There has been no shortage of rumors and theories swirling around the Kremlin over the past two weeks centered around Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

No images of Putin have been released to the public since March 5, an uncommonly long absence from the spotlight for Moscow's demagogic leader. Putin's exit from the public has stirred rumors of ill health and possible death across the Russian blogosphere. 

However, there may be a more realistic reason for his disappearance — the February 27 assassination of prominent Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. 

"He's also dealing with a significant internal challenge: It's extremely unlikely he ordered Nemtsov's killing, but it was clearly an inside job,"Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, told Business Insider. "Dealing with that is surely his top priority."

Nemtsov was gunned down within sight of the Kremlin's walls in Moscow. The assassination has triggered rumors that Russia's political elite may be fracturing in response to the killing. Putin could be struggling to contain the fissures growing within his government. 

There are rumors and speculation that Nemtsov's assassination may have been intended as a threat to Putin by a group within his government as part of a power play. 

"I think that perhaps Putin, even completely sincerely, was bewildered and even afraid," Vadim Prokhorov, Nemtsov's lawyer, told Reuters on February 27. "Because if you can do that next to the Kremlin, then is it not possible to do it along the route of the (presidential) motorcade?"

One of the leading theories into the murder blames the assassination on five Muslims from the Caucasus who were reportedly infuriated by Nemtsov's support for Charlie Hebdo. Of those five, one, Zaur Dadayev, was a senior police officer from Chechnya. 

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov called Dadayev a "true patriot of Russia" after he was arrested for the murder. Kadyrov, a former Chechen warlord with strong ties to the Kremlin, gained power after he helped Moscow put down an insurgency in the region. In response, Putin gave Kadyrov semi-autonomy to rule Chechnya as he saw fit. 

This arrangement has proved fruitful for both Kadyrov and Putin. However, there are theories that Kadyrov may have over played his hand — Chechens with links to the regions intelligence services have frequently been arrested in high profile murders throughout Russia.

Reuters also reports that Kadyrov often is at odds with Russia's internal security services. Both blocks hold substantial sway within the Kremlin.

SEE ALSO: Here are the best theories about why Putin has disappeared

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The people who killed Boris Nemtsov, a liberal politician, on February 27th, did not expect to be arrested. That was clear from their impudence.

Having shot Mr Nemtsov in the back, in the heart of Moscow, they did not cross the river to leave the city centre. Instead, they circled the Kremlin, passed the Duma, Russia's parliament, and turned into a well-lit, half-pedestrian street. They did not even burn their getaway car.

Such brazen behaviour raised suspicions that the killers might be Chechen hitmen, of the sort who work for Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya, who has hitherto been a big friend of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. Now some are wondering whether the seemingly solid pact between Mr Putin and Mr Kadyrov (pictured above) may have become too costly for the Russian leader.

An ex-warlord, Mr Kadyrov was plucked out of obscurity by the Russian president and put in charge of the once mutinous Caucasian republic, succeeding his father who had been assassinated. Mr Putin has let Mr Kadyrov ignore Russian laws and settle scores freely. In the past decade, Chechnya has virtually become a separate Islamic state under Mr Kadyrov's rule. He has his own 20,000-strong army, his own (informal) tax system and his own religious laws.

As Russia's strongest regional leader, Mr Kadyrov extends his influence right across the country. His security men have special status in Moscow. After the Federal Security Service (FSB), the alma mater of Mr Putin, arrested a group of Mr Kadyrov's men over kidnappings, torture and extortion in the capital, the suspects walked free.

Several nasty murders have highlighted Chechen impunity. When Anna Politkovskaya, a brave reporter, was killed in 2006, the main suspect went to Chechnya and lived near Mr Kadyrov. He was jailed for life after a probe by the dead woman's colleagues, but those who ordered the killing were not named. After the death of Natalia Estemirova, a human-rights activist slain in Chechnya after threats from Mr Kadyrov, nobody was held responsible.

One of Mr Kadyrov's old rivals, Ruslan Yamadaev, was shot dead in rush-hour traffic, next to a public building in Moscow. His brother, who had led a pro-Russian unit against Georgia, was assassinated in Dubai, where police issued a warrant for Adam Delimkhanov, Mr Kadyrov's right-hand man and relative. In 2009 Mr Kadyrov's ex-security guard, who had spoken of torture and executions carried out by his old bosses, was killed in Vienna.

Few were surprised on March 8th when Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB, announced that five men had been detained over the murder of Mr Nemtsov, including Zaur Dadaev, an ex-commander of the "North battalion", made up of Mr Kadyrov's irregular forces. Indeed, the only person who seemed shocked was Mr Kadyrov, who has made odd statements since the Nemtsov killing. On the day of the murder, he wrote on his Instagram account that Western spooks were to blame. After Mr Dadaev's arrest, he spoke out again: "I knew Zaur as a true patriot...he is devoted to Russia and was always ready to give his life for it. Even if the court confirms his guilt...he could not have taken a step against Russia." (Soon after, Mr Dadaev retracted his confession.)

In his Instagram statement, Mr Kadyrov hinted that Mr Nemtsov might have been killed for condemning the terrorist attack on the French weekly Charlie Hebdo. The Chechen leader's own reaction to the events in Paris was different: he led a vast rally in his capital Grozny against Charlie Hebdo, not the killing of its staff.

The Russian security services claim that Mr Dadaev and his men planned and carried out Mr Nemtsov's murder. That raises many questions. Few observers believe that anything involving Chechen fighters occurs without Mr Kadyrov's and Mr Delimkhanov's knowledge. But the same probably goes for the FSB, whose agents trailed Mr Nemtsov. As ever in Russia there are more theories than facts. Some wonder whether the FSB has exploited the killing to settle scores with Mr Kadyrov.

There is no love lost between senior Russian military and security officers and the Kadyrov camp. Russian officers in Chechnya resent the political authority and conspicuous wealth of Chechens who were once their foes. In 2010 Russian forces accused the North battalion of betraying them in a clash with rebels. While swearing loyalty to Mr Putin, at home Mr Kadyrov boasts of having won independence not by fighting Moscow but by milking it.

Mr Kadyrov's reaction to the arrest of Mr Dadaev suggests a hard struggle between forces previously united around Mr Putin: the FSB and his Chechen friends. As Novaya Gazeta, a liberal paper, wrote: "Two pillars of Kremlin support bashed their heads and are now moving in the opposite directions, forcing the Kremlin to choose which is a true patriot of Russia."

The stakes are high; Mr Putin is trying to preserve at least the appearance of stability, and this week went ahead with a planned award to Mr Kadyrov. Should the Chechen leader lose Kremlin support, he and his male progeny may be at risk because he has many "blood enemies". Mr Putin also needs Mr Kadyrov to keep order in Chechnya.

But the bond is unstable. "The contract between Kadyrov and Putin--money in exchange for loyalty--is coming to an end. Where will Mr Kadyrov's 20,000 men go? What will they demand? How will they act? When will they come to Moscow?" Those rhetorical questions were posed by Mr Nemtsov shortly before his death.

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I am about to post a long piece on the Ukraine crisis derived from a talk I gave last week at Berkeley. I have indulged myself, however, and allowed it to grow too long for the average reader.

So what follows is an eight-point summary of the argument for those with less patience, which should give a quick idea of where the crisis is heading and why it remains so dangerous.

1: The US and its NATO allies have been taking significant steps to build up NATO’s eastern defenses since Russia annexed Crimea early last year, and those measures are going to continue. They have also been providing military assistance to Ukraine, and that assistance is going to increase. If the fighting in eastern Ukraine ramps up again, it is very likely that the US and at least some of its NATO allies will begin providing lethal weapons to Kiev, which will likely mean an all-out proxy war between the West and Russia in Ukraine. It might also precipitate an open Russian invasion of Ukraine.

2: Western governments are increasing military assistance to Georgia, and NATO membership for Georgia (as well as for Ukraine) has not been taken off the table. Indeed, Western officials continue to signal that Georgia is on a path toward eventual NATO accession.

3: Not just the Kremlin but the Russian political elite and public broadly view all this as extremely provocative, as an illegitimate encroachment on Russia’s rightful sphere of influence, and as a threat to Russian national security. While many Westerners find those interpretations implausible and unwarranted given Russia’s behavior towards its neighbors, it does not really matter what they think as far as the risk of war goes. What matters is what Moscow thinks.

