Akhmed Zakayev

Akhmed Zakayev was born in the settlement of Kirovskiy, Kirovskiy Raion (today called Balpyk Bi, Koksu District), in the Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union, which is now in Almaty Region, in Kazakhstan; his family was deported by Stalin's regime along with the rest of the Chechens in 1944.

Akhmed is from the teip Chinkhoy.

He graduated from acting and choreography schools in Voronezh and Moscow and worked as an actor at a theatre in the Chechen capital Grozny, specializing in Shakespearean roles.

Akhmed Halidovich Zakayev (Заки Хьалид кӏант Ахьмад; Ахмед Халидович Закаев, Akhmed Khalidovich Zakayev; born 26 April 1959) is a Chechen statesman, political and military figure of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI).

Having previously been a Deputy Prime Minister, he now serves as Prime Minister of the ChRI government-in-exile.

From 1991, he was the chairman of the Chechen Union of the Theatrical Actors.

In 1994, Zakayev became a Minister of Culture in the Chechen separatist government of Dzhokhar Dudayev.

After Russian forces entered Chechnya, starting the First Chechen War, Zakayev left his job and took up arms.

Serving at first as a minor commander in the unit of Ruslan Gelayev, he took part in the 1995 battle of Grozny and then led the defence of the village of Goyskoye.

After this the armed group under his command operated in the south-west part of Chechnya with its headquarters in the town of Urus-Martan.

He was eventually promoted to the rank of brigadier general and appointed commander of the Urus-Martan Front.

In February 1996, Zakayev became commander of the entire Western Group of Defense of Ichkeria.

In August 1996, his forces took part in the decisive raid on Grozny, where he personally led the attack on the city's central railway station.

Zakayev's war service paved his way to Chechen high politics.

He became the acting president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev's advisor for the security matters and the secretary of the Chechen Security Council and represented Chechnya at the peace talks in Khasav-Yurt, which brought a peaceful end to the first armed conflict between Moscow and Grozny.

He was also the Foreign Minister of the Ichkerian government, appointed by Aslan Maskhadov shortly after his 1997 election, and again in 2006 by Abdul Halim Sadulayev.

An active participant in the Russian-Chechen wars, Zakayev took part in the battles for Grozny and the defense of Goyskoye, along with other military operations, as well as in high-level negotiations with the Russian side.

After the war, Zakayev became Chechen Deputy Prime Minister (in charge of education and culture) and a special envoy of elected President of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov for relations with Moscow, taking part in the delegation that signed the official Chechen-Russian peace treaty at the Kremlin in 1997.

During the interwar period, he opposed the rise of radical Islam in Chechnya and co-authored a book entitled Wahhabism – the Kremlin's remedy against national liberation movements, alleging an association between Islamist extremism and Soviet global "pro-terrorist" policy and support for dictatorships in the Muslim world.

During the early phases of the Second Chechen War in 1999–2000, Zakayev commanded Maskhadov's presidential guard; he was also involved in negotiations with Russian representatives before and during the resumed hostilities.

In 2000, having been wounded in a car accident during the new siege of Grozny, he left Chechnya for treatment.

After this he stayed abroad and became President Maskhadov's most prominent representative in Western Europe, while Ilyas Akhmadov was the Chechen emissary to the United States.

On 18 November 2001, Zakayev, officially internationally wanted by Russia, flew from Turkey to the Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow to meet the Kremlin's envoy, General Viktor Kazantsev for the high-level talks since the start of the war.

These negotiations were fruitless because Kazantsev demanded a complete capitulation of the Chechen side, with the only acceptable topic for the Russian side being the disarmament of Chechen separatists and their re-integration into civilian life.

In 2002, Russia accused him, by then in exile, of having been involved in a series of crimes including involvement in acts of terrorism.

Since January 2002, Zakayev and his immediate family have been residing permanently in the United Kingdom.

On 18 July 2002, Zakayev also met with the former secretary of Security Council of Russia Ivan Rybkin in Zürich, Switzerland.

In October 2002, Zakayev organized the World Chechen Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark (which was attended among others by the former first speaker of the State Duma, Ruslan Khasbulatov).

During the congress, Zakayev was accused by Russia of involvement in planning of the Moscow theater hostage crisis.

He was detained there on 30 October 2002, under an Interpol warrant filed by Russia, which named him a suspect in the theater siege.

Zakayev denied involvement in the theater capture.

He was held in Denmark for five weeks and then released due to lack of evidence, as Russia's formal extradition request did not include any evidence linking him to the siege.

On 7 December 2002, Zakayev returned to the UK but the British authorities arrested him briefly at London Heathrow Airport; he was released on 50,000 GBP bail, which was paid by British actress Vanessa Redgrave, his friend who had travelled with him from Denmark.

He was accused by Russian authorities of 13 criminal acts.

Zakayev welcomed the British deportation hearings as an opportunity to put his case before an international public.

All accusations were proven to be false.

One accusation, cutting fingers of a suspected FSB informer Ivan Solovyov, was based on a written testimony by Zakayev's former bodyguard, Duk-Vakha Dushuyev, provided by Russian authorities; however, it appeared that Solovyev had lost his fingers much earlier to frostbite.

Dushuyev himself has escaped from Russia and then in his statement claimed that he was tortured at a Russian army base with electric shocks to extort the false testimony to be used against Zakayev.

In 2003, judge Timothy Workman of Bow Street Magistrates' Court in central London rejected the extradition request due to lack of evidence and declared the accusations to be politically motivated, also saying that there was substantial risk of Zakayev being tortured if he was returned to Moscow.

Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Zakayev has announced formation of the Separate Special Purpose Battalion of the Chechen Armed Forces, functioning as a Chechen volunteer battalion fighting with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.