A feature, not a bug Experts say the Kremlin uses record unemployment to keep Ingushetia in check
Figures for 2024 show that Russia’s Republic of Ingushetia continues to have the highest unemployment rate in the country. More than a quarter of the population is out of work, and those seeking jobs typically spend around six months job hunting, according to official data. Ingushetia is also one of the most heavily subsidized regions in Russia. But rather than viewing this as a policy failure, some experts argue the Kremlin is keeping the region economically dependent by design — ensuring it remains subservient and unable to stand on its own. RFE/RL’s Kavkaz.Realii took a closer look at the roots of this persistent crisis — and why it isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Meduza shares an abridged English-language version of their reporting.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic split into two separate regions: Chechnya, which at the time declared independence from the Russian Federation, and Ingushetia, which affirmed its loyalty to Moscow.
From the outset, Ingushetia struggled with a severe lack of both financial and administrative resources. The region had almost no industrial base to speak of. The few existing enterprises in places like Malgobek, Nazran, and Karabulak were in poor condition and would have required major investment to become profitable again.
Year after year, Ingushetia has topped national unemployment charts. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate hovered around 26 percent. It jumped to 30 percent in 2020 and then returned to earlier levels after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But overall, little has changed in the local labor market over the past three decades.
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Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov, the regional governor, blames the high unemployment on a mismatch between the skills employers need and the qualifications job seekers actually have. He’s called for more retraining programs, vocational guidance, and closer coordination with the business community to help close the gap.
A university professor in Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, notes that the region’s unemployment crisis was also shaped by the influx of tens of thousands of refugees from neighboring republics in the 1990s and early 2000s. “The wars in Chechnya destabilized the region, destroyed economic ties, and shifted the population. Many people lost their homes and livelihoods and were left in extremely vulnerable conditions. For a small republic, this has been a lasting problem — and it still hasn’t been fully resolved.”
In the years since, no meaningful steps have been taken to jump-start the economy — no major new industries, no significant development projects. The largest new facility in recent memory was a flour mill completed in 2013, which created 1,500 jobs.
Today, Ingushetia is one of the most heavily subsidized regions in Russia, with a large share of its budget coming from federal funding. But even with that support, the region is bracing for a record budget deficit of 376 million rubles (about $4.4 million) in 2025.
‘Deliberate policies from Moscow’
Ingushetia has maintained one of the highest birth rates in Russia over the past two decades. Each year, a new wave of young people — high school and university graduates — enters the labor market. This has led to a surplus of qualified workers in some fields (the region is home to a state university and an institute of law and economics) and, at the same time, a shortage of specialists in high-tech industries and advanced manufacturing.
Roughly 27 percent of Ingushetia’s population lives below the poverty line — a figure that mirrors the region’s unemployment rate but can’t be fully explained by it, notes Chechen-Ingush blogger and activist Islam Belokiev.
“The problem is a lack of prospects,” Belokiev says. “Ingush people are fairly well educated, especially women, but there are no social mobility mechanisms tied to education. To put it bluntly, someone who’s passionate about physics might earn a degree in the field, only to end up working in construction — and not as a civil engineer, but as a laborer. And that’s true for many other professions, as well.”
Anti-corruption expert Ilya Shumanov believes that the region’s official unemployment rate is, in part, a reflection of widespread under-the-table employment, as well as a perception of state benefits not as targeted assistance for those in need, but as a kind of blanket financial support. “These two dynamics reinforce one another,” Shumanov says. “Based on interviews I’ve done with residents [of Ingushetia], there’s a widespread perception that benefits are simply part of a permanent financial package — an inexhaustible resource provided by Moscow.”
Activist and blogger Ruslan Youloy offers a more cynical view. He believes the federal government deliberately maintains this status quo, keeping the region economically dependent and leaving its people with no viable alternative for survival aside from Moscow’s support.
“Russia is invested in preserving the Ingush people’s dependence on the central government and uses subsidies as a tool to do so,” he says. “People are forced to survive however they can — faking disabilities, collecting fraudulent pensions, and so on. The authorities are fully aware of these practices but do nothing to stop them. It’s easier to keep the population ‘on a leash’ through handouts than to create jobs and make the region more self-sufficient.”
Ingush political and economic analyst Ansar Garkho agrees. He argues that it’s not Ingushetia’s internal conditions that lie at the root of the region’s economic crisis but direct federal control.
“Moscow controls all of the republic’s key natural resources — oil, natural gas, marble, dolomite, limestone, clay, rare metals, forests, mineral and thermal waters,” he says. “Official estimates place Ingushetia’s oil reserves at 60 million tons and its natural gas reserves at 1 trillion cubic meters. But the revenue from extraction goes straight to the federal center. Many of these resources remain completely undeveloped — not due to a lack of potential, but because of deliberate policies from Moscow that block any real economic growth in the region.”
Instead of investing in job creation or opportunities for educated young people, the Kremlin channels money to local officials and security forces, says Belokiev. As an example, he points to investments in a failed “innovative” facility for processing fish skin under former governor Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. “A private businessman decided to open the facility. TV crews came, the administration promised support — but the business shut down not long after, mainly because the authorities themselves obstructed its development,” Belokiev explains.
Ingushetia consistently records some of the bleakest economic indicators in the country. In 2024, it once again ranked last in a national index of social and economic well-being. A 2023 study found that the average worker in the region would need 15.5 years to save one million rubles (about $11,000) — the longest time period in the country. The year before, Ingushetia recorded the highest food inflation rate nationwide.