Most English-speaking readers didn’t know about Ingushetia until this morning, when its president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov miraculously and barely survived a massive suicide bomb that nearly levelled a whole city block (lending added weight, if any were needed, to Russian officials’ traffic aversion).

The headline grabbing stunt, on the anniversary of a bloody 2004 raid on Russian forces, capped off months of political violence in the semi-autonomous republic that borders Chechnya.

All the signs - the suicide nature of the bomb, the symbolic date - point to the work of Islamic extremists operating out of Chechnya.

But as with most things in Russia, the obvious answer may not be what it seems.

For a start, Moscow had recently appointed Yevkurov, a brave and principled man, to replace a hated former hardline KGB general who had failed to pacify the republic.  But rather than crack down on ‘militants’ (read: any young males you can get your hands on), Yevkurov chose a different path.

He increased goodwill by actually relaxing the draconian and racist round-ups, or ‘chistkas’, while training his sights on corruption instead. This was very smart policy because greedy officials can do more damage than actual militants; from blowing up airplanes to besieging Beslan. And as Yulia Latynina writes, it was common knowledge that Ingush officials up to the highest levels were on the take.

Indeed, the Saudi paper Arab News compared the violence against Yevkurov to Colombian and Mexican drug gangs: “He has made strides in fighting corruption and tackling the economic mess he found and it is difficult not to believe that he did not make enemies in doing so…As in those two countries, there are people in Ingushetia who are not afraid to strike at the heart of the state to keep things as they are”.

Russia’s Audit Chamber chief Sergei Stepashin openly speculated that it was Yevkurov’s anti-corruption drive had prompted the attempt on his life.

Anywhere in Russia, fighting corruption is a potentially fatal undertaking: crusading officials and journalists are routinely targeted more for their whistleblowing than their politics. All things considered, with “a brain concussion, a ruptured liver, a torn lung, several broken ribs and a damaged knee”, Yevkurov got off lightly compared to Judge Aza Gazgireyeva, assassinated earlier this month in front of her kids. However, he remains fighting for his life at a top Moscow hospital, and it is not yet clear that he will make it.

How ironic that even in the Caucasus, what gets you nearly killed is not being a Kremlin appointed ‘Quisling’ at the heart of an Islamist insurgency, but daring to clean up your own local government.