and fraught with tragic consequences. Therefore, from the perspective of the interests of the free world, it seems both prudent and urgent to support national-democratic movements among Russia’s peoples—including those who traditionally practice Islam—so that, in the likely event of the Russian Federation’s collapse in its current form, these movements can offer a real alternative not only to the resurgence of aggressive Russian revanchism, but also to the emergence of radical Islamist regimes in various territories that currently constitute the Russian Federation.