— Why does Putin need Kadyrov at all?

— The whole legitimation of Kadyrov is the ‘victory’ in the Chechen war.

Do you remember how he appeared from nowhere in 1999? The terrorists blew up our houses (in the reality Russian secret services did that) and all of a sudden a heroic military officer appeared and stopped the terrorists, calmed down Caucasus, proclaimed the war. Putin cannot declare Kadyrov as an enemy and liquidate him as some military bosses would like – that would mean that Putin deceived us all of these 15 years and that all of his politics failed. Closing the ‘Kadyrov’ project is a solution required by the security forces. They use the murder of Nemtsov (organized by themselves) as a pretext for the closure of the ‘Kadyrov’ project. It is obvious that the direct executors of the murder were captured- and they are Kadyrov’s people. Investigators want to question people close to Kadyrov, and Kadyrov himself. And it is a sharp political conflict, which unfolds now between military bosses and Putin. This conflict is a lot sharper then the conflict between Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko.

Source: Andrei Piontkovsky: ‘Russia as Part of Chechnya’ OR What is ‘Russian patriot’ Ramzan Kadyrov Is Afraid of? – InformNapalm.org (English) – 2/23/2016.

Fast Reference

On the interviewee:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Piontkovsky

On the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”:

http://www.hudson.org/research/12507-how-putin-became-president – 5/19/2016.

On Ramzan Kadyrov:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21690046-alarming-world-ramzan-kadyrov-putins-chechen-enforcer – 2/6/2016.

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