Is Russia’s interest in the Caucasus simply geopolitics, wanting an access to the South?
I think it started that way. It started with an interest in Georgia and then a desire to move into Persia and Turkey with an eye to reaching India eventually, which was the aim of many Tsars in a rather “dreamy” way. Now it has become less rational. It feels like English politicians who were obsessed with the Irish in the 19th Century. Today anyone who does not see that the borders of Russia end with the Caucasus mountains is being anti-patriotic. Interestingly when I was working as a journalist in Russia writing about skinheads and neo-Nazis, almost none of the skinheads I spoke to wanted the Caucasus to be within Russian borders. They wanted Russia to pull back to the North of the Caucasus, not for any humanitarian motive but simply because they wanted nothing to do with these people. I visited a town in what used to be Circassia and the town was named after a Ukrainian soldier fighting for the Russians who blew himself up on an ammunitions dump rather than have it fall into the hand
