ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the new discourse on modernizing the North Caucasus outlined by Medvedev, before examining the policy of the Kadyrov regime and the role of the North Caucasus in Russian foreign policy during this period. It examines how the return of Putin to the presidency in 2012 impacted policy on the North Caucasus, considering the symbolic significance of the 2014 Sochi Olympics and the various intersections between the North Caucasus and foreign policy since 2012. From 2009 onwards, in line with the decree marking the official end of federal counterterrorist operations, the main securitizing actor in Chechnya became the Kadyrov regime. The return of Putin to the presidency in 2012 resulted in few changes within federal policy towards Chechnya and the North Caucasus. According to the policy trajectory set out by the Putin regime in the early 2000s, the desecuritization and normalization of Chechnya, and the North Caucasus, should have been completed by 2010.
