Russian President Vladimir Putin and Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov visit the Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes, Russia. | Photo Credit: Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday made an unscheduled visit to Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim republic within the Russian Federation, his first trip in nearly 13 years, as Ukraine’s surprise cross-border incursion into western Russia enters its third week.
Mr Putin was greeted by Chechnya’s self-proclaimed dictator leader Ramzan Kadyrov, after which he visited the special forces academy that bears his name and interacted with volunteer fighters who train there before being deployed to Ukraine.
Mr Putin praised the volunteers and said Russia would remain “invincible” as long as it had people like them, Russian government agencies reported.
Mr. Kadyrov said in a post on his official Telegram channel that more than 47,000 fighters, including volunteers, had trained at the facility since Moscow launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Fighters from Chechnya, whose demands for independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union led to years of war with Russian government forces, are taking part on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine.
Pro-Kiev volunteers loyal to the late Chechen independence leader Dzhokhar Dudayev are bitter enemies of Chechen forces backing Mr Putin and Mr Kadyrov. The latter sided with Russia in its months-long siege of Ukraine’s key port of Mariupol and other flashpoints in the country’s south and east.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lays flowers at the grave of Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov, the first president of Chechnya, in the village of Akhmat-Yurt, Chechen Republic, Russia. | Photo credit: AP
Also on Tuesday, Mr Putin visited the grave of Mr Kadyrov’s father, former Chechen leader Akhmat Kadyrov, a command post and a mosque in the local capital, Grozny.
Later in the day, he held talks with the Chechen leader, who announced that the republic has “thousands” of reserve troops ready to fight the Ukrainians, according to Russian state media reports. The reports did not clarify whether any of these could be sent to the Russian region of Kursk to stop Kiev’s offensive.
The Kremlin has relied on Mr. Kadyrov to stabilize the North Caucasus after years of turmoil. International rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s security forces of extrajudicial killings, torture and kidnappings of dissidents, but Russian authorities have rebuffed repeated demands for investigations.
The Kremlin sent fighters from Chechnya to defend Moscow from a failed uprising launched by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, but some commentators have warned that Mr Kadyrov’s ambitions could also pose a threat to federal authorities.
As of Tuesday evening, neither the Kremlin nor Kadyrov had shared any details about the purpose and timing of Mr. Putin’s unexpected visit, with Mr. Kadyrov saying only that the Russian leader’s “busy schedule” awaits.
Mr Putin later held talks with Mr Kadyrov at the Chechen leader’s residence in Grozny.
Before his surprise trip to Chechnya, Putin was in the city of Beslan in the Caucasus province of North Ossetia on TuesdayWhere he met for the first time in nearly two decades with the mothers of children killed in the 2004 school attack by Islamic militants. More than 330 children were killed in this attack.
At the meeting he criticised Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region and accused Ukraine of “attempting to destabilise” the country.
He said, “We will punish the culprits. There is no doubt about it.”