Opposition groups in Russia's autonomous republic of Ingushetia are holding emergency sessions starting June 26 where they plan to ask the Kremlin to appoint former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev as acting president. The demand comes as Ingush President Yunus-bek Yevkurov remains in critical condition after a car bomb detonated into his motorcade June 22. Russia's Northern Caucasus is constantly in a state of crisis, though only the republic of Chechnya has garnered much attention in the West. During Soviet times, Chechnya and its neighboring republic, Ingushetia, were unified in a single autonomous republic. Following the two Chechen conflicts, militant violence from Chechnya spilled over into Ingushetia, often leading to attacks against government officials and security personnel. The latest attack against the Ingush president has raised concerns that violence now could spill from Ingushetia back into Chechnya. Since Yevkurov was incapacitated, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has flown to the region and offered support for the Ingush military and security forces. Many in Ingushetia are wary of his offer, recalling his vocal push in 2006 for the reintegration of Chechnya with Ingushetia into a joint autonomous republic. Various opposition groups in Ingushetia are now pushing for Aushev — who was president from 1993 to 2002 and remains very popular with a large portion of the populace — to assume power. Mainly, this is because of his strong belief that Ingushetia should remain a separate, autonomous republic. 
 The Russian Caucasus has always faced series of wars and military conflicts, though these have been particularly intense since the breakup of the Soviet Union — culminating in the First Chechen War of 1994-1996. The Russian military lost that round, but came back for the Second Chechen War in 1999, officially declaring victory in that fight in April 2009. Russian military successes in the Second Chechen War in part arose from a shift in tactics by the Russian army and its intelligence branch, the GRU. The tactical shift involved offering a choice to the Chechen militant leadership: either become incorporated into the Kremlin security apparatus or face assassination by Russian special operations forces. This fractured the Chechen militant movement, pitting various factions against one another. It ultimately led to a brutal crackdown by Chechens who fell in line with the Kremlin against Chechens who remained committed to the radical Islamist cause. 
 
 The Russian strategy brought the Chechen nationalist (and now also pro-Kremlin) Kadyrov to power as president of Chechnya. Kadyrov has maintained a semblance of stability in Chechnya since the end of the war only via the iron fist of his 40,000-strong militias. The larger insurgency in the southern Russian Caucasus has not ceased, with the republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan having flared up, essentially taking Chechnya's place as the Kremlin's focus. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev flew to the region June 9, where he stated that there was still much "work to be done to bring about order and destroy the terrorist rabble." With Kadyrov by his side, Medvedev's language mirrored Vladimir Putin's famous statement before the massive crackdown in Chechnya that Russia would "hunt down the militants even if they were in the outhouses." 
 
 Such attention from Moscow would not have gone unnoticed by the insurgent groups in Ingushetia and Dagestan, especially the former, which had a leadership change in November when the Kremlin put long-time military intelligence officer Yevkurov, into power, and rumors spread that a larger military crackdown in the republic would take place in late summer in 2009. The short of it is that Russia cannot afford to trade one volatile Caucasus republic for another. It has prided itself over the past four years for reining in the insurgencies in Chechnya, freeing it up from concentrating on its own internal issues to being able to concentrate on its larger plan of extending Russian influence outside its borders — especially in its own former Soviet states and buffer region. The Kremlin can handle a small degree of instability in the Caucasus — for the republics will never be peaceful in the normal sense of the word — but Moscow wants to prevent the kind of escalation it saw during the Chechen wars. 
 Keeping Ingushetia from spiraling out of control is therefore critical to the Kremlin. Upon Kadyrov's behest and enthusiastic urging, Moscow has been toying with the idea of extending his iron fist from Chechnya across the Northern Caucasus republics. But two major issues stand in the way of this plan. First, though the Ingush are ethnically identical to Chechens in the Russian mind due to their linguistic, cultural and religious similarities, there is a large faction inside Ingushetia delighted with the 1992 break-up of the Chechen-Ingush Republic; and Ingushetia maintains a large and formidable opposition to any Chechen involvement, whether political or security, in Ingush affairs. 

 Having Aushev serve as acting president of Ingushetia would counter Chechen influence in Ingushetia, as he (unlike Yevkurov) does not get along with Kadyrov. Aushev also faces a formidable opposition in Ingushetia that holds him responsible for allowing groups in the republic to morph in to the militancy seen today — groups that would most likely support greater involvement by Kadyrov. 
 
 There is much concern in Moscow that fractures within Ingushetia could lead to an outbreak of violence much greater than the present anti-Russian militancy, potentially evolving into an all-out Ingush civil war that could bleed over into Chechnya or even Dagestan, North Ossetia and/or Kabardino-Balkaria. Tensions are high in this region; in the past, a small spark has been all that is needed to spark a much larger Pan-Caucasus conflagration. But Kremlin circles also have fretted since at least as far back as 2005 over just how much power Kadyrov — and his political backers in Moscow — should be allowed. The Chechen leader has been highly successful and faithful to Moscow in dialing back the violence, though his success is mainly due to the backing and resources of Putin's right-hand man, Vladislaj Surkov. Surkov masterminded the fracturing of the Chechen insurgency, and is widely considered Kadyrov's handler. Surkov also leads one of the two main Kremlin power clans under Putin, and has powerful enemies in Moscow.
 His rival clan leader, Igor Sechin, has led a movement since 2006 to break Surkov's power over Kadyrov, saying that it was unwise to create such a solitary and authoritative leader in Chechnya — especially one who wields his own large and well-trained forces. Sechin and his group believe that one day Kadyrov will turn on his master, reverting to his anti-Russian nationalist ways and creating an even more dangerous secessionist issue in the Caucasus. Sechin's faction strongly opposes giving Kadyrov any more territory that he could unite into a possible anti-Kremlin front. In fact, it was predecessors of Sechin's clan who originally hived Ingushetia off from Chechnya in 1992 specifically to prevent Chechnya from becoming too problematic. 
 Still, Surkov's clan stands firm behind its decisions, arguing that Kadyrov knows the repercussions of crossing either Surkov, Putin or the Kremlin. Surkov has made it worth Kadyrov's while to remain faithful to Russian authority, and it is unlikely that Kadyrov would want to risk such a betrayal. But with Ingushetia on the verge of escalating violence and possibly even civil conflict, the question remains whether the Kremlin has the luxury of choosing not to use Kadyrov's vast resources in the region to prevent a larger militant problem — something many in Moscow see as more dangerous than an Ingush civil war.