Russland discusses blood revenge. Even people who otherwise dare to criticize Vladimir Putin hope for the protection of the President, so far in vain. The reason is that Ramzan Kadyrov has recently crossed the border. The regime of the ruler of the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya has been waging a campaign against the family of judge Saydi Jangulbayev for weeks. Kadyrov has declared them, journalists and a human rights activist to be “terrorists”.
Kadyrov suspects two of Yangulbayev’s sons to be behind a dissident Telegram channel called 1ADAT. A number of such channels have emerged in recent years, and many are run anonymously. There you can see how the anger of many Chechens at the Kremlin-funded repression by Kadyrov’s people with money and troops leads to calls for an end to the “occupation”.
Revenge on the “Kadyrovtsy”?
According to the independent Novaya Gazeta, Kadyrov’s anger fueled the Security Turkey channel in particular. He documents the activities of the ruler’s security forces, known as “Kadyrowtsy”, in Turkey. Many of them travel there or move there completely when they retire. Now they apparently fear revenge. Among other things, the channel published a video that is supposed to show how one of Kadyrov’s security guards who had moved to Turkey was beaten.
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According to Novaya Gazeta, Turkish secret service agents are also using the channel to obtain information in order to prevent further murders of Kadyrov opponents who have fled in Turkey. For the first time, the ruler “encountered a force that he cannot control,” wrote the newspaper’s Chechnya representative, Yelena Milashina. That explains Kadyrov’s “panic” reaction.
Milashina has just left Russia, not for the first time, for security reasons. Kadyrov has declared her a “terrorist” in the course of the affair and is calling for criminal proceedings against Novaya Gazeta and the independent online broadcaster TV Dozhd. Milashina, whose predecessor Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated in 2006, said Kadyrov’s words were not an emotional outburst but “a real threat”. Kadyrov has also declared the head of the Committee Against Torture, Igor Kaliapin, a “terrorist”.
Demonstrators with photos of prosecuted judge Zaydi Yangulbayev and his family on February 2 in Grozny
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Image: Picture Alliance
The human rights activist had supported the judge Jangulbayev, who fled Chechnya to Nizhny Novgorod, 400 kilometers east of Moscow, in 2017, and employed one of his sons. Kaljapin now published photos of posters that had been put up on the doors of his elderly mother’s house and apartment. It says Kaljapin is a “foreign agent” who “sold his fatherland” and “protects terrorists” for subsidies from America and Germany.