Award for Adam

Kadyrovsky fighter Khamzat Chimaev became the first UFC champion from Chechnya. "New Europe" tells its story

On August 17, the UFC-319 tournament was held in Chicago. In the main battle of the evening, Khamzat Chimaev, close to the encirclement of Ramzan Kadyrov, met with South African Drikus du Plessi and won, becoming the first UFC champion from Chechnya.

Chimaev has more than 10.3 million subscribers on Instagram, a significant part of his publications is devoted to the praise of the head of Chechnya. A special relationship between a fighter with the 17-year-old son of Kadyrov Adam, who is called him "ward." Immediately after the battle, Chimaev said that he would bring the championship belt to him. The New Gazeta Europe tells the story of an athlete, who, despite the sanctions against Russian athletes introduced after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, continued to enter international tournaments, acting as a citizen of the UAE. He broadcast the Prokadyrovsky rhetoric to the multimillion -dollar audience, asked to send him to fight for Palestine and was in the center of the scandal after the abduction of the young Chechenka.

How the battle passed

“Chechens, we have a belt! For Chechens, it is not another problem to win. Chechen youth, let's work. Allahu Akbar! Akhmat is power! Dustum [ nickname Adam Kadyrov. - approx. aut. ], I give you this piece of iron [championship belt]. In Dubai, you will see you, ”shouted the 31-year-old Khamzat Chimaev directly from the octagon after his ninth consecutive victory in the UFC.

Ultimate Fighting Championship is an American organization that holds tournaments around the world. More than 21 million subscribers are promoted on the YouTube channel. No other MMA-League in the world can compare with this scale. UFC capitalization - about $ 12 billion.

The Chechen Khamzat Chimaev with the citizenship of the UAE, who previously spoke under the flag of Sweden, went to battle under the “anthem” of Barda Timur Mutsuraev, who fought in the late 1990s, including Akhmat-Haji Kadyrov. More than thirty of its tracks today are included in the list of extremist materials in Russia.

*“That night when wolves were born

Under the predawn lion roar,

Came from ancient times deep

We are in this world that we are harsh.

Since then we have been to anyone

They were not made by advantage.

For centuries death or freedom

We mined ourselves in the struggle, ”* - sung in the“ anthem ”.

Chimaev came to Octagon shouting “Allahu Akbar!”. In the hall he was supported by hundreds of fans, many of them put on the overhead black beards, copying the branded image of the fighter. Ramzan Kadyrov published a post with a congratulation of the athlete, accompanying him with a song with the words that Chimaev is a “descendant of Sheikh-Mansur and Naib Baysangur”-Chechen military-political figures who had a struggle against the Russian Empire all their lives.

When the battles took place in the UAE, Khamzat Chimaev traditionally escorted the sons of Ramzan Kadyrov to Octagon. But the UFC-319 tournament was held in the USA, where the family of the head of Chechnya is closed due to sanctions. Chimaev himself fell under the restrictions.

Kadyrov has been under American sanctions since 2017 for "gross violations of human rights, including torture and extrajudicial executions." Three years later, his fighting club and ACA promoted, Absolute Championship Akhmat, fell under the sanctions. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Washington accused Kadyrov of the recruitment of fighters for war through martial arts clubs and introduced visa restrictions against hundreds of Russians. According to sports journalist Karim Zidan, Chimaev's name appeared among them.

The last time the Chechen athlete performed in the United States on September 10, 2022 at the UFC-279 tournament. Twenty days after that, visa restrictions entered into force, and Chimaev fought only in Abu Dhabi. But the situation changed after Donald Trump’s victory in the elections. The new head of the United States, a long -standing UFC fan, allowed Chimaev to go to the States in gratitude to the head of the promotion to Dan White, who supported him during the presidential campaign.