4: Although Russian officials have made very clear that Moscow views NATO’s military response to the Ukraine crisis as threatening and illegitimate, the Kremlin’s redlines are not particularly clear. Nor is it clear how it will react if those redlines are crossed, openly or covertly.

5: Nonetheless, the Kremlin will take countermeasures one way or the other, and it will do so in part asymmetrically. That is, it will respond not only in Ukraine but in the Middle East, East Asia, the Arctic, and so on, and it will make moves in arenas where it believes it has a comparative advantage, such as brinksmanship, including nuclear brinksmanship, or cyberwar by proxy. (I outlined some of these possible responses in earlier posts, but see in particular “No own-goals at the September NATO summit,” posted on June 16, 2014.) Part of Moscow’s response will be political and economic in nature, but a good part – and the most dangerous part – will be military.

6: Moscow’s response is also going to be guided by a (doubtless correct) assumption that the Russian public has a much higher pain threshold, and a considerably higher tolerance for risk, than either the US or especially West European public.

7: The current confrontation between Russia and the West entails a risk of a military clash between NATO and Russia. I would characterize it as a kind of Black Swan-type risk – not in the sense that it is inherently unpredictable, but in the sense that it is a low probability event with potentially enormous and unforeseeable consequences.

8: The current goings on in and around the Kremlin (notably Putin’s apparent health problems, the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, a possible challenge to Kremlin authority from the Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, and signs of serious differences among elite factions in Moscow) only add uncertainty to an already uncertain, and dangerous, relationship between Russia and the West. I believe they should be viewed a wildcard factor that makes risk assessment all the more difficult, not as signs of Putin’s imminent demise or a change of direction in foreign or domestic policy.

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It's not everyday that LifeNews gets raided. And when it does, it is usually a signal that something pretty significant is going on.

LifeNews, of course, is a pro-Kremlin "news" organization with close ties to the Federal Security Service (FSB). In fact, it's practically an adjunct of the FSB. It's used for all sorts of purposes, such as smearing Kremlin opponents, planting disinformation, and floating trial balloons.

To raid LifeNews you need to have some serious juice behind you.

So what's going on? It's early yet, but there are a few data points out there to connect.

According to initial press reports and a statement on the LifeNews website, the raid was triggered by a complaint that one of its reports on crimes against minors revealed personal information about the victims. Russian law prohibits news organizations from revealing any identifying information about underage crime victims.

But of course, nothing in Russia is ever that simple. Pro-Kremlin outfits rarely, if ever, get targeted in cases like this. And when they do, it is invariably the result of some kind of palace intrigue.

The complaint against LifeNews's report came from the rights organization Soprotivlenie, or Resistance. The group is run by Olga Kostina, the wife of political fixer Konstantin Kostin.

Currently, Kostin runs a think tank called the Civil Society Development Foundation. But he has a long Kremlin resume. He worked on Boris Yeltsin's 1996 reelection, on Vladimir Putin's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, and on Dmitry Medvedev's in 2008.

He also served in the Kremlin's political department from 2008-12. And significantly — and this is where it gets really interesting — he is widely considered to be one of Vladislav Surkov's chief lieutenants. In fact, Kremlin-watchers have long considered him Surkov's right-hand-man. 

So is this the hand of Surkov? The evidence is highly circumstantial — but worth considering.

Once the Kremlin's chief spin doctor and ideologist, Surkov has seen his influence wane considerably since Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012. He lost his position as deputy Kremlin chief of staff and chief political operative to Vyacheslav Volodin, a bitter rival.

But Putin is known to value Surkov and kept him close as a Kremlin adviser. He has played a major role in the Ukraine crisis and is widely believed to covet his old job and status.

And, oh by the way, Surkov is a close ally of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. And since the February 27 assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Kadyrov has been locked in a bitter struggle with whom? The FSB.

Again, it is very early and all this is very circumstantial. But my initial reaction to the raid on LifeNews is that it seems to be one of those data points that suggests some serious — and potentially consequential — Kremlin infighting.

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Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed strongman who heads Russia's Chechnya region, has told law enforcement officers they should "shoot to kill" security forces from other parts of Russia that conduct operations in Chechnya without its consent.

Kadyrov made the remarks at an April 21 meeting with law enforcement officers in Chechnya's capital, Grozny.

Footage from local channel Grozny TV shows Kadyrov saying: "I am officially stating, if any [security officer], whether from Moscow or Stavropol, appears on your territory without your knowledge, shoot to kill. They have to take us into account."

The remark appears certain to deepen concerns that it's becoming increasingly risky for President Vladimir Putin to rely on Kadyrov to maintain control over Chechnya.

His comment comes amid growing evidence of tension between Kadyrov and some Russian law enforcement officials.

The trigger for Kadyrov's outburst was the April 19 killing in Grozny of a Chechen man, Dzhambulat Dadayev, by police from the neighboring Stavropol region along with a joint unit from the Russian Interior Ministry.

Putin has long depended on Kadyrov to maintain control over Chechnya, which the Kremlin has rebuilt at great expense following two devastating post-Soviet separatist wars.

The region is still plagued by an Islamist insurgency.

Rights activists accuse Kadyrov of condoning abuses, imposing his own idiosyncratic version of Islam, ignoring Russia's constitution, and creating a climate of fear to keep the Islamist insurgency and separatism in check.

Kadyrov himself has been accused of sending security forces under his control beyond the borders of the region to conduct operations in Moscow and elsewhere.

Tension between the Chechen leader and Russian security agencies has increased in the wake of the slaying of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a critic of both Putin and Kadyrov who was gunned down steps from the Kremlin on February 27.

With reporting by Slon.ru and Interfax

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A 17-year-old girl was forced to marry a man who was already married and at least 30 years older than her in "the wedding of the millennium."

The incident has raised legal and ethical issues in Russia and its republic Chechnya.

Luiza Goilabiyeva, called Kheda, 17, was married on Saturday to Chechen police officer Nazhud Guchigov, who was originally reported to be 57 (though he says he is 46), is already married, and has children who are older than his new bride.

The Russian investigative paper Novaya Gazeta reported that Goilabiyeva was being forced to marry a local official. He reportedly threatened her parents, demanding that he marry her on the day of her 17th birthday, May 1, and even warned that he would kidnap Goilabiyeva.

"He is married and has children. She's younger than his children. The Chechen woman is powerless; she can expect help from nowhere," one of Goilabiyeva's girlfriends posted, according to The Daily Beast. "Kheda told him that she has a boyfriend, but it was disregarded. They say that her boyfriend was beaten half to death."

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who attended the wedding ceremony, accused the media of "inaccurately depicting the situation and meddling in the couple's private lives," according to The Moscow Times.

"I am sure those who unceremoniously interfered for a long time in the private lives of Nazhud and Luiza will answer in court," Kadyrov, who is rumored to also have a second wife, wrote on his Instagram on Friday. "The appropriate actions are already being prepared."

He then dubbed this "the wedding of the millennium," right up there with Prince William and Kate Middleton's "wedding of the century."

'Kadyrov still has Putin's carte blanche in Chechnya'

Neither polygamous nor underage marriages are permitted under Russian law (though certain clauses allow for marriage at 16 under special circumstances).

This wedding, however, has been registered as an official partnership, as evidenced by the stamps placed in the newlyweds' passports, a formality for married couples.

So the sticky legal issue is that the wedding calls in question how much legal autonomy Chechnya, technically located in Russia but effectively run by Kadyrov, actually has.

"The rule of law does not exist in Chechnya in cases concerning Kadyrov's friends," Sergei Babinets, a member of the Joint Mobile Group, an organization of human-rights defenders in Chechnya, told Anna Nemtsova at The Daily Beast.

"I am sure that the FSB [the Russian secret police] have many files on crimes committed by Kadyrov," Babinets continued. "One day their patience will come to the critical point, but for now Kadyrov still has Putin's carte blanche in Chechnya."

"By justifying this scandalous wedding, Russia demonstrated moral degradation, we are rolling several centuries back in moral development, it seems,"said Timur Olevsky, Russian television correspondent for Rain.

'For us it is a norm'

Nobody in the Russian government publically spoke out against this highly publicized wedding. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Russian children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov outraged many last week by coming out in favor of older men marrying teens.

