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By October 1992, the two sides were ready to clash. The Ingush centered 
their emphasis on two aspects: in the first place that the North Osetia had ignored 
the law on the rehabilitation of deported peoples by their restrictions on the 
registration of Ingush as permanent residents; by their bans on the buying and 
selling of houses; and by their imposition of repressive states of emergency in both 
Prigorodnyi and Malgobeksky rayons. They had also another new grievance: 
Osetian ignorance of the law on creation of an Ingush republic within the Russian 
Federation. 
The North Osetians had their own emphasis, in direct contrast to Ingush. 
They claimed that the Ingush had been stockpiling weapons in preparation for an 
armed confrontations; that their sovereign territory was not merely threatened from 
within by Ingush resettlers but likely to be attacked from without, i.e. from Ingush. 
As tensions rose between two communities, Osetians began to flee from 
Prigorodnyi to Vladikavkaz and Ingush to Ingushetia. The scene was thus set for 
tragedy. 
 
In October the clashes erupted. On 20 October 1992, a gas pipeline passing 
through the Prigorodnyi was blown up and an armoured personnel carrier of the 
Osetian militia crushed 12 year-old Ingush girl. During the same period, several 
Ingush were killed on the territory of North Osetia. On 23 October, crossfire 
between the Ingush and Osetian militia in the village of Yuzhnyi was the beginning 
of the intensive armed clashes. Then, a committee for directing the region, named 
as the Ingush Coordinating Council, formed in Prigorodnyi and decided to organize 
                                                                                                                                        
574
 Osipova, “North Osetia and Ingushetia,” 51-52. 

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self-defense units to patrol Ingush settlements on 24 October. Coordinating Council 
appealed to the Caucasian peoples and to the Confederation with a request for 
assistance in attaining the immediate return of Prigorodnyi rayon to Ingushetia.
575
 
The North Osetian leadership interpreted the creation of this body as an 
encroachment on the republic’s legitimate authority and the attempts at talks 
between the two sides quickly broke down and matters went from bad to worse. 
On 26 October 1992, the Russian Parliament’s leadership recommended a 
mixed Osetian-Ingush committee to work out a negotiated solution to the crisis, 
and Russian Supreme Soviet Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov sent a telegram to the 
North Osetian authorities asking them not to use force. Similar telegrams arrived in 
Vladikavkaz from all North Caucasian republics and the Confederation.
576
 
 
Talks between the Coordinating Council, representatives of the 
administration from Nazran and the leadership of North Osetia did not prevent the 
explosion. It was then that the conflict moved into its acute phase. After a mass 
meeting was staged in Nazran, which initiated a more or less spontaneous armed 
march on the Prigorodnyi, the Ingush subsequently took control of most of the 
Prigorodnyi, and marched on Vladikavkaz.
577
  
On 31 October 1992, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Georgi Khizha (at the 
same time he was the head of the inter-regional commission of the Russian 
Federation) with around 3,000 Russian special purpose troops went to Vladikavkaz 
                                                 
575
 “Ingush leader calls for direct presidential rule,” SWB, SU/1525 B/6, 30 October 1992. 
576
 “North Osetian Parliament Calls on Ingush to Remove Road Blocks,” SWB, SU/1527 B/1, 2 
November 1992. 
577
 Svante E. Cornell, “Conflicts in the North Caucasus,” Central Asian Survey, 17(3): 414-5. 

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in order to “restore law and order”.
578
 A state of emergency was introduced on the 
territories of the North Osetian Republic and Ingushetia and a decree was issued by 
President Yeltsin to enforce the actions of the troops on 2 November.
579
 More than 
that, with that decree Russian government set up a special interim administration 
for those districts and headquartered it in Vladikavkaz. Georgi Khizha was 
appointed head of this interim administration.
580
 The Russian “peace-forces” did 
not stop at controlling the Prigorodnyi. Within a few days, they moved into Ingush 
proper, and by 10 November they had reached the (still undemarcated) border 
between Chechnya and Ingushetia.
581
 
 
While the clashes between the component parts of the Confederation were 
on going, the Confederation has also been practicing a crucial transformation 
within itself. The Georgian aggression towards Abkhazia; Moscow’s move to 
investigate the Confederation; and the arrest of its president caused the major 
disturbances and demonstrations all around the Caucasus. 
Within this atmosphere, the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the 
Caucasus renamed itself as the Confederation of the Caucasian Peoples (CCP) 
                                                 
578
 “Russian Troops Attempt to Separate Warring Sides in North Osetia,” SWB SU/1527 B/2, 2 
November 1992. 
579
 “Yeltsin Imposes State of Emergency in crisis region,” SWB SU/1528 B/5, 3 November 1992. 
580
 The interim administration was created by the edict of the president of the Russian Federation of 
2
nd
 November 1992, No.1327. “On introduction of a state of emergency on the territory of the North 
Osetian SSR and the Ingush republic” on the basis of articles 15, 16,and 17 of the RSFSR law of 17 
May 1991, “on a State of Emergency”. For the “Text of Interim Administration Statute on North 
Osetia and Ingushetia,” see, SWB SU/1542 B/1-2, 19 November 1992. Osipova, ibid., p.52. The 
head of the Interim Administration had been changed several times: Sergei Shakrai (Nov.92), 
Alexander Kotenkov (end of 92), Yuri Shatalin (March 93), Viktor Polyanichko (1 July), and 
Vladimir Lozovoi. Then in 1995, this interim administration became the Interim Committee for the 
Elimination of the Consequences of the Oset-Ingush Conflict and in 1996 it was transformed into 
the office of the Presidential Representative. 
581
 Cornell, “Conflicts in the North Caucasus,” 415. 

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