🌊Deep Dive Weekly Edition #11🌊

📬The Rise of the TikTok Tyrant of Chechnya🌍

📚The TL;DR📝

1. Chechnya: Autonomous republic of Russia, capital Grozny, population 1,510,824. Established in 2000, after Russia defeated independent Chechnya. Ruled by Ramzan Kadryov since 2007.

2. Russo-Chechen relations have been tense and antagonistic for the past two centuries, ultimately culminating in the genocidal expulsion of the entirety of the Chechen nation to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1944.

3. Part of Chechnya retained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the First Chechen War, from 1994-1996, before reintegrating as a Russian republic in the early 2000s in the wake of high ranking Chechen official Akhmat Kadyrov’s defection to Moscow.

4. After Kadyrov’s assassination in 2004, his successor and son, Ramzan, developed a close working relationship with Moscow in which he retains semi-autonomous rule in Chechnya in exchange for maintaining peace and the status quo in the republic.

5. In 2025, Ramzan Kadyrov holds a unique position within the Russian political order, presenting himself as a fierce ally of President Vladimir Putin but also a potential liability with an independent agenda.

📌The Rise of Chechnya’s Tiktok Tyrant📌

Last August, Ramzan Kadyrov, President of the autonomous Chechen Republic in Russia, published a video to his social media accounts depicting himself driving and posing with a silver Tesla Cybertruck fitted with a machine gun mounted on its roof. Kadyrov captioned his posts by calling Tesla CEO Elon Musk “the strongest genius of our time,” and by explaining how the vehicle would be used to assist Russian combatants in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Kadyrov’s bizarre social media feed revolves around both his personal affairs and functions as Chechen president, especially his relationship with Vladimir Putin. 

Since the start of his tenure as Chechen president, Kadyrov has established himself as a key figure in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime, securing one of the most restless regions of Russia and offering Putin access to his private army numbering some seventy thousand in Russian conflicts, including the Russo-Ukrainian War. However, close Russo-Chechen ties are relatively new, and the two entities traditionally see each other as enemies or rivals, clashing in armed conflict on numerous occasions.

🇷🇺Russia and Chechnya: A long, troubled history⚔️

Russian presence in Chechnya begins in the 19th century, when the Russian Empire fought various local tribes in the Caucasian War (1817-1863). Charles King, Professor of Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University, notes that the multi-decade conflict saw “incredible savagery” between the two sides. R. Craig Nation, Professor of Strategic Studies at Dickinson College, states that “a tradition of armed resistance to Russian control can be traced from the Caucasian War to the present.” Following the victory of the Russian Empire in the mid-19th century, a tradition of maintaining indirect influence in the region through local clients continued well into the inception of the Soviet Union. 

However, in 1944, Joseph Stalin accused the entirety of the Chechen nation of supporting fascism and aiding Nazi Germany in World War II, despite many Chechens fighting on the side of the Soviets. Close to 500,000 Chechens were deported to Central Asia and did not return to their homeland until 1957, when Nikita Khrushchev reversed Stalin’s previous policy. Some fifty years later, in 2004, the European Parliament established Stalin’s deportation of the Chechen nation as an act of genocide, and the thirteen-year long expulsion remains ingrained in the minds of many Chechens today.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Checheno-Inguish ASSR split into the Republic of Ingushetia, which opted to join Russia, and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which declared its independence. The first Chechen War began when Russian President Boris Yeltsin launched a military operation against the secessionist Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, then backed by Chief Mufti Akhmat Kadyrov. Russian forces ultimately withdrew from Chechnya after separatists recaptured Grozny in August 1996 and the Russia-Chechnya Peace Treaty in 1997 was signed, establishing official bilateral relations between the two states. 

However, another conflict, the Second Chechen War, commenced just three years later when Chechen Islamists launched an invasion of neighboring Dagestan, an autonomous Russian republic, prompting a Russian invasion of the small state.  Russian forces captured the Chechen capital, Grozny, in February of 2000 after the defection of Kadyrov, who served as the first president of the Chechen Republic until his assasination by Chechen Islamic separatists in 2004. After Akhmat’s assasination in 2004, his son Ramzan filled his role as President of the Chechen Republic, now home to roughly 1.5 million people. 

📲The Rise of Ramzan👑

In his tenure, Ramzan Kadyrov has transformed Chechnya into a semi-independent fiefdom, with Chechen law enforcement distinctly subordinate to Kadryov and his allies, not the central government in Moscow. Furthermore, Kadyrov’s power only seems to be growing, as the Chechen leader is now established as Putin’s only viable option to rule the republic within the confines of the current Russian political system. Kadyrov has capitalized on the stark cultural and religious distinctions between his republic and the rest of Russia. A publicly devout Sunni Muslim, Kadyrov presents himself as a guardian of Muslims within Russia and abroad, drawing himself to the Chechen people and those of several neighboring republics and states.

There remains very little indication of any realistic threats to Kadyrov’s power in Chechnya. Kadyrov’s most plausible rivals remain insignificant or ineffective, as the Islamist Caucasus Emirate, responsible for a destructive wave of terrorism across Russia, dissolved in 2015, and the Caucasus Province of the Islamic State remains rudderless since Russian special operatives killed its last official leader, Aslan Byutukayev, in 2021. Since 2020, individuals and small groups of insurgents have organized sporadic shootings and attacks in Chechnya, but these are consistently thwarted by Chechen security forces and their perpetrators are often killed.

Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch explained to the Kyiv Independent how Kadyrov sustains his position in power by “filtering out people who are believed to express even the most mild criticism of him or government policies.” Denber claims that this process is carried out through extensive surveillance of the Chechen population, mostly through online monitorization. Perhaps most significantly, however, no other powerful entity within Chechnya has any official nor meaningful personal relationship with Putin or Moscow, effectively providing Kadyrov with a monopoly of power in Chechnya.

Unique to Kadyrov’s public persona is his active presence on social media platforms. Instagram was Kadyrov’s preferred outlet, in which “he allowed himself to say the most outrageous, flamboyant, and inflammatory things,” until Instagram banned his account in 2018.. More recently, Kadyrov has taken to Telegram, where he continuously posts about both Chechen news and his personal affairs. Kadyrov’s interest in martial arts fighting and his relationships with prominent American fighters of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) stand out within his limited exposure to Western audiences. On his social media presence, Denber told NPR, “I think he wants to be as visible as possible… You self-aggrandize so that the boss notices you, but you also self-aggrandize, you know, so the local folks also notice [and] see you in a particular way.” 

🏛️Putin and Kadryov: Uneasy Allies🕌

Establishing Ramzan Kadyrov as an ally and reintegrating Chechnya into Russia became a cornerstone of Putin’s legitimacy, according to Harold Chambers, a North Caucasus expert at the Jamestown Foundation. Chambers claims that “Putin needs Kadyrov to maintain the status quo in Chechnya.” Vadim Dubnov, a Caucasus expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, once told the Kyiv Independent that “the trauma of [the Chechen Wars] in the early 2000s still looms over the Kremlin like a specter.” Dubnov claims that “the last thing Moscow needs now is instability in the North Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya.”

Putin and the Russian political establishment have made considerable efforts to draw Kadyrov and his Chechen allies to work in conjunction with Russian objectives. Putin specifically referred to Kadyrov’s work in Chechnya as “amazing accomplishments of the Chechen government” in one interview. Returning the affection, Kadyrov proclaimed himself as “Putin’s foot soldier” and takes calculated actions to honor the Russian president, such as naming Grozny’s central street and the Chechen police academy after Putin. In addition to alloting him relatively autonomous rule in Chechnya, Putin reciprocates Kadyrov’s support with material assistance, most notably large-scale construction and infrastructure projects in the republic. 

However, at various points in Kadyrov’s tenure, noticeable friction within the Russo-Chechen relationship has emerged. For instance, in 2015, Kadyrov ordered Chechen law enforcement agents to fire at Russian soldiers in the region if those soldiers’ presence or actions were not authorized by Chechen authorities. Despite the deployment of many Chechen forces in support of Russia in its conflict against Ukraine, Kadyrov refuses to implement Putin’s order of forced conscription within Chechnya. Furthermore, reports have continuously emerged throughout the conflict that Kadyrov is reluctant to send Chechen forces to the more deadly battlefronts of eastern Ukraine, as heavy casualties would be risky for Kadyrov’s perception within Chechnya.

🪖Kadryovtsy Go Global🗺️

Despite these low-level conflicts, Kadyrov vehemently supports Russia in its conflict with Ukraine, making flamboyant announcements offering material support in the form of his fighters—dubbed the “Kadyrovtsy”—a special unit of the Russian National Guard. In their disputed involvement on Ukrainian battlefields, the Security Service of Ukraine and Amnesty International accuse Chechen fighters of war crimes, although Russian officials deny this claim. Aside from material support, Kadyrov has promoted pro-Russian and pro-Putin propaganda in various public appearances and on his social media accounts. Kadyrov has repeatedly posted videos of seemingly staged combat involving Chechen combatants, earning the Kadyrovtsy a new moniker: “TikTok forces.” Similarly, Kadyrov boosts bombastic threats and statements, including advocating for the deployment of nuclear weapons after the Ukrainian recapture of parts of the Donetsk region in late 2022. Furthermore, Kadyrov has advocated for an aggressive stance against Russian adversaries, making threats to attack Poland and other NATO members unless they halt arms supplies to Ukraine in 2022. 

Aside from his autonomous jurisdiction within the Caucasus, Kadyrov enforces his agenda on the global stage, reportedly ordering assassinations and abductions of individuals in Berlin and Moscow in addition to Grozny. Kadyrov’s most notable victim in this string of foul play, Boris Nemtsov, was a Russian liberal politician and vocal critic of Putin who was killed by five Chechen-born men in 2015. For these extrajudicial killings, the United States State Department publicly sanctioned Kadyrov for the “gross violations of human rights.” In support of his claim as a protector of Muslims, Kadyrov organized rallies in 2017 in support of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya population and called the French journalists of the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, killed by al-Qaeda terrorists in a 2015 attack following the depiction of the prophet Muhammed in published cartoons, “personal enemies” of his.

Fighters loyal to Kadyrov also fought against Syrian rebels alongside the forces of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, until Assad’s overthrow in December 2024. Samantha de Bendern of Chatham House asserts that Putin’s reliance on Kadyrov abroad centers on Russian “shadow diplomacy” in the Middle East; however, Assad’s overthrow may present a liability in this strategy. De Bendern claims that “the swift victory of [Islamist group Tahrir al-Sham] in Syria has the potential to inspire a myriad of anti-regime movements all over Russia, especially in the republics where there is a strong Muslim presence.” If this fails, it will be in large part thanks to Kadryov’s efforts to synthesize conservative Islam and Putinism among Russian Muslims.

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