Leading article: Chechnya: Prisoners of the Caucasus
Vladimir Putin lost more than his main sub-contractor in Chechnya when Akhmad Kadyrov was blown up during a parade to
commemorate the Russian VE day in the second world war. Mr Kadyrov was not just Moscow's placeman, who became
president in an election in which he was the only real candidate. He was the linchpin of the Kremlin's efforts to
dismantle a rebellion that survived the best part of a decade of war. Mr Kadyrov, a former rebel fighter who had been
turned by the Russians, was credited with a string of successes against the rebel leadership. Among his trophies were a
Chechen rebel general, and an Arab commander - both killed - and a rebel defence minister forced to surrender after his
family had been kidnapped, allegedly by the Russians. Mr Kadyrov had become so powerful that he began to formulate his
own policy, and there were persistent rumours of negotiations with the rebel president Aslan Maskhadov. Perhaps that is
why he was blown up.
Underpinning that power was a reign of terror the like of which Chechens had not seen since the days of Stalin. Even
the Russian "contraktniki", or freelance fighters, were not as feared as Mr Kadyrov's private army of
kidnappers, torturers and executioners were. But the fact that Chechens, many of them former fighters, were terrorising
Chechens, represented progress to Moscow. Mr Kadyrov put his son Ramzan in charge of this force, and within two hours of
his father's death, Ramzan was at his new master's side. Yesterday he was named first deputy head of the
regional government, groomed to step into this father's shoes.
And so Europe's most brutal war continues under our silent gaze. As contemporaries of this war, we will one day
be held to be morally responsible for it. When we open our mouths, the Russians accuse us of double standards and not
without reason. The price of Mr Putin's post 9/11 pact with George Bush, when Russian intelligence provided all
those useful entrees with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, is our acquiesence over Chechnya. The Chechen jihad has
become one of al-Qaida's many surrogates, and the more repressive Mr Putin's response, the harder it will be
to separate them. Yet there is nothing metaphysical about the war being waged by Chechen suicide bombers. Their jihad is
not against concepts like western civilisation. They have all but abandoned the belief that an independent Muslim
republic called Ichkeria will rise from the rubble. The only thing that matters now for most Chechens is survival.
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
