The Ossetian-Ingush armed conflict of 1992 as covered by the Russian central press

The article examines the coverage of the Ossetian-Ingush armed conflict in the publications of the largest Russian mass media during the hostilities in the Prigorodny District in autumn 1992. The author analyzes the most typical reportages from the scene as well as the interviews with high-ranking military commanders and officials published in such central newspapers as Krasnaya Zvezda, Trud, Izvestiya, Kommersant, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Moskovskie Novosti, and some others. In addition to the media mentioned above, the author analyzes materials from the regional press, such as the Yaroslavl newspapers Severniy Krai and Zolotoe Kol'tso. These publications contained official documents and other valuable information relating to the growth of criminal activity in the North Caucasus in the early 1990s, the battles between the Ossetian and Ingush people in the Prigorodny District, the objectives of the federal troops’ peacekeeping operations, and information about the exploits of military personnel. The authors of the publications under analysis made it clear that it was the Russian security forces that prevented a real war in the Caucasus. The Ossetian or Ingush fighters who opposed the federal forces were presented in their coverage either as deceived people whose nationality was not even mentioned or as bandits. At the same time, the democratic media published articles describing ethnic cleansing of the Ingush population in the Prigorodny District during and after the hostilities. Publications in the left-wing media emphasized the illegality of the Ingush actions, and the sympathy of the authors was clearly on the side of the Ossetians. Sometimes the opposition press (the newspapers Sovetskaya Rossiya and Pravda) even drew parallels between the actions of the Ingush and the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. The author concludes that the Russian authorities and security services managed to terminate the conflict relatively quickly in 1992. However, the Ossetian-Ingush armed conflict of 1992 can still be seen as a precursor to the First Chechen war of 1994–96 during which the balance of power in the information field remained similar.