Vladimir Putin’s blood brother Ramzan Kadyrov is a curse on Russia
After the debacle of the Crimean War in 1856, Europe understood that Russia had lost its position as the leading military power of the continent. Russia had to adapt, to reform its judicial system, to abolish serfdom, to broaden government, to converge in some way with western Europe. There are still some in the West who count on a similar ripple effect when, and if, Russia’s overblown military reputation comes a cropper in Ukraine.
That may be misplaced optimism. Vladimir Putin’s war is being fought in a way that excludes any liberalising outcome. Win or lose, Russia is already condemned to a decade of retrenchment, of ultra-nationalist power play and political subordination to China. It will be a more violent society, more frustrated, more angry about its evident decline.
Perhaps the surest indicator of the Russian dilemma comes in the strange relationship between Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov who is sometimes described as the second most powerful man in Russia. Powerful in that the Chechen leader can publicly call for more brutality without being slapped down by the Kremlin and in his ability to make himself indispensable to the security of the Putin regime. Powerful too in that he claims to speak for the 25 million Muslim population in the Russian Federation. His repression of Islamists coupled with an ostentatious display of personal faith builds his case for being the protector of Russia’s soft underbelly.
The Kadyrov case is that his extravagant displays of fidelity to Putin reduce the possible threat from militant resistance from the south; his personal loyalty stands in for the loyalty of a community which is the fastest growing segment of a society in the demographic doldrums. The result is that Kadyrov and Putin together form a variant of the Evil Twins movie theme. Vladimir, the short, pale one, always careful about getting blood on his hands, the master of conspiracy; and burly, sentimental Ramzan, whose henchmen murder not only Chechen critics but anyone who crosses Putin.
It was Chechen killers who gunned down the journalist Anna Politkovskaya as a birthday present for Putin in 2006, a year before Kadyrov was handed the Chechen presidency but already he was well embedded with the Putin establishment. Chechens were involved in shooting the Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov in 2015 on a bridge close to the Kremlin. The effect was of a cat catching a mouse and laying its body in front of its master’s house, a trophy gift, a plea for approval. The two men are in a broad sense blood relatives. Putin gives the nod to his agencies to act against opponents such as Alexander Litvinenko and counts on the action being deniable. Kadyrov’s killers don’t cover their tracks because their whole point is to demonstrate gangland authority. By acting in this way, Kadyrov and Putin have built an extraordinary layer of savagery into the system, and into war fighting.
There was barely a flicker of surprise this week when a mercenary group with links to the Kremlin started to hire directly from prisons to bolster its contingent in Ukraine. An illegal war is being fought with the help of convicts; that’s the ultimate logic of combining ruthless realpolitik with the mobster-politik of the Kadyrov team. In Kadyrov’s world people get disappeared (he even has a private jail in his home town, the ultimate strongman accessory); in Putin’s ideal world it is nation states that get disappeared.
Putin entered the war business in the Second Chechen War in 1999 and immediately started to use criminal slang: “We will hunt the terrorists everywhere … pardon my language, if we catch them in the toilet, we’ll wipe them out in the toilet, if that’s what it takes.” Russian generals had often been earthy but this was a newly minted leader addressing the people.
A former rebel, Akhmad Kadyrov – Ramzan’s dad – was appointed by Putin as the interim head of the Chechen government in 2000. Akhmad had been a separatist rebel leader but had been persuaded to cross to Putin’s side. He was duly blown up during a Victory Day parade and Ramzan became his successor, ready to perform in a pantomime of subservience. Putin agreed to large federal subsidies for the reconstruction of Grozny and Ramzan seems to have taken a slice.
Chechnya remains poor but Kadyrov has grown richer, boasting a huge palace, a fleet of classic cars, lucrative contracts for associates, big parties (he handed over five kilos of gold to one lucky bridegroom in Dagestan). The price was that Chechens had to make their own special skills available to Putin as the military campaigns grew: there were Chechen units in the short war against Georgia, in the first Ukraine war, in Syria and now, again, in Ukraine.
Their function appears mainly to frighten rather than to fight. Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol were reported to be dipping bullets in pork fat so that Chechen Muslims would be humiliated before they died. In fact Chechen soldiers arrived late, in lightly armoured vehicles, and spent most of their time taking selfies. Kadyrov, never happier than when on social media, told his followers that he was on the Ukraine front line. Ukraine signals intelligence positioned him safely in Grozny.
Nonetheless, he had made his point: when Putin needs a display of solidarity, Kadyrov is ready to put in a performance as a fearless fighter. As long as this bond lasts there can be no real hope of dealing with a post-war Putin regime, even one chastened by defeat on the battlefield. There is no road back to respectability except through the ousting of these blood-soaked brothers-in-arms.
The Times
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