Putin ally reportedly flown to Moscow for treatment, Russian state news agencies report
Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, is in hospital in Moscow with coronavirus symptoms, Russian state news agencies said late on Thursday.
The news was reported by two Russian state news agencies, RIA Novosti and Tass, both citing a “source in medical circles”. If true, it would mark the most significant illness of a Russian official so far in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading...‘Irreplaceable’ Chechen leader not seen in public for 24 hours but Russian media says he is in Moscow hospital
Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, has not been seen publicly in the 24 hours since Russian state media said he had been hospitalised in Moscow with coronavirus symptoms.
While online sleuths have sought to track planes or motorcades that may have ferried Chechnya’s leader in Moscow, local officials have either declined to give information about his whereabouts or health or opted to troll journalists who have asked.
Continue reading...Ramzan Kadyrov | Pheasant pair | Stocking rhyme | Useless, cruel government | David Cameron | Wetherspoon’s
I encourage the Guardian to drop the description “strongman” for despots like Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader who rules with fear, torture and murder (Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov ‘hospitalised with suspected Covid-19’, 21 May). It conflates strength and violence. And it denigrates other men. True strength is found in those who courageously oppose Kadyrov.
Tim Nichols
Hackney, London
• There are white pheasants (Letters, 24 May) in Northumberland too. This year we’ve had a pheasant pair in the garden, a white female and a more conventional brightly coloured male, known as Carrie and Boris. I’m told it’s considered bad form to shoot them, so maybe white pheasants will become more common.
Jane Wrigley
Wall, Northumberland
Chechen strongman did not confirm hospitalisation but appeared to have cannula in arm
Chechnya’s autocratic leader Ramzan Kadyrov has reappeared in public for the first time in nearly a fortnight after unconfirmed reports that he had been flown to Moscow for treatment for coronavirus.
Kadyrov was filmed on Tuesday in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, holding a government meeting on the region’s response to the pandemic and delivering 10 ambulances to local hospitals. Russian journalists noted what appeared to be a cannulaon his right arm.
Continue reading...Chechen leader and Moscow deny sending hitman after journalist’s expletive-laden TV tirade
Georgia has thwarted a plot to assassinate a journalist who made an expletive-laden attack on Vladimir Putin on live television last year, the Georgian prime minister said.
“Georgian secret services have foiled a very serious crime,” Giorgi Gakharia told journalists on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Ramzan Kadyrov defends compatriots in France after an attack on Chechen teenager sparked unrest
Ramzan Kadyrov, the autocratic leader of Chechnya, has expressed support for compatriots involved in clashes in the French city of Dijon this month, saying they were protecting one of their own because police failed to act.
Kadyrov’s message came as French police carried out raids and made a number of arrests of Chechens after several nights of violence blamed on members of the Chechen community from last Friday to Monday, when the city was rocked by clashes and car burnings.
Continue reading...Chechens who sought safety in EU countries say ‘everyone is scared’ after shooting in Vienna
Chechens in Europe have expressed renewed fears for their safety, after a strident critic of the Kremlin-backed Chechnya leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot dead in Vienna on Saturday.
“Everyone is scared. We all left to find safety and forget about home, and they find you and shoot you like a dog,” said a Chechen man who has received asylum in Austria and asked to remain anonymous, shortly after attending a wake for the dead man in Vienna on Monday afternoon.
Continue reading...The world’s second-most popular Muslim athlete retired at the top of his game on Saturday as the most dominant champion in UFC history. But the legacy he leaves behind is complex
“Alhamdulillah. God gave me everything.”
The Islamic phrase was among the first words spoken by Khabib Nurmagomedov following his submission victory on Saturday over interim lightweight champ Justin Gaethje at UFC 254. The words carried the weight of the last few months of the champion’s life, a period filled with the tragic passing of his father due to the coronavirus and the unyielding weight of expectations. Now, for the first time in his illustrious career, Khabib Nurmagomedov seemed relieved. He knew his time was up.
Continue reading...Tumso Abdurakhmanov, an outspoken critic of Ramzan Kadyrov, survived murder attempt in Sweden
A Swedish court has sentenced a man and a woman to 10 and eight years in prison respectively for attempted murder and accessory to attempted murder in a hammer attack on a blogger and critic of the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.
The pair, who were not named by the Gävle district court, assaulted Tumso Abdurakhmanov on 26 February 2020 in his home in Gävle, 106 miles (170km) north of Stockholm.
Continue reading...Analysis: Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapega are just the latest to be forced into the widespread tactic
The videos are formulaic: Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, each sit alone in front of a camera in a police station and deliver their “confessions” as though a loaded gun is pointed at their heads.
“I’m also the editor of the Telegram channel Black Book of Belarus that publishes personal information about employees of the interior ministry,” said Sapega, quickly repeating a memorised statement in a video released late on Tuesday that could lead to years in jail.
Continue reading...Activists say Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime uses televised confessions ‘under duress’ to hold back women’s rights, despite changes in society
Khalimat Taramova, the 22-year-old daughter of a prominent Chechen businessman, sits demurely on a velvet sofa ornately embellished in gold. She is wearing a modest dress and a headscarf. With her on the sofa are three men dressed in suits. They are appearing on Grozny TV, the state television channel of Russia’s Chechen Republic.
