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Why did more than 15,000 people from the former Soviet bloc join ISIS - nearly a third of the group's foreign fighters?
In Goodbye, ISIS: What Remains is Future, award-winning journalist Katerina Sergatskova investigates one of the most underexplored chapters of global terrorism. Drawing on years of reporting across Georgia, Turkey, Iraq, and Ukraine, she traces the personal stories of ISIS recruits, their families, and even those falsely accused of affiliation.
Through vivid interviews and groundbreaking reporting, Sergatskova reveals how post-Soviet fighters shaped ISIS, how the movement spread into the Caucasus, and why Ukraine has become an unexpected landing place for some of its veterans. Alongside this narrative, she connects today’s extremist networks to earlier figures like Dzhokhar Dudayev and Shamil Basayev, showing how past conflicts laid the groundwork for ISIS’s reach.
Both deeply human and geopolitically urgent, Goodbye, ISIS challenges assumptions about terrorism, migration, and security in the post-Soviet world — and why understanding it matters for global stability.
“With first-hand reporting of gripping personal stories, this book traces exactly how the Russian wars in Chechnya steadily fueled the rise of ISIS. Overwhelming military force did not end terrorism. Generational rage, suffering, and dislocation fueled its global spread to Syria, Iraq, and beyond. Highly recommended.”
—Audrey Kurth Cronin, Award-winning author of How Terrorism Ends
“Beneath the headlines of terrorism are the stories of ordinary people, often coerced, conned or co-opted into militant ranks. In this work of fearless reporting and empathic engagement, Katerina Sergatskova explores how men from post-Soviet Eurasia helped shape ISIS, and dragged so many women into a world of fear and violence in the process.”
—Professor Mark Galeotti, University College London
"A fascinating book filled with untold stories of ISIS recruitment in post-Soviet territories."
—Thomas Hegghammer, Senior Research Fellow in Politics, All Souls College, Oxford
Katerina Sergatskova is an award-winning journalist, author, entrepreneur, and security trainer specializing in high-risk environments. She extensively reported on the war in Ukraine, Russian invasion, human rights violations in Eastern Europe, and war on the Islamic State in the Middle East.
Acknowledgements
Translator’s Note
What You Need to Know Before You Start Reading This Book
Chapter One: Happily Ever After
Chapter Two: Hassan
Chapter Three: Khava
Chapter Four: Hell’s Main Guy
Chapter Five: Chechnya without Chechens
Chapter Six: Rosetta
Chapter Seven: Zona
Chapter Eight: The Basement
Chapter Nine: The Elusive Refugee
Chapter Ten: Lopota
Chapter Eleven: The Silk Road
Chapter Twelve: The Guide
Chapter Thirteen: Usama
Chapter Fourteen: Son
Chapter Fifteen: Caliphate
Chapter Sixteen: Do Not Try to Leave the Islamic State
Chapter Seventeen: You Can’t Hide the Truth
Chapter Eighteen: Mosul
Chapter Nineteen: Escape
Chapter Twenty: Disagreements
Chapter Twenty-One: Connection Lost
Chapter Twenty-Two: Special Operation in Tbilisi
Chapter Twenty-Three: Rosfinmonitoring
Chapter Twenty-Four: Jihad Queue
Chapter Twenty-Five: Explosion
Chapter Twenty-Six: Arrest
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Khadija
Epilogue: What Remains Is Future