| The struggle for real control over Chechnya continues Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov promised that he would kill Shamil Basayev. He published this promise in Moskovsky Komsomolets. Moreover, in his own article, and not in an interview. Until now, the son of the Chechen president who died last year has not resorted to such methods of communicating with the press, and in general has not been particularly talkative. But the events and publications in the media of recent weeks forced him to try his hand at a new business - information warfare. Moreover, Mr. Kadyrov has to play defensively: too many scandals arose around his person immediately after he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia last December.
Let us recall that in January, Ramzan Kadyrov, at the head of a large detachment of employees of the security service of the President of Chechnya subordinate to him, carried out a raid in Dagestan, where he actually captured the Khasavyurt regional department of internal affairs. At the police department there was the deputy prime minister’s sister, who had previously been detained on the territory of Dagestan while checking her documents. The main complaint of the police was that the guards accompanying her were armed, but did not have the appropriate travel certificates. Mr. Kadyrov actually repulsed his sister by force, and the President of Chechnya, Alu Alkhanov, then allowed himself to scold the Dagestani law enforcement officers for discriminating against Chechens on ethnic grounds. The investigation into the incident continues. Mr. Kadyrov himself believes that the incident of an actual attack on Russian law enforcement officers in the neighboring region has been settled.
Soon after this, human rights activists published information about the disappearance of eight relatives of Aslan Maskhadov. According to human rights activists, they were detained precisely by Ramzan Kadyrov’s subordinates: the latter did not hide this either at the time of detention or later, when employees of other law enforcement agencies tried to intercede on behalf of the detainees. In his current statement, Mr. Kadyrov claims that Maskhadov's relatives were kidnapped by militants. Meanwhile, one of Maskhadov’s eight relatives was found a few days ago in a temporary detention center in Nozhai-Yurt. In this regard, on February 16, Ramzan Kadyrov himself told Russian news agencies: “Where is the kidnapping? If a person detained on suspicion is in custody in compliance with all norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation? This fact, as expected, was recorded in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic.” The Republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs, however, does not yet know everything about Maskhadov's family - otherwise the prosecutor's office would not have problems investigating criminal cases opened on the disappearance of eight citizens.
These two episodes forced journalists to recall questions that arose to Ramzan Kadyrov in the past. For example, the question about the reasons for the death of Akhmat Kadyrov, for whose personal safety his son was responsible for his position. Some authors have even suggested that there is a conspiracy between Ramzan Kadyrov and Shamil Basayev to tear the republic away from Russia. This, apparently, was a kind of last straw: Ramzan Kadyrov threatened human rights activists and journalists with legal action and announced that Basayev was his blood enemy, whom he would kill while in the service of Russia or outside of this service.
Meanwhile, another scandal with likely long-term consequences is brewing in Chechnya. Moreover, against the backdrop of the termination of the truce declared by Aslan Maskhadov. Apparently, the moment is not far off when the republican security forces, which are essentially commanded by Deputy Prime Minister Kadyrov, will argue with the federal group about which of them is the main fighter against terrorism. The first signs of a scandal appeared this week. As the Vremya Novostei newspaper wrote, on Sunday in Kurchaloy, five local residents were killed while driving in a private Zhiguli car past a federal checkpoint. Two of those killed turned out to be members of the presidential security service, i.e. subordinates of Mr. Kadyrov. Episodes of the death of local residents in the modern history of Chechnya were, unfortunately, very numerous. But none of them caused such an immediate reaction from the republican authorities. On Monday, President Alu Alkhanov called a briefing and promised to take “tough and principled measures” if it is confirmed that the federal military was involved in the deaths of citizens.
So far, the prosecutor’s office only “does not rule out” that such involvement could be confirmed. But the feds are no longer hiding their irritation at the tone of Mr. Alkhanov's statement and the likely future investigation. Moreover, according to some information, the Kurchaloev episode was by no means a wanton shooting of a civilian car: there is a version that the military men who were at the post demanded that the passengers present documents, and they responded by holding machine guns. By the way, Kadyrov’s disobedience to representatives of the federal government has long become a very typical phenomenon. And even if the details of the Kurchaloev shooting are not confirmed, there is a brewing conflict between two forces, each of which considers itself to have the right to use weapons in order to protect law and order. The federal dissatisfaction with local “structures” of unclear composition and chain of command is becoming increasingly obvious.
The main dubious structure is precisely the security service of the President of the Republic. At the beginning of this year, Alu Alkhanov tried to refuse the services of this unit, which reports personally to Deputy Prime Minister Kadyrov. But the latter, it seems, has so far managed to maintain a monopoly on presidential security. SB units are based in dozens of Chechen villages and even have armored vehicles. Meanwhile, Advisor to the President of Russia Aslambek Aslakhanov reported this Tuesday that the Security Council has been abolished and only the so-called special regiment of the patrol service named after Akhmat Kadyrov remains. Ramzan Kadyrov also talks about the regiment. However, the regiment named after Akhmat Kadyrov, commanded by his “trusted” Vakhid Usmanov, officially numbers just over 1,000 people. Despite the fact that, according to the most conservative estimates, before the formation of this regiment, the security service included at least 3,000 fighters, mostly former militants. It should be taken into account that in addition to the Security Service, Mr. Kadyrov has about 15 thousand Chechen police officers under arms, whose leadership is controlled not so much by the federal ministry as by the vice-premier of the republic. According to the most pessimistic estimates of the former prime minister of Chechnya, now State Duma deputy Mikhail Babich, the total number of local formations today could reach 30 thousand people. This is twice the size of the “official” armed forces of Ichkeria under Maskhadov and is comparable to the size of the federal group located in Chechnya (about 80 thousand people). According to a number of experts, this ratio alone calls into question the completeness of federal control over the territory of Chechnya. Ivan SUKHOV |
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