For years, we have heard rumors that Ramzan Kadyrov, dictator of Chechnya, is mortally ill. Unlike the lurid tales about Vladimir Putin, these rumors appear to be true, and the Kremlin is bracing itself for a potential succession crisis at the very worst time. This week, one of the official news agencies even quietly updated their canned obituary of him, just in case. This means Putin may soon face a fearsome dilemma: risk losing Chechnya or lose what momentum he has in Ukraine?
Daudov won Ramzan’s favor by literally bringing him the head of rebel Suleyman Elmurzayev, who had claimed responsibility for the murder of his father
Kadyrov has had his iron first around the throat of Chechnya since 2007, and he and his Benoi teip (clan) have not only wiped out most potential opposition but also perfected the art of cloaking protection racketeering in the guise of ultra-loyalism. Ramzan loudly and frequently proclaims his allegiance to Putin, even while turning Chechnya into a vicious Islamist dictatorship, funded by huge subsidies from Moscow. While that money has helped rebuild the flattened city of Grozny, it has also gone to paying off the fractious Chechen elite and fulfilling every whim for Kadyrov and his family – from vanity projects like the huge mosque he built in his father’s name, or Ramzan’s private zoo and stable of supercars, including one of only 20 Lamborghini Reventóns in the world, a snip at just over a million pounds.
In contradiction to the Russian constitution, he has introduced Sharia law, and Chechen police regularly kidnap not just dissidents from elsewhere in the country, but even runaway brides fleeing forced, arranged marriages. Every time the Russians look as if they are contemplating cutting back on the federal subsidies that make up more than 90 percent of the Chechen budget, Ramzan warns them off, typically musing that it might be time for him to retire.
This is his trump card, as Moscow has convinced itself that he is the only man able to keep the Chechens under control, and avert the risk of a third war. So Putin folds, the money keeps flowing, and Chechnya remains the Kadyrovs’ personal satrapy.
Now, though, it looks as if change is inevitable. Kadyrov was reportedly urgently hospitalized at the end of December, suffering from kidney failure. The word in Moscow is that he may have only weeks or a few months left. He is only 49, but in the proof of life video footage that has been aired of him attending the opening of an Islamic school, he hobbles with the help of a stick, but does not speak.
Kadyrov clearly wants thy dynasty to continue. However, his eldest son Akhmat is only 19, and while considered the intellectual of the brood (as in, he did at least complete school), he is uncharismatic and even his father doesn’t seem to consider him a worthy successor.
Son number two, Zelimkhan, is considered a wild child even by the violent and unruly standards of the family, and is in virtual exile in the UAE. That leaves Ramzan’s favorite, Adam, aspired 18-year-old thug, whose main claim to fame is beating up a dissident accuses of burning a Koran while he was in a prison cell, after which his father awarded him not one but six medals. Although there seems to have been a press blackout about it, Adam is also reportedly recuperating from a car crash.
None of these are acceptable for Moscow, although it may settle on the fiction of a 12-year regency reasoning that over time it can be made more than that. Even so, it is agonizing over the lack of a safe candidate.
There is the representative for Chechnya in Moscow’s parliament, Adam Delimkhanov. Known as the “man with the golden gun” when a gilded automatic, awarded him by Kadyrov, fell out of his pocket during a brawl in parliament, his role as Grozny’s de facto intermediary with not just Moscow but the wider Chechen business and criminal diaspora means he has considerable political and economic heft. He is also a Benoi.
More powerful inside the country as Ramzan’s strong right hand is Magomed Daudov, speaker of the Chechen assembly. Known as “Lord” because Ramzan was once so struck by his expensive tailoring that he thought he “looks like an English lord,” Daudov certainly has authority within the Chechen elite, but is much less well regarded by the wider Kadyrov family. Given that Ramzan has appointed at least 95 of them to powerful government or government-linked positions, this matters.
Of course, Moscow would ideally like to impose a suitably house-trained Chechen, like Major General Apti Alaudinov, head of the Chechen Akhmat special forces, or former Chechen prime minister Ruslan Edelgeriyev, now Putin’s special presidential representative on climate issues. However, this kind of candidate is regarded with suspicion inside the country itself.
Had this issue arisen before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow might have been tempted to take a risk in the name of reining in this troublesome region and cutting back on those subsidies. However, now it is primarily terrified of triggering more unrest. Chechen politics are not for the faint-hearted, after all. The Kadyrovs’ rise was facilitated by the murders of the leaders of the rival Yamadaev clan. One of them was killed in Dubai, and originally Delimkhanov was accused of masterminding it by the local police – an allegation he continues to deny. As for Daudov, he won Ramzan’s favor by literally bringing him the head of rebel Suleyman Elmurzayev, who had claimed responsibility for the murder of his father.
With the overwhelming majority of the army committed to Ukraine, and the Rosgvardiya internal security force unlikely to be up to the task of suppressing any renewed insurrection – especially as over 10,000 Rosgvardiya soldiers in Chechnya also swear personal oaths to Kadyrov – then chaos in Chechnya would not only destabilize the whole North Caucasus, but pose a difficult strategic dilemma. Would Putin be willing to divert forces from Ukraine, potentially allowing Kyiv scope to retake lost territory, to subdue Chechnya?
Most Russians would likely welcome losing a region that costs them money and which they associate with gangsters and jihadists. Putin, one eye always on his historical legacy, might be unwilling to allow territories to shake off Moscow’s rule. As and when Kadyrov goes, some kind of cynical political deal is probably going to be cooked up that keeps the Benoi in power, bought off by promises of continued indulgence and funding, all in the name of stability. However, as one Russian nationalist thinktanker grumbled to me, “some imperial possessions really aren’t worth the bother.”
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