"Emancipation and sexual maturity come earlier in the Caucasus, let's not be hypocritical. There are places where women are already shriveled by the age of 27, and look about 50 to us," Astakhov told Russian News Service radio on Thursday.

He later offered a weak and flowery apology in an Instagram post featuring a Madonna and Child, writing that "women of any age are wonderful and delightful."

This situation is simply not considered a problem in Chechnya.

"For us it is a norm,"Goilabiyeva said.

"Many generations of Chechens grew up in polygamist families," Chechen journalist Milana Mazayeva told The Daily Beast. "My own grandmother and other relatives had several mothers. They did not know who their real mother was."

Regardless of all the ethical and legal issues, this wedding took place with virtually no reaction — even from the bride, who kept her head lowered throughout most of the video footage of the wedding.

"All ages must submit to love," Kadyrov said, quoting a line from one of the most famous Russian novels, "Eugene Onegin" by Alexander Pushkin.

Apparently under Kadyrov, all ages must submit to technically illegal, forced polygamous marriages as well.

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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov responded to criticism of the forced marriage of 17-year-old Kheda Goylabiyeva to the republic's police chief, Nazhud Guchigov — who is 30 years her senior — by telling men to "lock in" their wives to prevent them from posting on WhatsApp.

The BBC reports that the Chechen warlord turned key Kremlin ally, who was present at the wedding, said:

"Stop. Behave like Chechens. Family honour is the most important thing.

"Do not write such things. Men, do take your women out of WhatsApp. Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything."

The story has garnered fierce criticism in Russia since the Russian investigative paper Novaya Gazeta reported that Goylabiyeva was being forced to marry a local official. He reportedly threatened her parents, demanding that he marry her on the day of her 17th birthday, May 1, and even warned that he would kidnap Goylabiyeva if she attempted to leave her house.

Photos from the wedding last weekend quickly spread across social media, with commenters noting that the bride-to-be looked devastated throughout and kept her eyes fixed on the floor.

Лорд ведет невесту #грозныйpic.twitter.com/vk9eAh3Hn2

— Sergey Ponomarev (@SergeyPonomarev) May 16, 2015

Церемония #грозный#свадьбаpic.twitter.com/HEqbCW9J8l

— Sergey Ponomarev (@SergeyPonomarev) May 16, 2015

Guchigov is still married to his first wife, with whom he has a son and who was pictured alongside his new bride on the day of the wedding.

The Kremlin has also come under fire after the government's children's rights ombudsman appears to give his support to the union, despite polygamy being illegal in Russia. In a post on Instagram he said: "No crimes have been committed, and information about the violation of the underaged girl's rights has not been confirmed."

Kadyrov previously claimed the anger over the wedding was "ordered by some liberal gentlemen" and the Novaya Gazeta story was "full of lies."

Given the Kremlin's desire to keep the peace in the troubled North Caucasus region, it is unlikely to press the point with its friendly strongman who has pledged his life in support of President Vladimir Putin. It is highly unlikely, however, that those who have campaigned against these forced marriages will be so easily calmed.

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Chechnya’s macho leader Ramzan Kadyrov is the most loyal of Vladimir Putin’s regional heads, at least in theory.

Grozny’s central street is called Putin Avenue, and the lampposts lining it are adorned with the Russian tricolour. Putin’s portrait looks down from dozens of buildings across the city, and Kadyrov’s Instagram account, his main method of communication with the outside world, is full of protestations that he is a “foot soldier,” supremely loyal to Russia’s great leader.

But recent events, especially the murder of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, have led to renewed debate over whether the Kremlin’s political control over the region, won back after two gruesome wars in the post-Soviet years, may be loosening.

While pledging a feudal-like loyalty to Moscow, Kadyrov has been provided billions of roubles to rebuild Grozny, which has been transformed from a ruined shell reminiscent of Stalingrad to a modern city studded with shiny Dubai-style skyscrapers. Wealthy locals dine in the 32nd-floor restaurant at Grozny City, a five-star hotel, the football team plays at a newly renovated stadium.

But Kadyrov has also built up his own private armies. In an extraordinary address to thousands of his troops, gathered in fatigues and armed in Grozny’s main stadium in December, a black-shirted Kadyrov said his men were ready to fight for the motherland at any time.

“America and Europe have declared an economic war on Russia,” he declared to the assembled ranks of fighters. “But the Russian people have rallied around their leader Vladimir Putin … Long live our great motherland Russia! Long live our national leader Vladimir Putin! Allah-u Akbar!”

The pictures were not widely broadcast on Russian television, and the sight of a regional leader commanding such a fierce army gave many pause for thought. 

“One theory is that this was a genuine show of loyalty to Putin, while another theory is that it was actually a warning, showing everyone that Chechen forces have this extraordinary potential. Of course, it’s quite likely that both of these theories are true,” said Grigory Shvedov, editor in chief of Caucasian Knot, one of the only independent news sites specialising in Russia’s North Caucasus region.

Kadyrov’s forces have long had a dubious reputation. For many years, rights activists and analysts have worried that the rebuilding of Chechnya has come at a huge price, both in terms of money and in terms of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses committed by Kadyrov’s battalions and special units.

On Wednesday, one of the last human rights groups in the republic said a large mob of people had gathered outside its office, smashing windows and destroying its car, apparently accusing it of fighting an “information war” against Chechnya for documenting rights abuses. The group already had its offices in Grozny burned down in December.

This kind of attack on rights groups or freedom of speech has long been considered the price Moscow has to pay for keeping Chechnya under its formal control. But the assassination of Nemtsov, in the shadow of the Kremlin, has led many to wonder whether Chechnya has slipped too far out of Moscow’s orbit.

Investigators arrested several Chechens in connection with Nemtsov’s murder, including a deputy commander of one of Kadyrov’s special battalions. Russian agencies reported that one of the main suspects, Ruslan Geremeyev, who is close to Kadyrov, was being guarded in a Chechen village and was later helped to flee the country. Kadyrov wrote on his Instagram account that Zaur Dadayev, one of the arrested men, is “a true patriot of Russia.”

In recent days, there have been reports that investigators have a video of Dadayev saying goodbye to Geremeyev at the airport in Moscow in the days after the killing. The trail appeared to lead directly to the Chechen leader. 

Joining the dots between the investigators’ leaks in the press and Kadyrov’s Instagram belligerence, many analysts have speculated there is a battle going on between different parts of Putin’s security services: those who want to take Kadyrov down, and those who believe he must be protected at all costs to stop Chechnya sliding into chaos.

A former Kremlin insider told the Guardian earlier this year that “nobody in Moscow has ever liked Kadyrov” because no state bodies work normally in Chechnya: not the police, prosecutors office or courts. A source in Grozny confirmed that almost everyone in a position of power in the republic is locally appointed, with just a few people in the FSB security service coming from Moscow.

Ten days after Nemtsov’s murder, as the Russian media was full of speculation linking those close to Kadyrov to the hit, the Kremlin announced Kadyrov would receive the Order of Honour, a top state award. It was read by many as a sign that the Chechen leader is untouchable. Lawyers for Nemtsov’s family want Kadyrov himself questioned over the killing, but that appears unlikely.

Some play down the idea of a feud between the FSB and Kadyrov, and point out instead the usefulness of the Chechen leader. Andrei Soldatov, a specialist on the Russian security services, said he believes talk of a full-blown feud is exaggerated. The FSB needs Kadyrov, he believes: “Links with western security services are important for the FSB leadership and the main thing Russia has to share is information on people going to Syria to fight. The main source of this information is Kadyrov.”

Others say that while Kadyrov may have become more unruly, the Kremlin’s new antagonism with the west makes him more important than ever. “With the events in Ukraine and the changing political climate, I think there has been a much greater need for Ramzan over the last year,” said Shvedov. “Kadyrov is a unique politician on the Russian scene. What other local leader could rail at the west in the same way he does, or personally insult Obama? They would be too worried about their houses in California and so on, but Kadyrov can and does speak his mind freely.” 

But the tension has at times spilled out into the public domain, an extremely rare occurrence in Putin’s “power vertical.”

