Who is president of chechnya

Not that Kadyrov needs any luck. This development is not surprising. Moscow efficiently covers up for the crimes perpetrated by Chechen authorities.

There were devastating reports just last week of Chechen police kidnapping a young woman fleeing family violence, and forcibly bringing her home. Authorities paraded her on local TV. In April, Chechen security agents, working with local police in a town in northern Russia, abducted a key witness in a high-profile torture investigation within sight of his lawyer.

Two days later, the man turned up in jail in Chechnya, refusing the services of his trusted lawyer. In February, Chechen police detained two young bloggers , who had fled persecution to another region of Russia. Both are now in jail in Chechnya on bogus terrorism charges and allege police tortured them. He remains forcibly disappeared, his plight a stark warning to all Chechens. This is only a recent sample of a litany of brazen abuse. Like Mr Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov adopts a macho image - he likes to be filmed posing with guns, fraternising with the military and supporting martial arts contests.

In , Mr Putin appointed him Chechen president. His father, Akhmad, who was elected president in a disputed vote in was assassinated a few months later in a bomb blast. Ramzan Kadyrov already had a powerful, much-feared private militia called the "Kadyrovtsy".

Human rights groups accuse them of torture, kidnappings and assassinations in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim republic left devastated by war in the s. He had not always backed the Moscow leadership. In the early s, he and his father joined the rebels fighting Russian forces in the first war for independence.

They switched sides at the start of the second Chechen war in Islamist militancy became more acute in republics near Chechnya just as Mr Putin was trying to consolidate his presidency in Moscow. Those who criticise official shortcomings in Chechnya are sometimes paraded humiliatingly on local state-controlled TV. This month some doctors who complained about a lack of protective kit in the coronavirus crisis were shown later confessing that they had been mistaken.

He answered scornfully: "The dog barks, but the caravan moves on. People who write these things about us: I don't even consider them people. Rosenberg recalls the strongman's dark sense of humour, from their first meeting in As Mr Kadyrov strummed a guitar, our correspondent told him: "I play an instrument too - the piano. Mr Kadyrov continued his late father's successful work in co-opting Chechnya's main Sufi Muslim brotherhood, the Qadiriya.

Mr Kadyrov developed a direct relationship with the Kremlin, bypassing Russia's bureaucratic state institutions - another convenient arrangement for both sides. It paid off for Mr Kadyrov, as Russia funded the reconstruction of infrastructure in Chechnya, including new roads and a giant mosque in the republic's capital, Grozny.

Such projects are good public relations for Mr Kadyrov, but do little to create much-needed local jobs, Shishani says. A top investigative journalist who condemned his methods - Anna Politkovskaya - was shot dead outside her Moscow apartment in Two men were jailed for life , though investigators failed to determine who ordered the killing. Kadyrov rose to power in the wake of the murder of his father — regional leader Akhmat Kadyrov — with the backing of Putin. Both father and son had fought against Moscow during the first bloody separatist conflict in Chechnya from , but switched sides to support the Kremlin when it launched a second war there in under the watch of then-Prime Minister Putin.

He firmly turned his back on independence and in return his majority-Muslim homeland has in recent years seen intense reconstruction efforts bankrolled by Moscow. Doctors who complained of a lack of protective equipment last week were filmed retracting their statements by a TV channel loyal to Kadyrov — a common approach to critics in Chechnya. Since the dark days of war the capital Grozny has undergone a transformation, with Kadyrov overseeing a major building programme. But rights activists say that stability in the region has come at a high cost as Kadyrov has brutally crushed all opposition and turned Chechnya into his personal domain with a private army.

And the family and allies of slain Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov have pointed the finger of blame for his death at both the Kremlin and Kadyrov, who has denied the accusation.