Once Russia’s most volatile region, Chechnya is bracing for succession

For two decades, Ramzan Kadyrov has been the Kremlin’s iron fist in Chechnya. In return for helping to brutally suppress an independence movement, he has been allowed to rule his region as a personal fief, crushing rivals and dissenters, as well as separatists.

But Kadyrov, 48, appears to be seriously ill, presenting President Vladimir Putin with a new challenge in a part of southern Russia where wars killed tens of thousands in the 1990s and 2000s. When the strongman leaves the scene, who can maintain the brutal control he has imposed over that part of the Caucasus?

Kadyrov’s own succession plan could be resting on his 17-year-old son, who got married and received congratulations from Putin over the weekend. But that would require circumventing Russian law requiring regional leaders to be at least 30 years old.

And there are other contenders, including a man who led an effort to round up and brutalize gay people and another who went off to fight for Russia in Ukraine.

Over the years, Kadyrov has become a unique figure in Putin’s autocracy, enjoying far more latitude and richer subsidies than other regional leaders. He commands what amounts to his own army. He has imposed strict Islamic rules in his mostly Muslim region that contravene Russian law, and he has conducted something of a foreign policy of his own, fostering ties with Gulf monarchies and taking positions that do not always align with the Kremlin’s.

Chechnya was the only region exempted from Russia’s conscription of about 300,000 men after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But the authorities did send some Chechens to the war as punishment, according to rights activists and local residents who spoke to The New York Times. And though Kadyrov committed some forces early in the war, it soon became clear they were not doing much fighting, earning themselves the nickname “TikTok soldiers.”

“Kadyrov is one of the Kremlin’s trump cards, another center of power, apart from the army, intelligence or the interior ministry,” Oleg Orlov, cochair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Memorial human rights group who has documented rights abuses in Chechnya since the 1990s, said in an interview. Despite his perceived transgressions, he added, “the Kremlin is happy with Kadyrov the way he is.”

What exactly ails Kadyrov is not clear, and the Russian authorities have not commented on the speculation and rumors that are staples of conversation in Chechnya and beyond. But his frailty has been increasingly evident since 2023 in videos shown on Russian news media.

In May, his office released a somber video showing Kadyrov, with a black hoodie over his head, walking in slow motion, with a message expressing disgust at the gossip about his health — but not refuting it.

“I’ve been hearing increasing rumors about my illness, that I’m about to die, I don’t have much time left,” says a voice-over that was not in Kadyrov’s own voice. “Every human walks the road of illness and death.”

“Only the One who gave us our breath can determine how long we have to live,” it adds.

Once an avid social media user who chaired public meetings almost every day, Kadyrov has disappeared from view for long stretches of time. In June, he appeared in local television news reports fewer than 10 times; in the same period last year, he was shown almost daily.

“People in Chechnya are following his health crises: It’s hard not to notice at these moments how ill he is,” Tumso Abdurakhmanov, an exiled critic of Kadyrov who survived an assassination attempt in Sweden, told the Times. “We see him at public events, how difficult it is for him to speak — no one has any doubts about his illness.”

In recent years, Kadyrov’s sons and daughters have been promoted to senior positions in the local government, from the police force to culture. This spring, his third son, Adam Kadyrov, 17, was appointed secretary of Chechnya’s Security Council and Kadyrov’s representative at the regional interior ministry. The teenager was also awarded two medals in the span of 10 days, including one for active military duty.

He is still far short of the age requirement for being appointed a regional leader. But Ramzan Kadyrov himself took power — though not the title — while still in his 20s, with Putin’s backing.

On Saturday, Kadyrov proudly posted on Telegram Putin’s congratulations for Adam’s lavish wedding.

Free speech in Chechnya was eradicated years ago, and no public criticism of Kadyrov and his family is allowed. But Chechens living in exile say friends and relatives back home are dismayed at the sight of a teenager who graduated high school last year chairing a meeting of security officials old enough to be his grandfather.

The scenes are “absurd; people are laughing at it,” said Abdurakhmanov, a popular blogger who fled Chechnya in 2016. “It’s utterly surreal to see adult men with veritable military distinctions give reports to and grovel in front of a child.”

Whether the younger Kadyrov might actually inherit his father’s power, or when, is unclear. Two other local politicians who rose in public profile in recent years are cited by analysts as contenders, though they have made no public comment about their own ambitions.

Magomed Daudov, a longtime ally of Ramzan Kadyrov who gained global notoriety in 2017 for reportedly leading an antigay purge in the region, now often chairs high-profile events in Kadyrov’s absence, reading out addresses from the ailing leader.

Another prospect with strong ties to the Kremlin is Apti Alaudinov, a 51-year-old former top Chechen security official who survived a dismissal in 2021 by signing up to fight in Ukraine, where he became one of the main frontline public speakers for Russian TV. His war credentials are highly valuable among Russia’s political class right now.

Ramzan Kadyrov’s father, Akhmad Kadyrov, was a religious leader supporting the rebels in the Chechen fight against Russia in the 1990s. The elder Kadyrov switched sides in 2000 — he is widely believed to have made a political bet that Chechnya would be better off with Russia than on its own — and Putin put him in charge of the region.

After his father was assassinated in 2004, Ramzan Kadyrov consolidated power. His rivals and critics have been gunned down at home and abroad, and his assault on human rights has resulted in an international outcry. His allies have been known to arbitrarily detain and torture people, and seize their property.

The Kremlin decided early on to essentially buy the loyalty of the family and stability in Chechnya with heavy government spending, leaving it to the Kadyrovs how to rule the region of 1.5 million people. Kadyrov’s appointment of his children to high-level posts gives them power over where that money flows and who is enriched by it.

Moscow’s generous treatment of Chechnya still raises eyebrows. Journalists in Kursk recently noted that Chechnya this year was getting some $700 million in government subsidies, about 15 times as much as the Kursk region, which is still recovering from a Ukrainian incursion and occupation.

Kadyrov has used Kremlin funds to train at least 25,000 troops, which analysts say functions as his private army despite a formal affiliation with Russian security forces.

The cash-for-stability arrangement is likely to stay, even after Kadyrov is gone, “as long as the federal government is strong and rich enough to bankroll Chechnya,” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

The Kremlin is unlikely to face any significant upheaval in Chechnya, she said, unless the subsidies dry up.

Residents of Chechnya, many of whom fear Kadyrov and his allies, are following the reports of his health with both hope and trepidation.

A 27-year-old resident of Grozny who requested anonymity out of fear for her safety, said Kadyrov’s protracted absence has brought subtle changes to their daily life.

Public events, which used to be led by Kadyrov, are rare, she said, and a “constant stream of threats from authorities on television” against critics or ordinary citizens has dried up.

“People are talking about his illness in a low voice, with a sense of anxiety,” she said. “They mostly feel sorry for him but also fear what will happen when he is gone.”