Kadyrov reacted furiously to a “special operation” carried out in Grozny by special police troops from nearby Stavropol region, which led to the wanted man being shot dead. Kadyrov ordered Chechen law enforcement that they should “shoot to kill” any police officers from other regions who came to Chechnya without informing local authorities first.

The Interior Ministry in Moscow reacted with a statement that the outburst was unacceptable, and Kadyrov’s words quickly disappeared from local television broadcasts. Later, the Chechen leader said he had been misinterpreted.

Last month, exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia foundation released a film about Kadyrov’s Chechnya. “Russia’s policies in Chechnya will lead to the creation of two dangerous enemies – Ramzan Kadyrov’s clan and the people of Chechnya. Sooner or later, one or the other of them will start a war with us,” wrote Khodorkovsky in an accompanying article.

Kadyrov’s response, as usual, came on Instagram. With the somewhat sinister title “If you haven’t understood by now, you soon will.” The supposed “trailer” for the “film” featured Kadyrov running across a plain, weapon in hand. He wrote it was directed by a Hollywood star and featured “international A-list stars.” Given there is almost certainly no Hollywood film, it felt like a threat.

“Kadyrov has done everything to rebuild the republic, everything is thanks to him,” said a former member of one of Kadyrov’s militias in an interview in Grozny over the weekend. “But if you’ve read anything of Caucasus history, you’ll know this is unlikely to be the end. We can never trust Russia, and there is sure to be more trouble in the future.”

Another contentious incident was the marriage of a 17-year-old schoolgirl to a middle-aged police chief who already had a wife. Kadyrov intervened after human rights activists criticised the marriage, and the chief of his administration personally brought the bride to the registry office. In the days after the marriage, Kadyrov gathered a group of locals who had “spread rumours” about the marriage. It was not made clear how they were identified.  

He blamed gossiping women for spreading rumours about the marriage using WhatsApp and called on men to ensure their female family members did not spend time using the app.

“Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything,” he said, according to translation from Chechen language by Russian media.

“Family honour is the most important thing. Do not write such things. Men, take your women out of WhatsApp.”

Some say allowing Kadyrov so much breathing space risks provoking the very war Russia is so keen to prevent.

“It turns out the price for Russia of ‘peace’ in the Caucasus is the de facto semi-independence of Chechnya, which our regime has to accept because it can’t keep ‘constitutional order’ in the Caucasus without Kadyrov and his personal army,” wrote Gennady Gudkov, an opposition politician former KGB officer who sat on the Duma’s security committee until recently, in a column.

“Of course we can just pretend that Chechnya is a part of Russia just like Yaroslavl, Sakhalin or Petersburg. That’s what we did at the end of the 1980s when the USSR’s laws stopped working in this proud Caucasus republic. And we know what happened then. Are we risking a repeat?”

Some Chechens express love for Kadyrov and say a place such as Chechnya can only be governed with strong rule. Even for many Chechens who are uneasy about Kadyrov’s role, the memories of a decade living amid war and chaos are still fresh, and most people say they are willing to put up with a lot to avoid war.

Many locals say Russian criticism of Chechnya’s existence outside Russia’s legal system is unfair. Polygamy is fairly widespread in Chechnya, explained partly by local traditions and partly by a shortage of menfolk after all the tragedies the Chechens have experienced in recent decades.

“The Qur’an gives men the right to have up to four wives,” said Murad, the eldest of 25 children that his now-deceased father had with three separate wives. “What man wouldn’t want several wives? It’s never been a problem here. In Russia they do the same thing, it’s just there they call it having a mistress. Here it’s official and honest.”

At a wake on Saturday in Grozny, held for a well-known Soviet-era wrestling trainer who had just passed away, the smell of sweat wafted through the air as the men performed the zikr, a sufi-inspired local tradition of prayer and swirling dance, while the headscarved women prepared hunks of meat and a giant vat of soup.

The scene felt far removed from Moscow. But there was bemusement among the guests over the idea that by operating according to sharia law rather than the Russian constitution, Chechnya was somehow more lawless than the rest of Russia.

“There they ignore the law and here we ignore the law. It’s just that there it’s based on wealth and corruption, and here it comes from Allah,” said one.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk 

This article was written by Shaun Walker in Grozny from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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It is hard to avoid the gaze of Russian President Vladimir Putin when traveling around the region of Chechnya. His portraits adorn public buildings, apartment blocks, highways and airport terminals, encouraging a cult of personality that is far more pervasive in Chechnya than anywhere else in Russia.

The reason has to do with Moscow’s desire to keep Chechnya under control. In the 1990s, Russia fought two wars to prevent the region from breaking away, and Putin’s ascent to the presidency in 2000 was fueled by his victory over the Chechen separatists that year.

Since then, Chechnya has undergone a striking transformation. Its cities have been rebuilt with money from Moscow. All traces of its separatist rebellion have been suppressed. And most importantly, a new generation has been raised to respect—at times even to worship—the Russian leader and his local proxies. With no clear memories of the wars for independence, the young people of Chechnya are now the best guarantee that Russia’s hold over the region will persist.

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The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has vowed that the Islamic State (IS) group will not gain a foothold in Chechnya.

"We hear from 'Iblis State' that they have opened some kind of affiliate in the North Caucasus and that their scope is expanding," said Kadyrov, using his own term for IS that replaces the word "Islamic" with an Arabic word meaning the devil.

"I want to say that these Satans shouldn't expect anything, and in the Chechen Republic they won't have a base, an affiliate, and there won't even be a whiff of them," added Kadyrov, a staunch Kremlin loyalist.

'Wilayat al-Qawqaz'

Kadyrov's remarks, published on the official website of the Chechen government on July 15, are the first time the Chechen strongman has openly responded to IS's declaration of a new "province" in the North Caucasus. 

IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani announced the establishmentof "Wilayat al-Qawqaz" ("Caucasus Province") on June 26, some days after militants from Chechnya, Ingushetia, Daghestan, and Kabardino-Balkaria issued an audio statement pledging allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

IS lauded the development in a recent edition of its English-language magazine, Dabiq, on July 13.

'IS Devils'

While IS has made much of Wilayat al-Qawqaz, in reality the extremist group has no territorial control over the North Caucasus. Neither has IS shown any signs that it is prepared to inject fighters or money into the local insurgency.

But the move has clearly rattled Kadyrov, who has always been extremely sensitive to the fact that Chechen militants are fighting in Syria and Iraq.

The Chechen strongman made his anti-IS threats during a snap inspection of Chechnya's special units, who carried out counterterrorism training drills in Kadyrov's ancestral village of Tsentaroy on July 14.

Kadyrov insisted the drills were to help special forces prepare to deal with "small groups and especially against lone terrorists."

Kadyrov's 'Cubs'?

In a strange twist, Kadyrov's show of strength against would-be militants ironically, and perhaps subconsciously, echoes IS propaganda.

A video of the drills and inspections posted on Kadyrov's VKontakte account shows the Chechen strongman with a group of armed children dressed in military fatigues. IS has regularly produced videos of child militants, whom it calls "cubs."

Footage of Kadyrov inspecting his troops recalls video images of IS's ethnic Kist commander, Umar al-Shishani, reviewing his fighters. 

Kadyrov's video also shows troops traveling in camouflaged cars, a popular feature of photos shared by IS's North Caucasian brigade, Al Aqsa.

Blame Western Intelligence (Again)

Kadyrov's concern over IS's establishment of a "province" in the North Caucasus is further apparent in remarks the Chechen leader made on his VKontakte social media account on July 14.

Although he did not refer to IS's announcement of affiliates in the North Caucasus, Kadyrov said that the country needed "more hard work to identify with those who even sympathize with the 'Iblis State'."

The Chechen leader reiterated views expressed previously that Islamic State is a foreign organization aided by Western intelligence that seeks to undermine and even destroy the Chechen Republic.

"Severe measures" must be taken to prevent Chechens from thinking they can "commit crimes in Chechnya to someone else's tune," he said.

"However, our main task is preventative work," Kadyrov added. "The Iblis State was generated by the devil so that Muslims would destroy each other."

By framing IS militants in Chechnya as agents of a foreign group, Kadyrov is able to treat the domestic insurgency as an outside plot whose goal is to use disloyal Chechens as pawns in an ideological battle that has no connection with reality in the North Caucasus.