“If Chimaev won the title, he will become the first UFC champion from Kadyrov’s entourage. Partly thanks to Trump, who helped him get permission to enter the United States. The irony is obvious: while Trump actively deportes migrants through ICE, he made an exception for his beloved fighter [Kadyrov], just to serve his friends from the UFC, ”Karim Zidan was indignant .

Chimaev himself actively thanked Trump for the "granted opportunities."

“Everyone knows that I did not have a visa for trips to the United States. That is why I fought in Abu Dhabi. Now that Donald Trump is here, we are going to battle, ”the athlete said .

How Chimaev is connected with Kadyrov

The Chechen fighter maintained close relations with Kadyrov’s family throughout his career, but the “mentor” of the sons of the head of Chechnya became the “mentor” in 2022. Before him, this “honorary function” was performed by another fighter of MMA Abdul-Kirim Edilov. After the end of his sports career, he spent almost all the time with Kadyrov’s children, teaching them martial arts. In 2016, as a sign of gratitude, young sons gave him a Porsche Panamera car worth about 10 million rubles. In the summer of 2022, Edilov was appointed Minister of Sports of Chechnya, and in December of the same year he suddenly died under unclear circumstances.

For the first time, Ramzan Kadyrov was first spoke loudly about the three eldest sons in 2016, when they took part in the Grand Prix Akhmat mixed martial arts tournament. Although the rules prohibit children under 12 years of age to perform at MMA competitions, 10-year-old Akhmat, nine-year-old Zelimkhan (Eli) and eight-year-old Adam entered the ring. The tournament was broadcast live on the “Match TV” and called a wave of criticism not only because of the participation of young children, but also because of the obvious production of battles: all the sons of Kadyrov won. Former President of the Russian Union of MMA and one of the most successful Russian fighters Fedor Emelianenko then criticized the tournament with children: “The kids who are eight years old beat each other in front of joyful adults. It is outraged that Ramzan Kadyrov watched this. ”

In October 2022, Kadyrov said that his teenage sons visited the front in Ukraine. In the telegram channel, he wrote that they “arrived in full armed and ready to join the battle”, and later published a video with “Captured Armed Forces”, which the children allegedly brought.

In 2023, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, published a video in his Telegram channel, in which his 15-year-old son Adam beats a 19-year-old defendant in a pre-trial detention center Nikita Zhurael. On the video, a young man in Khaki's color hucks beats his legs arrested and hands, falls on the floor. The accused is trying to defend himself with his hands.

At the same time, Chimaev actively built his own career. Thanks to tournaments under the auspices of the American promotion, he gained world popularity. In October 2023, he defeated Kamaru Usman, earned more than half a million dollars and announced a new contract with the UFC in the amount of over 20 million. After the victory over Usman Chimaev made an emotional speech. In English, he expressed concern about the death of children and called for peace around the world, and in Chechen turned to Kadyrov, calling him a “padishah”, and asked for permission to go to fight for Palestine.

“Padishah, may Allah be pleased with you, to speak here and fight for you here is not difficult. If you give me permission, I swear by Allah, I will be the very first to go there [to Palestine]. For God's sake, give me a weapon so that I can go to Palestine. I swear that they did not grow me so that I fought here in shorts. I swore allegiance to our padishah and swear if he gives me the right, I am a guy who will go and die there. I do not worry about my own death as much as I worry about the [death] of my Muslim brothers, ”the athlete said.

Chimaev never went to Palestine. Instead, he increasingly appeared next to Adam Kadyrov, with whom he was associated with especially close relations, despite the difference in the age of 14 years. Arriving in Russia, the fighter drove in cars with Dustum numbers - the nickname of Adam, in June of this year he even attended his wedding.

And shortly before this, the second wedding and Hamzat itself took place.

The bride for the mentor

In May 2022, the official Chechen media actively covered the wedding of Khamzat Chimaev. The celebration passed with a special scale: for the sake of the wedding motorcade with the bride of the fighter in Grozny, the roads were blocked. The festival was attended by Ramzan Kadyrov.

