“They are not sitting in their chairs”

What is behind Ramzan Kadyrov’s attack on representatives of federal law enforcement agencies

This week, Ramzan Kadyrov held a direct line dedicated to the results of 2024, which in a sense became revolutionary for the Chechen authorities. It was this year that very serious indicators appeared indicating that the Chechen authorities were losing their influence.

Thus, for the first time in all the years of Kadyrov’s rule, the Ministry of Finance finally ensured that the reduction in regional funding also affected the previously untouchable Chechen Republic in this sense. Next year, Chechnya will receive 6% less budget transfers, which is not only unusual for the Chechen authorities, but also very sensitive from the point of view of the huge image construction projects going on in Grozny at the height of the Northern Military District with federal money (the republic did not have its own, and No).

In addition, the case of the merger of Russia’s largest marketplace Wildberries with the Russ Outdoor company was indicative in terms of reducing Kadyrov’s influence. The Chechen authorities tried unsuccessfully to prevent this merger. Kadyrov’s personal authority was at stake, and violent clashes were used, in which Delimkhanov’s name was mentioned, and death threats that Kadyrov voiced against his competitors in the Wildberries case. What is significant and, probably, unprecedented is that none of the competitors were afraid of either Delimkhanov or Kadyrov, the merger of the marketplace was carried out at the federal level in record time, the criminal case opened in connection with the attack on the Wildberries office in the Romanov Dvor business center is actively is being investigated - and here the schemes familiar to Kadyrov also stopped working.

The head of Chechnya never managed to remove his people from criminal liability, primarily Delimkhanov’s personal security guard and at the same time an employee of the Russian Guard, Umar Chichaev,

According to investigators, he shot two people with his service weapon during an attack on the Wildberries office.

During the direct line, Kadyrov said nothing either about Moscow’s reduction in the financial flow for Chechnya, or about his disastrous participation in the Wildberries case. But he spoke about another case in which the enormous efforts of the Chechen side were also unsuccessful.

The case of 14-year-old Chechen Muslim Murdiev, accused of hooliganism committed by an organized group of persons by prior conspiracy, has been under investigation since September 2023. Murdiev himself has been under house arrest for 7 months. (According to the investigation, which is confirmed by videos published on social networks, teenagers provoked and started fights with their peers, recorded them on their phones and then posted records of their “exploits” on the Internet.) In the battle for the release of this minor hooligan, according to Kadyrov, The entire ruling elite of Chechnya is involved - from the Commissioner for Human Rights under the head of Chechnya to numerous representatives of the republic at the level of the State Duma and the Federation Council: “We have been involved in the case of Muslim Murdiev for a long time: human rights activists, deputies, senators - all representatives, including myself personally.”

Nevertheless, as follows from the words of the same Kadyrov, all the efforts of these respected, seemingly very influential and formidable people were not crowned with success. They were unable to help the boy. The trial in this case will begin on December 18, that is, neither Kadyrov, nor deputy Delimkhanov, nor senator Geremeev managed to influence the investigation.

What remains for Kadyrov? Just hope for a “fair Russian trial” and publicly quarrel with the federal security forces who ignore the efforts of the head of Chechnya, which, in fact, Ramzan Kadyrov did in a completely boorish manner right in the course of his direct line.

Thus, he stated that “[the head of the Investigative Committee] Bastrykin and [the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation] Kolkoltsev are not sitting in their chairs” and are, in fact, doing nonsense. One (Bastrykin) imprisons innocent children, the other (Kolokoltsev) gives orders to police officers to “beat, take away, expel” migrants from Russia.

Migration policy, which has become extremely tough this year after the terrorist attack in Crocus City, is another topic on which Kadyrov unsuccessfully tried to reach the federal authorities. To be fair, it must be said that his attempts in this matter have a reasonable grain. Anti-migrant hysteria feeds on the xenophobic sentiments of Russian society and is largely provoked by the federal security forces themselves in order to evade responsibility for the unprevented terrorist attack. But, as Kadyrov himself rightly noted, they hit us not on the passport, but on the face, and anti-migrant sentiments are increasingly resulting in incidents against representatives of the North Caucasus. Concerned about the struggle for the purity of the “Russian world,” citizens who have received the go-ahead for such actions from the authorities are demanding from Russian Caucasians the same thing as from migrants from Central Asia—to “get out of Russia.”

Unfortunately, on this issue Ramzan Kadyrov turned out to be right in essence, but not in form. He completely in vain accused the Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev of persecuting migrants, who all this year, just as stubbornly as Kadyrov, contradicted the same head of the Investigative Committee Bastrykin and Prosecutor General Krasnov when they publicly disseminated data that did not correspond to real statistics about the alleged increase in serious crimes (murders). , rapes, robberies, etc.) committed by migrants.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has over and over again debunked this dangerous xenophobic myth and cited figures indicating exactly the opposite - a long-term trend towards a decrease in the number of particularly serious and serious crimes committed by migrants

(which is especially noticeable against the backdrop of an increase in the number of similar crimes committed by Russian citizens over the past three years).

This position of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and Minister Kolokoltsev personally is worth a lot in these times. Therefore, Ramzan Kadyrov should apologize for his unjustified rudeness to Vladimir Kolokoltsev and more carefully study the topic into which he will try to “fit in.” This tactic is much more useful given the fact that the influence of the head of Chechnya outside his republic has clearly and perhaps irreversibly declined.