IS has "money, resources, human resources, and technology" that are provided by "Western intelligence agencies who not only do not clip the terrorists' legs and wings but rather reinforce them," he said.

The West was doing this, Kadyrov explained, in order to "destroy Islamic countries, undermine their economies, cause controlled chaos, and get unlimited access to energy resources."

Crackdown?

Kadyrov's show of strength against real or imaginary IS militants could mark the start of a crackdown in the Chechen Republic.

Such a crackdown is already happening elsewhere in the North Caucasus. Over the last month, the Russian federal security service (FSB) in Daghestan and Kabardino-Balkaria have conducted several counterterrorism operations against militants.

The Chechen leader also hinted that things could get tougher for those who return home after fighting in Syria.

"Not a single IS devil should remain in Chechnya. If someone left, then let him get what he left for," Kadyrov said in a VKontakte post on July 14. "There is no turning back! He is our No. 1 enemy!"

In a new post on July 16, Kadyrov said Russian citizens could be sure that no "Al-Qaedas or Iblises [IS militants] will come through the North Caucasus" and advised those who wanted to fight in Syria to "rent a couple of meters of land for a grave."

"None of them are going to return to Chechnya," Kadyrov vowed.

The few Chechens who have returned home after fighting in Syria have been given prison terms. However, one former IS militant, Said Mazhayev, had his sentenced slashed from two years to eight months in February, as Chechnya adopted a new approach to dealing with radicalization.

Mazhayev, 22, who says he spent six months with IS, has given talks to Chechen youth warning them about the horrors that await anyone who joins the militant group.

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"I love my mom very much ... When I start to think about my mother, my God, it's as if my heart is breaking."

These words are from the opening lines of a post shared by Russian-speaking fighters for the militant group Islamic State (IS) on the VKontakte social network, originally written by Abu Umar Grozny, the Chechen commander of IS's North Caucasian battalion Al-Aqsa.

Although Grozny's VKontakte account has now been banned, the post was most recently shared on July 15 by a pro-IS account belonging to Said Murtuzaliev. The post first appeared in June.

In his post, which is aimed at recruiting new Russian-speaking IS militants, Grozny openly admits his love for his mother and his pain at being parted from her but says he joined IS despite this.

Grozny, whose nom de guerre indicates he is from the Chechen capital, also expresses harsh criticism for men who do not join IS because they say they would miss their mothers too much.

'It's Too Painful To Phone Home'

In the first part of the post, Grozny recalls his mother's maternal traits, including her "good heart, her love for her children, her concern ... her ability to sense your condition even at hundreds of kilometers' distance from you ... her pain when she worries about you, her longing."

And the Chechen militant shows he is fully aware how he has upset his mother by leaving her and joining IS in Syria. He says it is "difficult" for him to "hear her grieving voice" and to "hear how she weeps."

His mother's grief, and the emotional reaction he has to it, prevents Grozny from calling home.

"I rarely phone her because I hear her answer with all my heart, and her grief makes things hard for me," Grozny writes.

The IS militant goes on to imagine what he would do if his mother were suddenly to appear beside him.

"I would hug her tight and not let go," he wrote. "I miss her so much, her scent, her smile, her tired eyes."

Real men wage jihad

Grozny's admission that he misses his mom, as well as his empathy for his mother's own suffering and his understanding that he caused that pain, appear at odds with IS's culture of hyper-masculinity, macho toughness, and brutality.

But through his post, Grozny is expressing a new kind of "IS masculinity" where militants must accept the sacrifice of personal pain for the greater good of the IS project.

This concept is part of a wider narrative of "IS manliness" that is emerging among Russian-speaking militants in Syria and Iraq, and which Grozny exemplifies.

A prominent and well-respected battalion among North Caucasian IS fighters, Grozny is most often photographed in military fatigues, many times carrying a weapon. Yet Grozny has also shared a "softer" side of his personality, including by posting photographs of his children and self-portraits of himself with other militants.

In doing so, Grozny appears to be seeking to create a new idea of "IS masculinity" by demonstrating how "real" militants should behave.

In the poem, Abu Umar Grozny professes his love for his mother.

But there is a deeply sinister side to this. Not only should they be good comrades to their fellow IS fighters, "real" men should also raise "IS babies," the next generation of militants. 

And in his open admission of strong emotion for his mother, Grozny is arguing that by joining IS and hurting his family, he is being a real man.

Grozny suggests that the intense emotions he and his mother experience are nothing compared with the suffering of Muslim women in the wider Ummah, or global Muslim community.

"What are my mother and her tears to me when the tears of thousands and thousands of mothers of this Ummah have not yet dried?" Grozny asks.

"I didn't feel the pain of the mothers, I didn't feel how despair breaks fathers, I didn't feel the pain of the sisters [Muslim women] thrown in dungeons, only because I and others like me were cowards."

Grozny suggests that true manliness is to be found in elevating the pain felt by the global Muslim "family" over one's personal pain, and joining IS to fight for "all Muslims."

Grozny's claim that he fights for the global community of Muslims is nothing new. It is a standard element of IS's recruitment propaganda, as is his suggestion that IS is avenging Muslim women in Syria.

This recruitment narrative does not mention IS's brutality toward Sunni Muslims who oppose it or who are deemed to have committed crimes. IS has carried out mass killings of Sunni tribes in Iraq, who belong to the same "global Ummah" for which Grozny says he is fighting. <

Grozny also ignores IS's treatment of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, and of Shi'ite Muslims, whom the extremist Sunni group believes are "apostates." A video from January shows a close associate of Grozny, a militant named Mansur Shishani who has since been killed, kicking and stamping on a Shi'ite hostage, who is referred to as a "Rafidite," a religious slur meaning "Shi'ite."

Mother is Dear, father is dear — But not as dear as IS

Continuing with his recruitment pitch, Grozny says that "real" militants must prioritize their love for Islam over their love for their families and must not use their mothers as an excuse for not joining IS.

"Woe betide those whose love for their parents is greater than their love for Allah!" he writes.

In a chilling conclusion, Grozny appeals to Russian-speaking Muslims to join IS by calling on them to recognize his humanity.

"I find it strange to hear how certain brothers [male Muslims] talk about how they can't leave their parents, that they will die of grief," he writes. "Are your parents better than ours? Or do you think we don't have hearts?"

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Three young Chechen women are in trouble after being caught scamming Islamic State (IS) fighters out of thousands of dollars by posing as wannabe jihadi brides, according to reports in Russia.

The women are reportedly now being held by Russian authorities on charges of suspected fraud.

Russian website Life News reported that the scam began on social networks, where the women would begin to contact IS militants in Syria and Iraq. If the targeted jihadi "bought" their ruse, the girl would send him pictures.

One of those involved, Maryam, told the website that one man in particular began communicating with her at first. "He began to lure me, saying: 'Do you want to come to Syria, [it is] very good.' I told him that I had no money," she said. So the man wired her 10,000 rubles ($168).

After Maryam received the money, she deleted her social media accounts, setting up new ones and finding a new set of new men to speak to. Between the three women, they received more than $3,100, before Chechen police caught them.

Maryam told Life News that at one stage she did honestly consider making the journey to IS territory, but the stories coming back from friends who had done it about the way women were treated in IS territory forced her to reconsider.

According to the site, several people are currently detained in Chechnya for engaging in similar scams perpetrated against Islamic State militants. Those believed to have participated in them include men as well as women. 

Maryam risks a fine or up to six years in prison if convicted of fraud.

"I don't recall any precedent like this one in Chechnya, probably because nobody digs deep enough in that direction," police officer Valery Zolotaryov told the Moskovskii Komsomolets website."Anyhow, I don't advise anyone to communicate with dangerous criminals, especially for grabbing quick money."

The women's detention comes two months after social media erupted in outrage around a debate about polygamy and age differences in marriage in the country, which resulted in Chechen President Ramzan A. Kadyrov saying: "You, men, keep your women far away from WhatsApp!"

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Despite the lukewarm relations at the best of times, it has been a geopolitical touchstone that Russia and the US could at least serve together as counter-terrorism partners.

But, as Michael Weiss reports in the Daily Beast, there is increasing evidence that Moscow may be helping to facilitate Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

Moscow has faced a problem with Islamic extremism since a failed war of independence in Russia's Chechnya in the Caucasus failed in the 1990s.

