The latest killings illustrating Russia’s difficulty with security along its southern flank were in the early hours of Friday — seven women in Dagestan, where a newspaper editor lost his life on Tuesday.
Islamist rebels shot the women at around the same time as separatists killed four policemen at a nearby checkpoint. Eight policemen were killed in the northern Caucasus on Thursday.
In Chechnya two human rights activists were shot dead this week — and one in July. Ingushetia’s construction minister was murdered in his office also this week.