“Friends, the day before, I accepted with great pleasure an invitation to the wedding event, which took place in the Parus restaurant. Family ties was connected by an dear brother, a UFC fighter Hamzat Chimaev. Not only relatives and friends of Hamzat, but also numerous friends gathered here. Everything was perfectly organized in accordance with national traditions. I enjoyed the visit to the celebration. After all, every new family in the Chechen Republic is an additional reason for the joy of all its inhabitants. I sincerely congratulate the newlyweds! I sincerely wish the contentment of the Almighty, good health, happiness and prosperity! ” - then wrote on Instagram the head of Chechnya.

In January of this year, a new video appeared on social networks with the signature: "Hamzat Chimaev married a second time." The shots captured the moment when the bride is removed from the house. Unlike the first marriage of the athlete, this time everything looked much more modest. Chimaev’s relatives who were supposed to withdraw her entered the bride’s house. When they come in and greet those present, the girl’s drooping relatives barely answer them to a greeting, and after the wishes of a good life for a newly made couple also do not pronounce the traditional “Amin” - “let it be so”.

According to the opposition movement "NIISO", the second wife of Chimaev was a 17-year-old Chechenka. The wedding itself took place on January 11, and a few days before, the athlete's friends abducted the girl because she liked her.

“Despite the fact that the bride was going to go out for another, the pressure of the regime, which was usually practiced in such cases, made her parents affect the girl, and she had to become Chimaev’s wife,” Niiso writes. This information of Novo-Europe was confirmed by the villagers of the athlete from Elin-Yurt (the village of Guards). According to them, Chimaev did not divorce with the first wife, and the young girl became his second wife.

It is noteworthy that back in 2010, Ramzan Kadyrov announced the introduction of fines regarding the abduction of brides, and then assured that the authorities and clergy of Chechnya “completely outlived” this practice.

“The kidnapping of girls in order to marry are completely obsolete,” he wrote on Instagram after a meeting with the director of the Department of Relations with Religious and Social Organizations of Bai-Ali in October 2013.

Then Kadyrov admitted that the problem of early marriages had not yet been solved. He criticized the imams who continue to conclude marriages with minors in Muslim rites. However, 13 years later, a minor, and even after her abduction, the athlete close to the Kadyrov family married.

This is not the first scandal associated with weddings surrounded by the head of Chechnya. In 2015, the 57-year-old chief of the ROVD of the Nozha-Yurt district, Zajud Guchigov, decided to marry the 17-year-old Head Goylabieva from the village of Baitarka. He did not stole the girl, but put the posts throughout the village, so that parents who categorically refused to give her daughter for a man to whom she was suitable for granddaughters could not take her to a safe place. Guchigov set an ultimatum: parents should voluntarily give her daughter to marry until May 2, otherwise he will take her by force and will not spare her a family. The wedding eventually took place. Being minors, the sons of Kadyrov made marriages.

What next?

Now, having become the UFC champion and gaining tremendous popularity, Hamzat Chimaev has turned into a convenient tool for laundering the reputation of the Kadyrov family, because this is how Chechnya’s head begins to associate with success in sports, and not with human rights. After all, after each of his fights, Chimaev shouts: “Ahmat is power,” and on Instagram with a multimillion -dollar audience regularly writes which Ramzan is a good chapter. For the fighter himself, this means unlimited privileges, and for the head of Chechnya and his environment - influence in the international arena thanks to the checkwall.

The question remains open: how long will the United States let a person directly related to a war criminal and involved in the abduction of a 17-year-old girl? Moreover, literally July 26, 2025, political activist Leonid Melekhin was arrested in Russia after his deportation from the United States. In the States, a supporter of the FBK, who was repeatedly detained for shares in support of Navalny, asked for political asylum. America refused him and sent him back to Russia. Now Melekhin is sitting in a pre -trial detention center, and Kadirovets Chimaev receives a fee at the UFC about two million dollars per battle.