During the two brutal wars in the region, Chechens became increasingly militant as fighters from across the Arab world and Afghanistan poured in to fight the Russians. Today, Chechnya exists as a semi-autonomous state in Russia that continues to exist as a hotbed of religious and separatist sentiment. 

Russia's own problems with terrorism has made the country a seemingly ideal partner for the US — both countries have suffered from terrorist attacks and benefit from closer cooperation. However, in a round about way, Russia also benefits from a close cultivation of extremism in the Middle East, particularly in the form of ISIS.

Firstly, although ISIS is fighting against Russia's erstwhile ally of the Syrian regime, the militant group functions as an ideal magnet for wannabe jihadists and militants in Chechnya. Citing the investigation of Russian journalist Elena Milashina in the Novaya Gazeta, Weiss writes that the Russian FSB domestic intelligence agency facilitates the travel of extremists from out of Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan into Syria with the overall goal of reducing potential violence within Russia itself. 

According to Milashina's investigation, 1% of the Dagestani village of Novosasitili 's population has been funneled off into conflict in Syria and Iraq. 

Notably, since local FSB agents and police in Chechnya and Dagestan started funneling potential militants into Syria, violence within those regions of Russia have plummeted dramatically. 

“It is also evident that [Russian] law enforcement and security agencies are proud of the fact that the number of casualties in armed clashes between insurgent forces and security has declined very significantly by some 50 percent," Tanya Lokshina, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch told The Daily Beast.

"Officials attribute it to the success of the government in fighting the insurgency; in reality, it seems the drop derives from the fact that all the aggressive, competent fighters are no longer fighting in Dagestan but are in Syria as part of ISIS.”

This strategy to steer potential terrorists and troublemakers out of a home country and direct them towards a war-zone is not a new strategy. Instead, the FSB is merely adopting a counterterrorism strategy that Saudi Arabia itself had used against the Soviet Union. 

“It’s perfectly conceivable that the FSB would take their most violent types and say, ‘Yeah, you want your caliphate? Go set it up in Raqqa.’ The Saudis did this in the ’80s with the Afghans. It’s sort of tried and true," an unnamed CIA operative who had worked in Central Asia with the FSB told The Daily Beast. 

A reduction in violence and potential extremists within Russia's borders would conceivably be cause enough for the FSB to steer militants from Chechnya into Syria. But, by channeling militants into the Middle East, this strategy also gives the Kremlin a second advantage — it further hobbles the US's power throughout the world. 

“What’s the most significant policy decision we made to bring down the Soviet Union? Us sending foreign fighters into Afghanistan. This is the perfect form of payback," Jamestown Foundation president Glen Howard told The Daily Beast.

"Create a quagmire in Syria, get us bogged down—all the while, offer your cooperation in helping to root out terrorism.”

The creation of a quagmire for the US again helps serves Russia in two ways. Firstly, it limits the overall power of the US at a time when the White House has to deal with political uncertainty in Ukraine, China, and Iran. Secondly, this same quagmire allows Russia to take a more decisive negotiating role for itself in a bid to see the violence in Syria end. 

Since June, Russia has been meeting with officials from various Syrian rebel groups and other Middle Eastern government officials in an attempt to create a grand coalition including Syria's Assad regime against ISIS.

So far, the Russian initiatives have been unsuccessful. 

Check out the full The Daily Beast report here»

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There may be more at play with Russia's expanding role in Syria than just influence in the Middle East.

Kremlin authorities reportedly have an ulterior motive other than supporting the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad: getting jihadists out of Russia, where they may attack the homeland, and sending them into Syria.

Russia recently escalated tensions with the US by sending elite soldiers, prefabricated housing for at least 1,000 people, a portable air-traffic-control system, and other items that could be used to create an air base for combat operations in northwest Syria.

Russia has also reportedly been sending jihadists from the North Caucasus into Syria, according to The Daily Beast and the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

And this move isn't even necessarily helping Assad — many of these jihadists join radical Islamist groups, including ISIS, that are fighting the Russian-backed Assad regime.

Daily Beast senior editor Michael Weiss explained it this way: "It may sound paradoxical — helping the enemy of your friend — but the logic is actually straightforward: Better the terrorists go abroad and fight in Syria than blow things up in Russia."

Russian-American journalist Julia Ioffe made a similar point on Slate's Political Gabfest podcast last week.

"Russia is actually supporting both sides, and so it's ensuring that the war drags on and on," she said. "It's in Russia's interest to export Islamists who might attack Russian targets.

"This has been a continuing concern from the mid 1990s when Chechnya tried to split off from Russia and Russian actions in Chechnya created a wave of terror attacks inside Russia in the 2000s," Ioffe continued.

"So there's this constant fear of Islamist terrorism inside Russia, and it's in their interest to get these guys out of there."

And interestingly, fighters from Russia's Chechnya region are fighting on both sides of the war in eastern Ukraine.

Of course, Putin insists that Russian moves in Syria are made to fight terrorism as opposed to stoking it to get jihadists out of Russia.

"We are supporting the government of Syria in the fight against a terrorist aggression, are offering and will continue to offer it necessary military-technical assistance," Putin said in televised remarks on Tuesday.

"Without an active participation of the Syrian authorities and the military, it would be impossible to expel the terrorists from that country and the region as a whole and to protect the multiethnic and multiconfessional Syrian people from destruction."

Putin doesn't mention the fact that the Assad regime's relentless bombing, torture, and rape of civilians is actually the biggest driver of terrorism in Syria.

The Assad regime, according to a recent note from the strategic security firm The Soufan Group, "is a terrorism generator of epic proportion, engaging in state terrorism against its own people and inciting terrorism from its opponents."

Sources who talked to The Daily Beast noted that the flow of Russian jihadists to Syria was probably more of a desperate effort from local authorities and security agencies rather than a well-thought-out strategy from Moscow, but it's significant nonetheless given how much the Kremlin controls about Russia's domestic and foreign policy.

"It is ... evident that [Russian] law enforcement and security agencies are proud of the fact that the number of casualties in armed clashes between insurgent forces and security has declined very significantly by some 50 percent," Tanya Lokshina, the Russia program director and a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The Daily Beast.

"Officials attribute it to the success of the government in fighting the insurgency; in reality, it seems the drop derives from the fact that all the aggressive, competent fighters are no longer fighting in Dagestan but are in Syria as part of ISIS."

While it's in Russia's interest to export its extremists, it's also in the country's interest to continue supporting Assad, who gives Russia the bulk of its influence in the Middle East. In addition to allowing jihadists to leave Russia and fight with various extremist factions in Syria, Russia has reportedly sent some of its soldiers to fight on behalf of Assad.

"You want to prop up Assad because [the Syrian regime] and the Iranians are really the last guys you have in the region who you have any sway over," Ioffe said. "It also undermines American policy, which is a great plus. Russia loves to do that."

Ioffe went on to say that if Assad is eventually ousted in a political agreement, a strong Russian presence in Syria gives the Russians more leverage regarding who succeeds him and how the successor views Russia.

Russia has been throwing resources behind the violent Assad regime as it struggles to maintain its grip on power, even as the years-long Syrian civil war adds to the worst refugee crisis Europe has seen in decades.

American officials recently acknowledged to The New York Times that Russia had begun using an air corridor over Iran and Iraq to transport military equipment and personnel to Syria despite US attempts to guard this airspace.

Michael B. Kelley contributed to this report.

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Russia is facing a governmental crisis that could radically alter the shape and structure of the country in the coming years.

According to Nikolay Petrov, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin could fail within the coming year.

And this failure will have profound consequences for all of Russia, leading to at the very worst regime change and a proliferation of new institutions and states throughout the Russian Federation.

Petrov, formerly chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Society and Regions Program, believes that Russia's current trajectory of military adventurism, the complete sidelining of political-opposition movements, the collapsing Russian economy, and the complete centralization of power with Putin could lead to only three outcomes.

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1. Putin manages to mend relations with the West and improve the economy

In the best-case scenario, Putin manages to mend relations with the West over his role in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. Additionally, Putin could appoint a selected and apparently liberal politician to a high-rank to show the West that he is serious about reforms.

Such a move, according to Petrov, "would send a positive signal to the West. At the same time, it would go some way towards restoring the balance between liberals and siloviki [current or former members of the security establishment] in the government."

