How Kadyrov became so powerful, and why Chechnya remains vital for sur

Details: Written by: Oleg Sukhov; 13.Dec; Hits: 17

In December 1994, Russian troops launched a brutal and eventually unsuccessful military campaign against Chechen rebels, effectively beginning the First Chechen War.Thirty years later and two wars since, Chechnya, under strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, has become a key pillar of Russian President Vladimir Putin's oppressive regime.After losing the first and winning the second Chechen War, Russia has consolidated its hold over the region, home to 1.5 million people, with the help of Kadyrov's father, Akhmat, and loyalist forces under his command.The now pro-Kremlin Chechen Republic has become a state within a state, exporting brutality and silencing critics of both Kadyrov's and Putin's regimes.The Kadyrov family has been able to successfully muster a private army of what local authorities claim to be 70,000 Chechen fighters loyal to the warlord.

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Chechen militants and police officers have been abducting, torturing, and murdering activists, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those suspected of disloyalty to the regime.In exchange for maintaining peace in Chechnya, Kadyrov has been given free rein far beyond the borders of his tiny republic, reportedly carrying out extrajudicial killings in Grozny, Moscow, and Berlin."The trauma of (the Chechen War) in the early 2000s still looms over the Kremlin like a specter," Vadim Dubnov, a Caucasus expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Kyiv Independent. "The last thing Moscow needs now is instability in the North Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya."Harold Chambers, a North Caucasus expert at the Jamestown Foundation, agreed, saying that "Putin needs Kadyrov to maintain the status quo in Chechnya.

Content Original Link:

https://kyivindependent.com/30-years-since-start-of-first-chechen-war-kadyrovs-chechnya-remains-one-of-most-brutal-places-on-earth/

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