What a time to be alive
Kadyrov claimed Thursday that the vehicle, which he said had been outfitted with a machine gun and was “performing well in combat,” had been shut down, adding Friday that he had sent two additional Tesla Cybertrucks to the frontline.
I definitely wouldn't, but this country almost never does something I'd want...
Are you Chechen? Neat, I love how this site has people from all over the world. What does the average Chechen think of Kadyrov? Western press always covers him basically the same way they do with Hezbollah as "scary evil foreign warlord," but he seems more like the Chechen equivalent of Erik Prince to me. His forces are under RF's official chain of command in the MoD, aren't they? He always gets the same kind of coverage they'd give Prigozhin prior to the weird coup attempt/protest thing and his "plane accident."
Yes, I'm Chechen, though I don't live in Chechnya, but all my family does.
Kadyrov isn’t very popular among many of us. He's often seen as a bit of a fool. His father, Akhmad Kadyrov, initially supported Chechen independence, but when the tide turned and chaos ensued due to sabotage by the Islamists, he switched sides and aligned with Russia to become the new ruler of Chechnya. Everything Ramzan has today, he owes to his father.
Ramzan himself is viewed as a dumb brute, someone who holds power but acts more like a ridiculous king. His rule is also very misogynistic and extremely homophobic; it's not surprising that he is homophobic given the prevailing attitudes in Chechen society and much of the Caucasus. The stories about the murder of gay Chechens are sadly true. He’s not a warlord because his army is part of the Russian forces and embedded within the Russian military structure.
That said, I am happy that things are peaceful now. The Islamist militants have been dealt with, and Chechens live much better today than in the 90s and 2000s, when there was widespread violence, kidnapping, and extreme poverty.
Interesting, thanks for the reply. As an American, I can't help but think of what you wrote about the Kadyrovs as sort of like a parallel to HW and W Bush here. (Well, not the independence movement part, but a dumb brute son of a former ruler owing everything to his last name.)
I feel like if the average American had a better understanding of the horrible austerity and neoliberalization of the Russian economy and their effects on the quality of life for the average person in the Russian Federation and former USSR under Yeltsin, they'd understand why Russia is the way it is now a lot better. I don't think that'd make US government policy towards Russia any better, but it might temper some of the ridiculous McCarthy-ish Russiagate conspiratorial paranoia of American liberals. The recent would-be golf course Trump shooter was made completely unhinged by that kind of media fixation and tried to start a foreign legion group to get Afghans to fight for Ukraine and travelled there to hang out in Kyiv and was so vehemently anti-Russia that he was a cheerleader for the Azov Battalion.