“The acting president of South Ossetia Kambolov has no real competitors; his inauguration is virtually a foregone conclusion,” political scientist

The acting president of the self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia, Marat Kambolov, who took this post just a few days ago after his predecessor Alan Gagloev joined the Russian presidential administration as an adviser to Vladimir Putin, began his work with several public appearances. In particular, he inspected the Nizhny Zaramag checkpoint on the border with North Ossetia (officially part of Russia), criticized the work of customs officers and demanded that the border crossing process be accelerated. The next day, he met at the government building of the republic with road workers who had not been paid their salaries for nine months.

“I instructed the responsible departments to immediately understand the situation, establish the causes of the debt and present specific solutions for its repayment. I’m taking the situation under personal control,” Kambolov wrote in his Telegram channel.

Kambolov became the first native of Russia to head the unrecognized republic - he was born in North Ossetia, studied at the Academy of National Economy of the Russian Federation, and worked at the Federal Agency for Science and Innovation. In 2010, he became Deputy Minister of Education of Russia Dmitry Livanov, but in 2016 he left his position and went to work at the Kurchatov Institute, where he first served as deputy director and then director. At the beginning of June this year, he was appointed head of the government of South Ossetia. In fact, he will have to lead the republic at least until early presidential elections.

Nicholas Castillo, an employee of the Caspian Political Center in Washington, in a conversation with The Insider, said that the appointment of a former Russian official to the post of head of the republic is a logical continuation of Russian policy towards South Ossetia:

“At the moment there is no one in South Ossetia who could (or would want) to challenge Kambolov. Unless another Russian is sent there, he will become the key figure at the local level. For Russia, the formalization of control over South Ossetia fits well into the overall expansionist vector of Russian foreign policy, which has intensified significantly after 2022. In recent years, the Kremlin has made a concerted effort to establish tighter economic and political control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, so this is certainly a sustainable trend.”

The head of the regional office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in the South Caucasus, Marcel Retig, told The Insider that the appointment of Kambolov to the post of acting head of the republic in the absence of competition is a sign of the Kremlin’s distrust of local elites.

“Moscow’s direct control over the institution of presidency in Tskhinvali through the appointment of Russian official Marat Kambolov is an unprecedented step. He points out that the Kremlin is preparing fundamental decisions that it is simply not ready to entrust to local elites. The recent “agreement on deepening alliance” legally opened the way for Russian officials to take power in the region, effectively eliminating the residency requirement. Since there are currently no political figures in Tskhinvali capable or ready to oppose the Kremlin appointee, his inauguration is a matter of time.

In the context of a protracted war against Ukraine and tough international sanctions, the role of South Ossetia for the Kremlin has changed radically. Firstly, Moscow can no longer and does not want to allow itself to spend its budgets inefficiently. And secondly, in a situation where Russia is losing influence in the South Caucasus (Armenia and Azerbaijan), keeping Georgia in its orbit of influence becomes especially important for Putin. And Southern Abkhazia is a convenient bargaining chip for “political poker” with Tbilisi.”

Retig recalled that Gagloev’s resignation was preceded by a major scandal involving the embezzlement of soft loans from Russian banks. In particular, the leader of the Unity of the People party, ex-deputy of parliament Vladimir Kelekhsaev accused Gagloev of the fact that the republic under his leadership received another tranche from Russia in the amount of 4 billion rubles, “but the current government, led by Gagloev, built only three objects with these funds: a cannery, a stone-processing shop and a lumber mill.”

As Radio Liberty wrote last year, during the previous stage of the investment program (2022–2025), the rules for obtaining preferential loans for the development of their business were formulated in such a way that local entrepreneurs actually could not access them: everything went to the leaders of the republic and their front companies. As a result, over three years the standard of living in the republic has fallen, prices have risen, unemployment and population outflow have increased.

The federal law on the ratification of the treaty on strengthening allied cooperation between Russia and South Ossetia was signed in May 2026. In addition to the right of citizens of each party to the agreement to work in the authorities of another country and the offset of the periods of permanent residence required for this, it implies:

• establishing uniform requirements for entrepreneurs,
• unification of labor, tax and social legislation,
• creation of a single economic space,
• unification of the energy and transport systems, etc.