Only a couple of weeks before the programme was shown on 14 June, Taramova fled her home, where she said she was subjected to violence after going against her family’s wishes. She sought help from a group of women’s rights activists, the Marem project , who let her stay in a flat owned by one of its members in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan. In a video releasedon social media on 6 June, she pleaded for the Chechen authorities not to come looking for her.
Continue reading...Kremlin ally posts video said to be from Hostomel and warns Ukrainians to surrender ‘or you will be finished’
Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, has said he is in Ukraine alongside invading Russian forces.
Kadyrov, who is accused by international NGOs of serious human rights violations in the tightly controlled Caucasus republic, posted a video on Telegram of himself in military uniform studying plans around a table in a room with soldiers.
Continue reading...Ramzan Kadyrov, the feared Chechen leader and staunch Putin ally, is reportedly in Ukraine commanding a unit alongside Russian forces. Julius Strauss explains what his arrival into the war means for Russia, Ukraine and Chechnya
It’s not just Vladimir Putin who has staked his reputation on the war in Ukraine. The Chechen warlord and leader Ramzan Kadyrov has also led his own forces into Ukraine in lockstep with his firm ally Putin.
It’s an unlikely alliance that dates to the late 1990s. Following the implosion of the Soviet Union and the bitter and brutal Chechen wars, Kadyrov’s father Akhmad gave up fighting for the separatists and instead formed an alliance with Putin as he rose to power.
Continue reading...Ramzan Kadyrov promoted to lieutenant-general for his role in invasion of Ukraine
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has promoted Ramzan Kadyrov to lieutenant-general for his role in the invasion of Ukraine, which the Chechen leader is using to showcase his loyalty to Moscow and his own impunity.
This week Kadyrov claimed that a key ally linked to the 2015 murder of the Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, was injured fighting in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
Continue reading...Artur Beterbiev’s march toward light heavyweight title unification continues on Saturday in New York, but his ties to a Chechen dictator facing US sanctions should not be ignored
On Saturday night, IBF and WBC champion Artur Beterbiev will attempt to further unify the light heavyweight championship when he faces WBO titleholder Joe Smith Jr at Madison Square Garden.
However, when Beterbiev sets foot inside the squared circle in New York City, he will do so with the shadow of a murderous tyrant looming over him.
Continue reading...Ramzan Kadyrov, Kremlin-appointed Chechnya leader, suggests Putin might not be fully aware of true state of affairs
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya, has criticised the Russian army’s leadership after it appeared to be caught off guard by Ukraine’s fightback against the Russian invasion in the north-east.
In a sign that the Kremlin may face serious fallout over the loss of territory that the Russian occupation administrations had repeatedly stated they planned to keep “for ever”, Kadyrov also suggested that Vladimir Putin might not be aware of the real state of affairs.
Continue reading...Military defeat in Donetsk comes hours after Moscow declared that the region was Russian territory ‘for ever’
Russia suffered a humiliating military defeat on Saturday when Ukrainian troops liberated the key eastern city of Lyman, with videos showing them raising a blue and yellow national flag and performing a victory dance.
In a severe embarrassment for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ministry of defence admitted its soldiers had retreated. They had been “withdrawn to more advantageous lines”, the ministry said, following their encirclement by Ukrainian forces.
Continue reading...Key figures including Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin are using military defeats to undermine defence chief Sergei Shoigu
Friends, rivals and enemies took their seats in the Grand Kremlin Palace as Vladimir Putin gathered the country’s elite to formalise Russia’s illegal annexation of four occupied regions in Ukraine.
The ceremony was meant to portray strength and unity, but within 24 hours had been overshadowed by Russia’s failures on the battlefield. These losses, which continued into this week on the southern and eastern fronts in Ukraine, have led to a major, unprecedented rupture within the ruling class as the Kremlin seeks scapegoats for a series of military embarrassments.
Continue reading...Abdul-Kerim Edilov was an MMA veteran as well as one of the most influential men in his homeland. And then he disappeared from public life
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ramzan Kadyrov – the strongman leader of Chechnya and a close ally of Vladimir Putin– gathered his troops in the main square of the region’s capital, Grozny, to signal his readiness to join the war.
Positioned on a dais overlooking the crowd, Kadyrov stood against a backdrop of the most powerful men in Chechnya. Among them was Abuzayed Vismuradov, the dictator’s right-hand man who was the target of sanctions by the United States government in 2019 for his role in Chechnya’s purge of sexual minorities. Vismuradov also happens to be in charge of Kadyrov’s mixed martial arts fight club – an entity also the target of sanctions by the US Treasury.
Continue reading...Chechen leader claims Zazou, which was barred from racing amid sanctions in 2014, is worth at least $10m
Police in the Czech Republic are looking for information on a stolen racehorse owned by the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Zazou, a thoroughbred worth about £17,000, disappeared from a stable outside of Prague on Friday night, local police said in a statement.
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