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Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov had a presidential conversation
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked yesterday how things were going in Chechnya, which can be considered the main Caucasian conquest of the times of his first and second presidency. He received the head of this republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, in Moscow. “How are things in the republic?” asked the Prime Minister. “Thanks to you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, we have peace and stability today,” responded the President of Chechnya.In official Chechnya, it has long been no longer customary to associate the name of Vladimir Putin with the victims and destruction of the beginning of the second Chechen campaign, when he himself used to fly into the republic on a jet fighter. Vladimir Putin is associated exclusively with post-war reconstruction and friendship with Ramzan Kadyrov - the two of them and Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov, who died in 2004, the father of the current Chechen president, form something of a holy trinity.
It is quite natural that Grozny became worried when Vladimir Putin changed his residence in the Kremlin to the White House on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment - Ramzan Kadyrov remained the only current president within this ideological trinity. Vremya Novostey's Chechen sources testified that Mr. Kadyrov was noticeably nervous about the comparative coldness he received from Dmitry Medvedev compared to Mr. Putin, and tried to seek audiences with the new head of state as often as possible. To allay concerns, the leaders of the new presidential administration, Sergei Naryshkin and Vladislav Surkov, visited Grozny in July. And yesterday, Vladimir Putin himself received his North Caucasian protégé, like in the good old days, which could not but instill optimism in Mr. Kadyrov. Against the background of events around South Ossetia, which took a relatively peaceful turn yesterday , the Russian Prime Minister was also probably pleased to hear a word of praise addressed to him.
Vladimir Putin busily asked whether Chechnya’s relations with the Russian Ministry of Finance had been settled, which, according to the July decree of the federal government, was to open financing for the republic’s development program for 2008-2011, its total volume exceeding 120 billion rubles. Mr. Kadyrov assured that everything was fine and thanked him politely. “Today we have no complaints or wishes, we have nothing to ask the leadership of the Russian Federation - you have done everything,” the Chechen leader somehow summed up farewell and added immediately, softening the impression: “We are fulfilling the main tasks: ensuring jobs, solving social issues. Safety is number ten in our plan. In the republic everything is going as we agreed, as you set us the task. We are trying to fulfill your instructions."
Ramzan Kadyrov was happy yesterday not only because of the long-awaited meeting with his main Moscow patron: the first Russian “gold” at the Beijing Olympics was won by two athletes from the Greco-Roman wrestling team - Ingush Nazir Mankiev and Chechen Islam-Beka Albiev. The wrestler Albiev, who began his Greco-Roman career in Ingushetia, where his family fled Russian bombing in 2000, was promised a six-figure reward in U.S. dollars in Grozny because the athlete, according to Mr. Kadyrov, had done there are more than “thousands of diplomats” to prove peace and stability in Chechnya.
In a conversation with journalists, Mr. Kadyrov fancifully developed the Olympic theme: “I watched on TV a fragment of how the commander-in-chief of Georgia, having heard the sound of an airplane, ran away and left everyone. It was difficult to catch up with him! He should have been sent to the Olympics to take part in the races, he is a very good sprinter.” The President of Chechnya was referring to a story about the visit of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to the Georgian city of Gori, which was subjected to Russian bombing. “We know how to fight, we won’t allow jokes with Russia,” the Chechen president continued. According to him, the republic has trained 10 thousand fighters, “who know how to protect the people”: “We ask the leadership of the Russian Federation to have more participants (in the already officially suspended military operations on the territory of Georgia at that time. - Ed. ) Chechens."
Ramzan Kadyrov said that he talked with Chechens located in the conflict zone. For several months now, the Russian peacekeeping battalion in South Ossetia has included dozens of fighters from the special battalion “Vostok” of the 42nd division of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the conflict with which the Chechen president has become perhaps the main Chechen news of this spring. “The chaos that the Georgian side committed does not fit in their heads,” the President of Chechnya shared his emotional impression of the conversation. If the fighters of “Vostok”, which the Ministry of Defense and after the recertification carried out there on the initiative of Mr. Kadyrov consider one of the most reliable and effective units staffed by ethnic Chechens, found a place in the peacekeeping forces, then the joy of the military from arriving in the conflict zone 10 It’s hard to imagine a thousand-strong Chechen corps from Ramzan Kadyrov. They already seem to have enough problems coordinating the actions of Russian units themselves with units of the armies of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.