By at least playing lip service to reform while drawing down the country's military commitments overseas, Petrov believes that Putin would then be able to tone down its anti-Western rhetoric while declaring "that it has won the power struggle with the West and restored Russia's greatness on the international stage, and can now re-engage in cooperation from a position of strength."

Should this situation play out, it will only delay Russia's current problems.

It will still not address the underlying failure of Russia to deliver substantial economic or political reforms in the past.

Nor would such a shift manage to address the political imbalance that has resulted from the complete centralization of power under Putin.

Instead, this scenario would save the Russian regime from immediate failure, but it is just the first step in a number of critical reforms that Moscow would have to undertake.

2. Putin is replaced

In the second scenario, Putin is replaced by a younger heir. This would attempt to fix the massive political imbalance in Russia by almost certainly reducing the power of the Russian presidency while elevating the power of existing Russian institutions.

But Petrov notes that replacing Putin would still carry multitudinous difficulties as "the foundations of the system need to be rebuilt."

"The relatively orderly transition of power that followed the death of Josef Stalin — for example — could not be repeated, due to the lack of an institution such as the Communist Party to hold the country together," Petrov writes. "Rather, Putin's inner circle would lose its position of power with his departure."

Aishat Inaeva, a social worker from a small town in Chechnya, did not speak out against the region’s notorious leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. She wouldn’t have dared.

Instead, she made a WhatsApp recording, imploring him to look into the plight of ordinary people “pushed below the poverty line” by local officials, a message that went viral among Chechen users of the messaging app.

A week or so later, Inaeva found herself hauled into the studio of Grozny TV, the state television and radio broadcaster, her husband beside her, the republic’s leader in front of her, being forced to apologise publicly for her “lies”.

“You help [the poor] … I was confused, I do not know how and why I did that,” she said to the president, Ramzan Kadyrov, her head bowed. Inaeva’s husband joined in, chastising himself for “allowing her to spread all those lies”.

The 16-minute news segment sent a clear message to Chechnya’s audience: if you’re unhappy with something, keep your mouth shut or prepare to be shamed.

Public humiliation forms part of Kadyrov’s latest strategy to eradicate dissent in the republic. For close to a decade the young leader has been exercising tyrannical rule over Chechnya. 

A free press no longer exists, and the few journalists from independent Russian and foreign outlets reporting on ongoing abuses inside the republic find themselves at great risk of harassment, arbitrary detentions and even violent attacks by security officials and their proxies.

But the worst punishment is reserved for Chechens themselves. Those who dare to post critical comments online are increasingly being tracked down and penalised. 

A recent report by Human Rights Watch described how local authorities retaliate against people who show dissatisfaction with the Chechen leadership and its policies.

It found that the onslaught against dissent has intensified over the past 18 months, with even the mildest criticism on social media ruthlessly punished through unlawful, punitive detention, enforced disappearances, cruel and degrading treatment, death threats, threats against family members, and physical abuse of family members.

This severe and sweeping repression by the local authorities is designed to remind the Chechen public of Kadyrov’s total control, and to contain the flow of any negative information from Chechnya that could undermine Russia’s support.

As a result, few people in Chechnya go as far as Inaeva. If they do, retribution is fast.

In April, Ramazan Dzhalaldinov, a man in his 50s from a mountain village not far from Chechnya’s border with Dagestan, posted a video message timed to Vladimir Putin’s annual televised call-in show.

He complained that his village, Kenkhi, was in ruins as a result of the Chechen wars, and alleged that local officials were steeped in corruption. The video was picked up by internet users in Chechnya and Russia and widely shared online.

Fearing punishment from the authorities, Dzhalaldinov fled to Dagestan and made sure that his sons also left Chechnya. But in May, four weeks after Grozny TV broadcast a news segment featuring local people calling Dzhalaldinov a liar and a crook, local police came looking for his wife and their daughters, aged 17, 12 and 10.

A dozen armed men in masks and camouflage uniforms forced their way into the house late at night, dragged Dzhalaldinov’s wife and the children out of bed, and took them to the district police station. 

Leaving the younger girls alone in a room, police officers beat their mother and eldest sister, saying it was punishment for the trouble caused by the head of the family. A senior official allegedly fired a gun several times over the mother’s head and choked her daughter, demanding that they persuade Dzhalaldinov to publicly apologise.

After the interrogation, police officers drove the women to Chechnya’s administrative border with Dagestan, ordering them to cross and never return. That night, their home was torched.

A few weeks later, Grozny TV broadcast a video apology by Dzhalaldinov: “I apologise. I made a mistake. I ask other people not to repeat my mistake … Now many will say I was threatened or coerced [to say this]. I make this speech voluntarily … Kadyrov rebuilt this [Kenkhi] village.” 

He had been told by officials that if he publicly renounced his statement, he would be able to return to Chechnya with his family.

Kadyrov then told his two millions followers on Instagram that “some abnormal forces” had tried to use this man “to achieve their filthy, harmful objectives” but luckily, he “found the strength and wisdom” to realise his mistake and publicly admit it, so his apology was accepted.

Even those who use monikers or talk in closed groups on social media face reprisals. Late last year, a 35-year-old faculty member from a university in Grozny, Khizir Ezhiev, was chatting with friends in a private group on Facebook. When someone mentioned Kadyrov’s pilgrimage to Mecca, Ezhiev wrote: “Apparently, all sorts are welcome there these days.”

Weeks later, four men bundled Ezhiev into their vehicle and drove away. His body was found weeks later with multiple injuries. Authorities claimed he had fallen off a cliff.

The day after Ezhiev was abducted, an unrelated video surfaced of a young man walking on a treadmill in his underwear and apologising to Kadyrov.

“I am Adam Dikaev from Avtury village,” he said on camera. “Thinking that no one can find me, I wrote on Instagram [under another name] what I should not have written. They found me and took my pants down. I realised I am nobody. From now on, Putin is my father, grandfather, and tsar …”

His crime? Flippant comments on social networks about Kadyrov grovelling before Putin. The video showed Chechens the level of humiliation the government was prepared to orchestrate.

Over the past year, many from Chechnya have recounted similar stories, and described sweeping repression, relentless pressure and constant humiliation. Some say the current situation feels more unbearable than the bombing and shelling experienced during the recent war.

“We lived through the war and kept our dignity – but now they [the authorities] are taking that dignity away from us, and we who survived the war cannot live with it,” said one Grozny resident, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Tanya Lokshina is Russia programme director at Human Rights Watch, and author of the report, Like Walking a Minefield: Vicious Crackdown on Critics in Russia’s Chechen Republic

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Erfurt (Germany) (AFP) - Police raided apartments across Germany Tuesday in a probe against 14 Chechen asylum seekers over suspected financing of terrorist groups and links to the Islamic State group.

The raids, involving 400 police officers, were part of an investigation which began last year into a 28-year-old Russian of Chechen origin who is suspected of "preparing an act of violence against the state".

The suspect was believed to have been planning to join IS jihadists in Syria.

Police said no arrests were made Tuesday but that 10 other men and three women -- all Chechens aged between 21 and 31 all awaiting decisions on asylum requests -- were now under suspicion over their role in "terror financing".

Several of them were still being interrogated, said Holger Poppenhaeger, interior minister of the state of Thuringia.

The raids targeted 12 apartments and a shelter for asylum seekers in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony, Hamburg in the north, North Rhine-Westphalia in the west and Bavaria in the south.

Potential evidence including laptops, telecommunications equipment, hard-drives and bank statements were seized, said Poppenhaeger, adding that investigators were seeking to establish "if there is direct or indirect financing of the IS group".

Police said there was "no concrete danger of an attack". Germany has so far been spared large-scale jihadist attacks.

But Europe's biggest economic power has been shaken by two assaults claimed by IS and carried out by asylum seekers -- an axe rampage on a train in Wuerzburg that injured five, and a suicide bombing in Ansbach in which 15 people were hurt. 

Police said this month they had foiled an alleged plot by a Syrian refugee to bomb one of Berlin's airports.

Police said that there were no initial indications that those under investigation Tuesday had any links to those attacks, which have fuelled anxiety over Germany's record influx of nearly 900,000 asylum seekers in 2015.

