MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin made an unscheduled trip to Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim republic within the Russian Federation, on Tuesday, his first visit in nearly 13 years. cross-border invasion In Western Russia it entered its third week.
Putin was greeted by Chechnya self-proclaimed strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrovbefore visiting a special forces academy that bears his own name and speaking to volunteer fighters who train there before being deployed to Ukraine.
Putin praised the volunteers and said that as long as Russia has men like them, it will be “invincible,” according to reports from Russian state agencies.
Kadyrov said in a post on his official Telegram channels that more than 47,000 fighters, including volunteers, have trained at the facility since Moscow began what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Fighters from Chechnya, who waged a struggle for independence after the fall of the Soviet Union that led to years of war with Russian government forces, are taking part in both sides of the conflict in Ukraine.
Pro-Kiev volunteers loyal to Dzhokhar Dudayev, the late pro-independence Chechen leader, are sworn enemies of Chechen forces backing Putin and Kadyrov, who joined Russia in a months-long siege of Ukraine’s main port city, Mariupol, and other flashpoints in the country’s south and east.
Putin also visited the grave of Kadyrov’s father, former Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov, a command post and a mosque in the local capital Grozny on Tuesday.
The Kremlin has relied on Kadyrov to keep the North Caucasus stable after years of unrest. International human rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s security forces of extrajudicial killings, torture and kidnappings of dissidents, but Russian authorities have repeatedly blocked demands for investigations.
The Kremlin sent fighters from Chechnya to protect Moscow from a failed mutiny was launched last year by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, but some commentators warned that Kadyrov’s ambitions could also pose a threat to federal authorities.
As of Tuesday evening, neither the Kremlin nor Kadyrov had shared details about the purpose or timing of Putin’s surprise visit, with Kadyrov saying only that the Russian leader had a “busy schedule” ahead of him.
Later that evening, Putin met with Kadyrov at the Chechen leader’s residence in Grozny.
Earlier that day, Putin had met for the first time in nearly two decades with mothers of children killed in the attacks. School attack in 2004 by Islamic militants in Beslan, a city in the Caucasus province of North Ossetia, killing more than 330 people.
During the meeting, he criticized Kiev’s invasion of the Russian region of Kursk, accused Ukrainians of “trying to destabilize” the country and compared them to terrorists.
“We will punish the criminals. There can be no doubt about that,” he said.
