Is Kadyrov Too Powerful to Fire or is the Kremlin Preparing His Ouster?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 13 – Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s increasingly threatening comments about his critics whose numbers have increased in the wake of his forays in Ingushetia and Daghestan have reignited the debate about his future, with some continuing to insist Moscow has no choice but to keep him while others say it is giving him enough rope to hang himself.

            Chechen commentator Islam Saydayev is among those who think that the Kremlin has no choice but to stick with Kadyrov because there is no obvious or “worthy” replacement for the Chechen strongman. Thus suggestions by the Nezygar telegram channel and others that he is on the way out are simply wrong (kavkazgeoclub.ru/content/dostoynoy-zameny-ramzanu-kadyrovu-net).

            Saydayev, long viewed as an apologist for the Kadyrov regime, says that he isn’t being one when he insists that Kadyrov is irreplaceable unless someone like the Imam Shamil could reappear, a figure who like Kadyrov, was able to end the fight between the Caucasus and the rest of Russia, united both, and showed hos the country has to move forward.

            “These two outstanding personalities, two politicians and statesmen of the past and the present time were able to change the consciousness of Russian society and of the Muslims of the Caucasus, bringing them together as much as is possible after long and bloody wars” between them, the Chechen commentator says.

            A Chechen living in Israel recently told him, Saydayev recounts, that “’the Chechens had killed the war’” between Russians and the North Caucasus. “I would say,” that it wasn’t the Chechens who killed the war but ‘Ramzan Akhmatovich’” who did so, just as the Imam Shamil did 150 years ago.

            “After the end of resistance by the Imam Shamil, no one considered resistance against Russia to be possible,” Saydayev says. “For a certain time after the Imam Shamil, his naib in Circassia Mohamad-Emin headed the resistance but then he surrendered, having declared ‘What kind of a holy war can there be if the Imam Shamil is not with us?’”  

            Kadyrov has done much the same and has thus “ceased to be simply a statesman but has been transformed into an influential personality and phenomenon which will long be studied by domestic and foreign historians, political scientists and Caucasus specialists who attempt to understand” what he has done.

            “The authority and respect which exists toward Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov among the majority of Muslims of Russia, the leaders of the Muslim world, and the Russian power elite more than once has been confirmed” in various venues and by various leaders, the Chechen commentator continues.

            According to Saydayev, Kadyrov has “shown us the way for the future development of Russia, how one can effectively and in a new way rule the country without being a slave to instructions and guidance but rather be a real master and leader of the region.” Such an individual can’t be measured by an ordinary yardstick.

            But two other reports suggest that this may be a misreading of the situation. On the one hand, Moscow outlets are reporting that tensions between Kadyrov and the North Caucasus Ministry are rising and that Kadyrov is seeking to gain control of it. That could prove a poison chalice if he succeeds because he could lose his current post as a result, some suggest (capost.media/special/obzory/kadyrov_okapyvaetsya_v_minkavkaza/).

            And on the other, according to an even more conspiratorial reading of what is happening, one Ingush commentator is suggesting that Putin is encouraging Kadyrov to get involved in conflicts with neighboring republics, leaving the Chechen leader without the allies and support he had amassed earlier and making it easier to oust him (zamanho.com/?p=9136).