Publication

This publication looks at the spread of radical Islam in Russia's Ural region since the 1990s. The authors' observations include 1) that Islam is expanding across Russia, particularly in the Ural Federal District, whose hydrocarbon-rich areas provide more than one-third of Russia’s federal budget revenues; 2) that the ethnic composition of the Ural region is changing as a result of an influx of migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus, occasionally causing tensions between migrants and locals; 3) that most migrants in the Urals are Muslims, and some belong to radical Islamist organizations; and 4) that some Muslims from the Urals have participated in terrorist acts in Central Asia or have gone to fight for the Islamic State. The authors also discuss the policies Russia can adopt to address the rise of radical Islam in its Ural region.