Ramzan Kadyrov

Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov (born 5 October 1976) is a Russian politician and current Head of the Chechen Republic.

He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist-appointed mufti of Chechnya.

He is a colonel general in the Russian military.

In the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union dissolved, the Chechens launched a bid for independence.

During the First Chechen War, together with his father, he fought against Russian armed forces.

After the war, Ramzan was the personal driver and bodyguard of his father Akhmad, who became the separatist mufti of Chechnya.

The Kadyrovite militia was formed during the First Chechen War, when Akhmad Kadyrov declared jihad against Russia.

The family defected to the Russian side at the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999.

Since then, Kadyrov led his militia with support from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), including the provision of service ID cards, becoming the head of the Chechen Presidential Security Service.

The militia later became known as the Kadyrovites.

He said that the war was already over with only 150 "bandits" remaining (as opposed to the official figures of 700 to 2,000 rebel fighters), and that thanks to his father, 7,000 separatists had already defected to the Russian side since 1999.

When responding to a question on how he is going to "avenge the murder of his father", Kadyrov said:

"I've already killed him, whom I ought to kill. And those, who stay behind him, I will be killing them, to the very last of them, until I am myself killed or jailed. I will be killing [them] for as long as I live... Putin is gorgeous. He thinks more about Chechnya than about any other republic [of the Russian Federation]. When my father was murdered, he [Putin] came and went to the cemetery in person. Putin has stopped the war. Putin should be made president for life. Strong rule is needed. Democracy is all but an American fabrication... Russians never obey their laws. Everyone was stealing, and only Khodorkovsky is in jail."

Kadyrov is the son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who switched sides in the Second Chechen War by offering his service to Vladimir Putin's administration in Russia and became Chechen president in 2003.

Akhmad Kadyrov was assassinated in May 2004.

He had an elder brother named Zelimkhan (1974–31 May 2004), and he has two elder sisters, Zargan (born 1971) and Zulay (born 1972).

The Q’adarġeran neqe, correspondent to the Kadyrov family in Chechen kinship, belongs to the Benoy teip.

Although the Benoy were among the wealthiest of the Chechen teips, their prolonged resistance to annexation by the Russian Empire was met with forced resettlement during the last years of the Caucasian War.

Kadyrov strove to gain the respect of his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was an imam.

He claims that he always emulated his father.

Akhmad had supported the call for jihad against Russians during the First Chechen War but switched sides and declared allegiance to Russia in the Second Chechen War.

After his father, the then President, was assassinated on 9 May 2004, Ramzan was appointed as the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic on 10 May 2004.

When his sister was detained by the Dagestan police in January 2005, Kadyrov and some 150 armed men drove to the Khasavyurt City Police (GOVD) building.

According to the city mayor, Kadyrov's men surrounded the GOVD, forcing its duty officers against a wall, and assaulted them, after which they left the building with Zulay Kadyrova, "victoriously shooting in the air."

In August 2005, Kadyrov declared that "Europe's largest mosque" would be built in place of the demolished ruins of Grozny's shattered downtown.

He also claimed that Chechnya is the "most peaceful place in Russia" and in a few years it would also be "the wealthiest and the most peaceful" place in the world.

He remained the First Deputy Prime Minister until November 2005.

Following a car accident in November 2005, in which Chechnya's prime minister Sergey Abramov was injured, Kadyrov was appointed as the caretaker prime minister on 18 November 2005.

In February 2007, Ramzan Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as president, shortly after he had turned 30, which is the minimum age for the post.

He was engaged in violent power struggles with Chechen commanders Sulim Yamadayev (d. 2009) and Said-Magomed Kakiyev for overall military authority, and with Alkhanov for political authority.

Since November 2015, he has been a member of the Advisory Commission of the State Council of the Russian Federation.

Kadyrov frequently employs totalitarian and repressive tactics in his rule of the Chechen Republic.

Over the years, he has come under criticism from international organizations for a wide array of human rights abuses under his government, with Human Rights Watch calling the forced disappearances and torture so widespread that they constituted crimes against humanity.

During his tenure, he has advocated restricting the public lives of women, and led anti-gay purges in the Republic.

Kadyrov has been frequently accused of involvement in the kidnapping, assassination, and torture of human rights activists, critics, and their relatives, within both Chechnya and other regions of the Russian Federation, as well as abroad, through the political use of police and military forces.

He publicly denies these accusations.

Kadyrov has adopted a hypermasculine image in public, frequently posing with guns and military garb or displaying his wealth and opulence.

The Kadyrov family has enriched itself considerably during its rule of the Chechen Republic; the Russian Federation dispenses extensive funding to the Chechen government, while the distinction between the Chechen government and Kadyrov is blurry.

Kadyrov was born in Tsentaroy, in the Checheno-Ingush ASSR, in the Russian SFSR, part of the Soviet Union.

He was the second son in Akhmad and Aimani Kadyrov's family and their youngest child.