The multitude of tribes and nations that inhabit the northern Caucasus mountains are famous for their martial skill, fiery tempers and long-held, burning desire for independence from imperial masters – Russian, Turkish and Georgian, to name a few over the past centuries.

With the Kremlin’s decision on Tuesday to recognise the breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which struggled for years for independence from Georgia, many are asking whether Russia risks a “domino” effect in its own barely controlled and largely autonomous north Caucasus border regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia and Kabardino Balkariya. The same logic Russia used to recognise the independence of the formerly Georgian enclaves could now apply to them.