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full screen Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov during a visit to Saudi Arabia together with Vladimir Putin in December. Photo: Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/Kremlin Via AP/TT
Chechnya’s hardline leader Ramzan Kadyrov is said to be seriously ill with pancreatitis.
Now the Kremlin is planning for regime change in the Russian republic, Russian independent Novaya Gazeta claims. A hardline commander is mentioned as a possible successor.
Rumors of illness have been rampant for several years. Among other things, Russian Telegram accounts and Ukraine’s intelligence service reported last year that Ramzan Kadyrov, often called “Putin’s attack dog”, was said to be in a coma.
Now Novaya Gazeta Europe, which since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 mainly operates from Latvia, states that Kadyrov was already diagnosed with pancreatitis with acute tissue death in 2019. The disease is rare and can lead to death despite treatment, with complications such as sepsis and organ failure.
Never be the same
Last fall, Kadyrov is said to have been hospitalized with respiratory failure after an overdose of sleeping pills before an operation. According to Novaya Gazeta’s sources at the hospital in Moscow, he was allegedly put into an artificial coma – prompting the widespread rumours.
Kadyrov’s MRIs led to concern in his inner circle, the hospital source said.
– “The leader that we know will be gone; the disease will have a serious impact on him. Even if he recovers now, he will be neither alive nor dead,” a source close to Kadyrov’s ally family quoted Novaya Gazeta as saying.
Commander is mentioned
As Kadyrov’s illness worsened, Moscow is said to have stepped up a PR campaign to divert attention from the Chechen leader’s health.
But now the situation is so bad that the Kremlin has instead started looking for a successor, writes Novaya Gazeta. President Vladimir Putin’s regime is said to have begun sketching plans for a possible “forced regime change in Chechnya”.
One possible name is said to be Apti Alaudinov, hard-line commander of Kadyrov’s paramilitary Achmad Battalion fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
Rule with an iron fist
As recently as last week, Putin is said to have promoted Alaudinov to deputy head of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s military-political directorate, writes Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser at the Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine, on X.
The Moscow-loyal and brutal Ramzan Kadyrov has ruled the sub-republic of Chechnya with an iron fist since 2007. Among other things, Kadyrov has banned alcohol and ordered women to wear veils in public buildings. Not least, he has been accused of extensive and brutal persecution of homosexuals.
At the same time, he has strengthened the Kadyrov family’s grip on power, including by giving his children various top jobs.
THE FACTS Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Kadyrov was born in 1976 with roots in one of Chechnya’s oldest and most respected clans. Led a militia, the “Kadyrovites”, which consisted mostly of ex-rebels and became known for great brutality. Then switched sides and became friendly with the Kremlin.
In 2007, Moscow appointed Ramzan Kadyrov as leader of the sub-republic of Chechnya. Since then, he has relentlessly cracked down on all forms of dissent. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) describes Kadyrov’s rule as tyranny where the leader has total control over the flow of information.
People who try to protest are punished according to HRW with reprisals such as extrajudicial detention, disappearances, harsh treatment, death threats and threats against family members.
Members of Kadyrov’s inner circle have been linked to the murders of a number of Russian regime opponents, including opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Source: Foreign Policy Institute, Human Rights Watch, The Conversation.
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