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In 1991, Boris Yeltsin stood atop a tank in front of the parliament building in Moscow and called on the people to resist the communist hardliners in the August coup.

Several months later, at the end of the year, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, leaving Yeltsin as the president of Russia.

Fast forward to December 31, 1999: Yeltsin grabbed the world by surprise once again when he resigned during a live televised address.

In between those shock events, Russia went through an enormous economic, social, and political transition as the state tried to adjust to the global economy following the dissolution of the USSR. During that tumultuous decade, Russia was also involved in two Chechen Wars and was slammed by a financial crisis in 1998.

We put together 53 archived photographs from Reuters and AP of Russia's 1990s. (Most of the captions are from Reuters or AP, lightly edited for clarity or additional background information.)

Thousands of Muscovites march to Red Square carrying a giant Russian tricolor white, blue, and red flag, celebrating the failure of the three-day hard line Communist coup attempt in Moscow, August 22, 1991.

Two free marketeers display their goods at the central market in Petropavlovsk, the capital city of the far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, March 1993.

In 1993, there was conflict between Yeltsin and the parliament, which ultimately resulted in the use of force. In October, Yeltsin ordered troops to seize parliament from opponents. In the photo below, a Russian tank leaves its post in front of the Moscow's White House building on October 5.

Source: BBC, BBC, New York Times

For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya. Law enforcement and security agency officials under control of the ruthless head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing and humiliating the victims. Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began.

This chilling information was first publicised by Novaya Gazeta, a leading independent Russian paper. Their report came out on 1 April, prompting the spokesperson for Chechnya’s Interior Ministry to dismiss it as an “April fools’ joke.” Kadyrov’s press secretary immediately described the report as “absolute lies and disinformation,” contending that there were no gay people in Chechnya and then adding cynically, “If there were such people in Chechnya, law-enforcement agencies wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning.”

Chechnya’s official news agency, Grozny Info, quoted numerous local commentators bashing Novaya Gazeta and other “enemies” of Chechnya and Russia for supposed attempts to discredit the Chechen people, “foster sodomy,” and undermine “traditional values.”

The information published by Novaya Gazeta is consistent with the reports Human Rights Watch recently received from numerous trusted sources, including sources on the ground. The number of sources and the consistency of the stories leaves us with no doubt that these devastating developments have indeed occurred. LGBT Network in Russia opened a special hotline to provide emergency support to those who find themselves in immediate danger.

In light of brutal repression in Chechnya, we cannot reveal our sources for fear of compromising their security. The fear of devastating reprisal is so intense that we cannot even provide detail on specific cases as the victims could suffer even more as a result of the exposure.

On Monday, 3 April President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, stated that the Kremlin was previously not aware of the situation, but that law enforcement authorities would look into these media reports. On the one hand, this seems like good news, a signal to investigative officials to run a check promptly. On the other hand, Peskov also suggested that people who supposedly suffered from abuses by law enforcement officials should “file official complaints” and “go to court” without indicating what, if anything, Russian authorities are planning to do to protect them.

These days, very few people in Chechnya dare speak to human rights monitors or journalists even anonymously because the climate of fear is overwhelming and people have been largely intimidated into silence. Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable.

Human Rights Watch documented numerous cases in recent years showing just what fate awaits people in Chechnya who do what Peskov has suggested. For this reason, with very few exceptions, victims of torture and other horrific abuses refrain from seeking justice or withdraw their complaints as a result of threats, including death threats and threats of retaliation against family members.

It is difficult to overstate just how vulnerable LGBT people are in Chechnya, where homophobia is intense and rampant. LGBT people are in danger not only of persecution by the authorities but also of falling victim to “honour killings” by their own relatives for tarnishing family honor.

So it is particularly disappointing that the Kremlin spokesman should tell the victims to use official channels to complain, without saying a word about any security guarantees. Without solid security guarantees, victims and witnesses cannot possibly come forward, and there is no chance that an effective investigation could take place.

Surely Russian authorities can do better than that. At the highest level, they should resolutely condemn attacks against LGBT people in Chechnya and ensure safety and justice for the victims.

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Moscow (AFP) - Ilya looks tired and drawn. After being beaten and tortured by men in military uniform in Russia's Chechnya region, he fled to Moscow but still fears for his life -- because he is gay.

"In Chechnya, I had no choice but to lie or die," says the 20-year-old.

He is now hiding out in a small house on the edge of Moscow with five other Chechen men after they escaped what they say is a brutal campaign against gay men by authorities in the Muslim region of Russia's North Caucasus. 

All refused to give their real names for fear of someone recognising them and tracking them down.

"If any of my relatives realises I'm gay, they won't hesitate a minute before killing me," another of the men, 28-year-old Nortcho, told AFP.

"And if they don't do it, they will get killed themselves for failing to uphold the family honour."

While casual homophobia is common in Russia, the problem is particularly acute in conservative Chechnya, where homosexuality is taboo and seen in many families as a moral failing that should be punished by death.

In late March, the Novaya Gazeta liberal newspaper -- known for critical reports on Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's iron-fisted ruler for the last decade -- published a shocking report that gay men had been rounded up.

The newspaper reported that the authorities had detained more than 100 gay men and urged their families to kill them to "wash clean their honour." It said at least two had been killed by relatives and a third died after being tortured.

The accusations were taken all the more seriously since the security forces controlled by Kadyrov -- a fierce loyalist of President Vladimir Putin -- have long been accused by rights activists of carrying out kidnappings and beatings of his opponents.

Asked to comment on the Novaya Gazeta report, Kadyrov's spokesman claimed that such punitive treatment of gay men in Chechnya was impossible since they "do not exist" in the region.

Kadyrov on Wednesday denied that any homosexuals had been arrested, saying "provocative articles about Chechnya (have) reported so-called arrests.

"It's even embarrassing to talk about it. It's said there have been what are called arrests, murders, (newspapers) have even given the name" of one victim, he said. "But he is alive, in good health and is at home."

'I'm terrified' 

The Moscow branch of a Russian NGO called the LGBT Network is helping Chechens to flee the region and receives "three or four requests for help each day," said the branch's leader Olga Baranova. Nearly 20 people at risk have already moved to Moscow, she told AFP.

While Ilya is now more than 1,800 kilometres (1,120 miles) from the Chechen capital of Grozny, he still jumps up every time a car drives close by the house, which is surrounded by a fence.

"By helping me, the Network has handed me a reprieve -- but they'll find me in the end," he says quietly.

In October he was taken into a field and beaten by three men in military uniform. A huge scar runs along the side of his jaw.

"They filmed everything. They told me it would end up on social media unless I paid 200,000 rubles ($3,650). I borrowed the money and paid it," he said, speaking hoarsely.

But after that he had to flee to Moscow anyway. 

"Some soldiers came to see my mother and told her I was gay," he said. "I'm terrified. I haven't been able to sleep since I left."

Another man who refused even to give an alias said he left Chechnya two weeks ago. He said he too has been unable to sleep since, haunted by the fear that his wife and his child will find out he is gay.

In March he was held "in an unofficial prison" for a week, the man said.

"There were other gay men in the cell. Some of them had been beaten up," he recalled. "When I was released, I realised that meant I should leave as swiftly as possible."

Absolute tyranny'

Reports of the abuses have drawn international condemnation, as activists have accused the authorities in Russia of turning a blind eye for fear of upsetting Kadyrov in a region where Moscow fought two bloody separatist wars.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Monday she was "disturbed" by the reports.

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said that in her view: "It will only take a call from the Kremlin to Kadyrov for the arrests to stop."

Russia's Prosecutor-General's office formally opened an investigation on Monday but Russia's human rights ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova told TASS state news agency there had been no reports of such missing people to police, investigators or prosecutors.

Lokshina of Human Rights Watch countered that "imagining people coming forward with information without getting any effective protection, any security guarantee, is just impossible."

"Here we are dealing with LGBT people and they are particularly vulnerable in Chechnya because in addition to fearing the authorities they also have to fear their own relatives," she said.

The Novaya Gazeta reporter Irina Gordiyenko, one of the journalists who broke the story, has received a death threat from Chechnya's chief mufti over her investigation.

Gordiyenko says that Kadyrov rules with "absolute tyranny" with the Kremlin's tacit consent. 

"That's what lies at the heart of the problem: the impunity of the Chechen authorities," she said. 

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