Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

A sniper keeps watch as Terek play Dynamo Moscow. The Independent asks whether it might be  ’the worst football transfer in the world’ .  On his blog, ‘I - Kadyrov’, the President of Chechnya has already announced that he expects a top five finish .  Ruud Gullit is certainly taking on a different type of pressure by accepting the manager’s post at Terek Grozny. Ramzan Kadyrov , whose authority in Chechnya is total, is the president of Terek, as well as the autonomous Russian republic.  There's plenty of back material on the blog dealing with the unpalatable compromise which Moscow reached with this thug, in order to achieve a little stability in the Caucasus. Gullit will answer to him and, in any clash of egos, the gangster and former guerrilla fighter could be substantially more formidable than Ken Bates. Terek currently play in the Russian Premier League, bankrolled by Kadyrov.  The club’s most famous achievement was an unlikely victory in 2004 , when...

We’ve become accustomed to blogging politicians in the UK. Some of their offerings are relatively thoughtful, others are little more than a sequence of press releases, penned by a member of staff. In Russia the President himself keeps a Livejournal blog , comprising mainly video entries, in keeping with his modernising image. A less likely newcomer to Russian political blogging has now emerged from Chechnya . President of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. His first article, entitled, I - Kadyrov , is presumably as thrilling in the original Russian, as it is in translation, judging by the scornful reaction reported in the Moscow Times. Unnervingly the Chechen hardman wants to be friends and describes himself as ‘sociable’. The authorities in Chechnya are clearly delighted with the traffic so far and I would imagine it is inordinately healthy as media outlets pick up the story.

Fountains at the Park Kultury, close to the scene of the second explosion. In today's Belfast Telegraph I provide analysis of the week's events in Russia. Last Tuesday, just 24 hours after suicide bombers killed 39 people on the Moscow metro, a pair of explosions claimed 12 more lives in Dagestan, a republic near Chechnya, in Russia's troubled south. Wednesday saw two further fatalities, as another bomb went off in the same region. It was a bloody week in Russia and there is apprehension that terrorist violence, linked to Islamist separatists in the Caucasus, could escalate yet further. Life has remained cheap in Chechnya and Dagestan, but the carnage on Moscow's metro demonstrated that insurgents are willing and able to wreak havoc right at the centre of Russian power. I highlight the role of 'The Black Widows' and the leader who recruited them. Under the tutelage of Chechen terror chief Doku Umarov, it is feared that 30 new members have been trained to commit...

Sean’s Russia Blog is one of the best English language sites featuring comment on Russia. It carries a balanced assessment of the Estemirova murder and examines exactly what it tells us about Moscow’s relationship with Russia’s southern reaches, and the nature of stability in Chechnya. Sean suggests that the most significant aspect of this incident is not Kadyrov’s involvement (or lack of it), but rather the flimsy nature of law and order in the region, which the killing exposes. The long arm of the Kremlin retains only a loose grip on its troubled Caucasian republics, any perception of Chechnya and Ingushetia as predominately peaceful is largely misplaced, and Kadyrov is a symptom of the disease of lawlessness, rather than its root cause. When Memorial chairman, Oleg Orlov, declared, “I know, I am sure of it, who is guilty for the murder of Natalia. His name is Ramzan Kadyrov”, in the aftermath of Estimrova’s death, the world’s media interpreted his statement as a direct accusati...

In the wake of Natalia Estemirova’s murder in Chechnya, Dmitry Medvedev has rubbished suggestions that Ramzan Kadyrov, the region’s president, sanctioned her killing. Although, ostensibly, it is possible that the Memorial activist was abducted by a group which was not linked to the Chechen authorities, the incident will raise more questions about the methods by which Kadyrov has stabilised the Russian republic. After the last campaign in Chechnya the Kremlin’s pressing priority was to restore order without expending needlessly the lives of more Russian soldiers. Clearly Kadyrov, with his rapid ascent through government posts and his strong arm tactics, has succeeded in pacifying the republic. There is scarcely any doubt, however, that the thirty two year old is a highly unsavoury character, given to autocratic and violent methods. Knowingly, Vladimir Putin entered into a Faustian pact when he allowed Kadyrov free rein to subdue separatism in Chechnya. The former rebel, who fought ...