President Putin has just signed a decree authorising the transportation of terrorists (read: people from Chechnya and the surrounding regions) to Siberia.
[U]nder jurisdiction of the edict are people who are sentenced for "terror, diversion, rebellion, assault of state bodies, participation in illegal armed formations, hostage taking, and human trafficking." RTR [a Russian TV station] commented that "prisoners accused (or convicted) of terrorism and their accomplices should be separated by thousands of kilometers."
Presumably this decree is meant to reduce the chance that any terrorists/rebels from Chechnya will be able to collaborate with local prison guards sympathetic to their cause, but more likely this decision will act like a red rag to a bull among Chechens. It’s not just the historic allusions to Siberian gulags which spring to mind, but Stalin’s mass deportation of a million or more Chechens during the Second World War. Chechen rebels are going to have a field day telling their own people and the world at large that Putin is ethnically cleansing Chechnya of its people, and sending them off to a murderous, wintry exile.
Hat tip: A Step at a Time
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