Of all the historical ironies, the one surrounding the Kremlin’s relationship with Chechnya must surely be one of the cruelest.
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When Chechens fell victim to Moscow’s heavy-handed campaign of force to reestablish control over the restive region, it was Russian democrats who protested the loudest against large-scale human rights abuses that accompanied the “counterterrorist operation.” Yegor Gaidar and Grigory Yavlinsky, the leaders of the rival liberal parties in Russia’s parliament, who agreed on little else, stood side by side in their opposition to the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s. In January 1996, Boris Nemtsov, the newly reelected governor of Nizhny Novgorod, collected 1 million signatures (in a region of 3 million) under a petition against the war in Chechnya and brought them to President Yeltsin’s desk in the Kremlin. “Are these signatures for or against me?” an irritated Yeltsin asked Nemtsov. “That depends on what you do, Mr. President,” the governor replied audaciously. “If you continue the war, they are against you. If you end it, they are for you.
Boris Yeltsin chose to end the war. But three years later, his designated successor, Vladimir Putin, who needed to cultivate a strongman image, revived Chechnya as a convenient “counterterrorist” target in his campaign for the Kremlin. As Putin rose in the polls against the backdrop of carpet bombings in Chechnya, it was, once again, Russian democrats who stood in opposition to the war. Yavlinsky was denounced as a “traitor” for criticizing Putin’s military campaign. Nemtsov was angrily told to resign his parliamentary seat after he called for peace talks between the Kremlin and Chechen leaders.
In recent weeks, Kadyrov and his henchmen have emerged as the lead attack dogs against Russia’s democratic opposition. The Chechen leader described Kremlin opponents as “enemies of the people” and “traitors” who should be prosecuted for their “subversive activities.” A mass official rally was organized in the center of Grozny, with participants displaying preprinted placards denouncing “the fifth column.” Kadyrov’s parliament speaker, Magomed Daudov, railed against “paid puppets like [Alexei] Navalny and [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky” whom he accused of “plain treason against the interests of the state.” On his Instagram page, Daudov posted a photo of Kadyrov holding—quite literally—an aggressive attack dog, whose “teeth are really itching.” “We can hardly restrain him,” Daudov wrote.
Kadyrov himself—also an avid Instagram user—went further. On February 1, he posted a video (later removed by Instagram for violating its rules) showing former Russian prime minister and opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov and the author of this blog in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. “Those who have not understood, will understand,” read the accompanying comment.