Putin’s dirty handyman is called Ramzan Kadyrov Related Articles

Handyman

Ramzan Kadyrov is held responsible for killing Russian journalists critical of Putin and members of the opposition whom the Kremlin considers threatening. “He IS Putin’s dirty handyman. Murder, kidnapping, torture, anti-gay actions, elimination of opposition; that’s all on his order list,’ says Bernard Hammelburg.

He also uses his heavily armed private militia of 12,000 men for Putin’s various military adventures. In 2008 Chechen fighters, the so-called ‘Kadyrovites’, are active in the rebel provinces separating from Georgia with Russian help, in 2014 in the Ukrainian Donbass and since 2017 they have been helping Russian and Assad troops in Syria.

According to colleagues in the Russian mercenary army Wagner Group, the latter is not very successful: Kadyrovites who have been added to Wagner units in Syria are being sent away because they panicked during the fight.

Chief’s son

Ramzan Kadyrov was born in 1976 in Tsentoroy, Soviet Russia, the son of Chechnya’s first president Akhmad Kadyrov, who first fought the Russians and then sided with them. Under the government of Father Akhmad, Chechnya follows a strict Islamic course: in 2006 it forbids gambling and alcohol, women must wear the veil, Koran and Sharia lessons are made compulsory in schools and the censorship so that the media can be more aligned with the Kadyrovs’ wishes.

In 2007 Akhmad was assassinated by Chechen Islamists and his son Ramzam took the throne. Kadyrov junior consolidates his dominance by brutally facing internal rivals. International human rights organizations quickly filled the shelves with reports of violent disappearances of opposition members and journalists, torture, kidnappings, murders, atrocities against LGBTI people and the further suppression of women from public life. As of 2016, Kadyrov openly leads a vicious anti-LGBTI campaign to “purify the blood of Chechens”

Rubles for rest

With a generous hand, Moscow annually transfers hundreds of millions of rubles to the Chechen government, which is almost synonymous with a deposit into Kadyrov’s private account. “Kadyrov got very rich off that,” Hammelburg says. With Kremlin rubles, Kadyrov finances the reconstruction of what he considers a personal fiefdom, as well as his own lavish lifestyle.

Hammelburg calls Kadyrov “mainly an investment” by Putin. After all, the Kremlin buys peace in the formerly rebellious Chechnya and gets a loyal vassal in Kadyrov. Kadyrov, who regularly wears T-shirts with the face of the Russian leader, as well as the nickname “Putin’s hound”, has carte blanche in the Caucasus state, occasionally doing difficult jobs for Putin.

Petition against Kadyrov

In February 2022, the day before the Russian military invades Ukraine, Russian citizens petition Putin for Kadyrov to be fired for his gross human rights violations. The petition is signed more than 150,000 times in two hours.

‘It is reassuring that there are many intelligent people in Russia. But if Kadyrov has to leave the field, Putin will replace him with a clone,” Hammelburg says. The latter doesn’t happen, Putin puts the petition aside and invades Ukraine.

War crimes

The Kadyrovs formally fall under the Russian National Guard, but in practice are loyal to Kadyrov. That makes him primarily a power factor in Russia itself, Hammelburg thinks. Wherever the Kadyrovites are deployed, stories of human rights violations and war crimes inevitably follow. As in the Ukrainian Bocha and in the vicinity of Kiev, where about 400 civilians were killed at the beginning of the war.

According to MEPs, police investigators, journalists, human rights organizations and survivors, largely thanks to the Kadyrovites. They also commit large-scale war crimes in Mariupol and other occupied Ukrainian territories. If the atrocities are meant to undermine Ukrainian morale, they will have the opposite effect, thinks Hammelburg: “Ukrainians fear atrocities, but they also increase their resilience. And they see it as evidence for a possible tribunal – if it ever comes.”

Army of child soldiers

Another result: Ukrainian children from occupied areas such as Luhansk and Donetsk are being kidnapped to Chechnya for military-patriotic training. Human rights activists say Kadyrov is forming an ‘army of child soldiers’, which Kadyrov himself calls the ‘re-education’ that young people need.

In the spotlight

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, Kadyrov became more and more prominent. In October 2022, for example, he will be promoted by Putin to colonel general, the third highest rank in the Russian army after army general and field marshal. Prior to this promotion, the Chechen leader had already served as general three times: of the armed forces, of the police and of the Chechen National Guard. According to Hammelburg, the promotion is functional: ‘There is a lot of opposition to Kadyrov within the military. The military promotion is probably a signal from Putin to the General Staff to mitigate criticism of Kardyrov”.

But Kadyrov also takes the stage with his harsh and spontaneous criticism of the army leadership and the way it is waging the war in Ukraine. Though he repeatedly advocates the use of strategic nuclear weapons, that’s not much of a concern, Hammelburg thinks. Putin is realistic enough to rule out the nuclear option. There are some enthusiastic positions on the outskirts of him that are touting the use of small nuclear weapons, but they are many times larger than the bombs America used on August 6 and 9, 1945 to raze Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Putin himself says: Russian doctrine is the use of nuclear weapons if Russia is existentially threatened’.

Curiosity and personality

Kadyrov studied law at the Makhachkala Institute of Economics and law and economics at the Dagestan State Technical University. He has degrees in both disciplines. Since 1996 he has been married to Medni Musaevna Kadyrova, they have 12 children. Kadyrov also reportedly has a second and third wife.

A martial arts enthusiast, Kadyrov was reprimanded in 2016 by the MMA martial arts federation for putting his three sons, aged 8, 9 and 10, in the ring on the eve of his birthday to fight in a mixed martial arts-tournament.

In 2022, Kadyrov says these same teenage children, aged 14, 15 and 16, are heading to the Ukrainian front to take part in Putin’s “special military operation”. His message to the Ukrainians: ‘We are convinced that even minor children can crush you, because you lack mind, honor and dignity’.

Despite preaching austerity and Shari’a, he leads an exorbitant lifestyle and likes to wear custom Prada boots. Kadyrov keeps large predators in a personal zoo near his home, owns a golden gun, and often performs traditional Chechen dances in public. Once he lost his phone at a party, he had the 1,000 other guests questioned late into the night by the police and security services to get it back.