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Putin made a surprise visit to Chechnya, his first trip there since 2011.
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He was greeted by Chechnya’s self-proclaimed warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov.
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The visit comes as Ukraine invades Russia’s Kursk region.
The President of Russia Vladimir Putin visited Chechnya this week for the first time in 13 years.
He met Chechen leader and self-proclaimed warlord Ramzan Kadyrovbefore attending a special forces academy and speaking to fighters who would be sent to Ukraine.
“As long as we have men like you, we are absolutely, absolutely invincible,” Putin told troops at the training school, according to a transcript on the Kremlin website.
Kadyrov said on Telegram that more than 47,000 fighters, including volunteers, have trained at the facility since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Chechen resistance
Putin has tried to keep Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region in the North Caucasus, under Russian control since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Like Ukraine, Chechnya has a long history of resistance to Russian rule, as evidenced by a NPR Report,
The Chechen resistance has existed for at least two centuries.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya tried to break away from the Russian Federation. Under Boris Yeltsin, the Russians had to reach an agreement with the Chechens in 1996.
John Lough, a senior lecturer at Chatham House, told Business Insider that many in Moscow see this agreement as “far too generous, leaving the past open to further instability, not just in the North Caucasus, but in the Russian Federation more generally.”
Then-Prime Minister Putin took a much stronger stance against Chechnya, blaming Chechen militants for the apartment bombings and seizing the opportunity to launch a massive bombing campaign against the region, thus starting the Second Chechen War.
Experts believe that the Second Chechen War was crucial in cementing Putin’s reputation as a strongman.
In one of his most famous quotes, Putin said: “We will chase the terrorists everywhere. You will forgive me, but if we catch them in the toilet, we will exterminate them in the shithouse.”
“Putin signaled very early on that Chechnya was going to be subdued and that they were going to do it, whatever the cost. To that extent he has been successful,” Lough told BI.
Agreements with Ukraine
To many, Putin’s persistent claims of victory in Chechnya sound similar to his rhetoric on Ukraine. “Victory will be ours” is an oft-repeated phrase in his speeches about the war.
The use of heavy artillery, high civilian casualties and indiscriminate bombing in Ukraine are also reminiscent of his brutal decade-long campaign in Chechnya.
During the ongoing war, at least two all-Chechen battalions have fought on the Ukrainian side.
Meanwhile, Chechen leader Kadyrov has deployed Chechen military forces, sometimes referred to as Kadyrovtsy, to fight on Russia’s behalf since 2022.
The British Ministry of Defence estimated in May that around 9,000 troops were fighting in pro-Russian Chechen units in Ukraine. This includes the Chechen “TikTok” Forces at the front, filling the gaps left by the Wagner Group since it ceased its activities.
The visit comes as Ukrainian troops gain ground in Russia’s Kursk region.
The invasion, now in its third week, shocked both Moscow and Ukraine’s Western allies. It is seen as the largest attack by a foreign enemy on Russian soil since World War II.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, said on tuesday that its forces control approximately 1,263 square kilometers of Russian territory in Kursk and 93 settlements in that area.
Elsewhere in the war, however, Ukraine is struggling to hold on. Putin’s visit to a part of Russia that once fought for independence serves as a chilling warning of the fate that could still befall Ukraine.
Read the original article at Company Insider
