Quoting the Guardian, “Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has told his security forces to open fire on Russian federal troops if they operate in the region without his approval.”
Kadyrov’s order was provoked by the killing of a suspect (correction: to be precise, it’s claimed he threw himself on a grenade), according to Russian media, by federal forces based in Chechnya (map, region 2), and forces from Stavropol Krai (Map, region 7). So rarely useful, deduction shines:
- Kadyrov runs assassination squads both inside Russia and outside (see the Guardian article.)
- In Chechnya, you are either a friend of Kadyrov, or you are in risk of being dead.
- The Kremlin wanted somebody dead inside Chechnya, but Kadyrov would not do the hit. Perhaps he could not even be asked to.
Ergo, the man was an ally of Kadyrov. And one ally of Kadyrov, Zaur Dadayev, has already been implicated in the killing of Boris Nemetsov.
For Kadyrov to refuse to kill someone, or be unapproachable for the job, is so exceptional, it amounts to protection. This event, the killing in Chechnya, Kadyrov’s reaction, and the prior murder of Boris Nemetsov, are temporally and spatially connected. See the map; Chechnya, and Stavropol Krai are not adjacent to Ukraine, but not that far away either.
As home to the most virulent Muslim extremism, Chechnya presents the constant threat of internal terrorism, as well as export of militants to foreign hot spots. Kadyrov keeps the lid on with personally inspired brutality. In reward for neutralizing the internal threat to Russia, Kadyrov rules Chechnya like an independent vassal state. One man rule, with all the ego satisfaction of the despot, is the only pay big enough.
In the post Wesley Clark, Ukraine, & Russian Expansionist Complex, it’s asserted, “But it appears that there now exists in Russia an expansionist complex, not localized purely to a faction, that by process of diffusion may now be uncontrollable.”
The argument for a Russian expansionist complex resembles what mathematicians call a “nonconstructive proof.” Without identification of the actors, It is based upon the tendency of nationalistic sentiment to spawn centrifugal forces in the post revolutionary period, with two motivations: personal ambition, and “who owns the dream”. In the U.S., there was the Burr Conspiracy; in Nazi Germany, the Night of the Long Knives, in France, Napoleon. In Russia, the two motives combine.
The identification of Kadyrov as a linchpin of the expansionist complex is circumstantial, based on:
- Deductive argument per above, suggesting that the individual killed by Russian cops was protected by Kadyrov.
- Temporal coincidence with the Nemetsov murder and the Ukraine conflict.
- Spatial coincidence ( proximity with the Ukraine.)
- Likely culpability of more than one individual “belonging” to Kadyrov in the murder of Nemetsov, who was opposed to Russia’s Ukraine involvement.
Circumstantial reasoning is weaker than the mathematician’s nonconstructive proof, but in the U.S., a murder conviction can be completely circumstantial. And given Kadyrov’s absolute control of Chechnya, he either sanctioned the hit on Nemetsov, was inattentive, or had mutinous subordinates. Kadyrov says that if Dadayev is one of the killers, he acted on his own, though Dadyev may just be a fall guy.
The use of a deductive format does not imply certainty of analysis. Without a motive, choice from the three possibilities is vague. But membership in the expansionist complex offers a motive, a quid pro quo with other members of the complex. As Kadyrov has subdued through brutality a population with tendencies toward rebellion and extremism, he is an unusual person. He lives very close to death, and deflects it by inflicting it on others. History offers examples of lethargic despots, such as Papa Doc, but the energy required to subdue a population with the violent potential of Chechnya does not permit lethargy. This suggests Kadyrov is the other type of despot, with the impulse to expand his absolute domain.
Kadyrov has already achieved the remarkable. Chechnya, which, technically, lost two wars with Russia, is now an enclave, an independent vassal state completely contained within Russia,. The expansionist despot, like Hannibal Lecter, desires to escape his prison.