Senior Fellow for Eurasia and Director of Programs, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Laura Linderman, and AFPC Research Fellow and Program Officer, Anna Harvey, were quoted in Newsweek Polska/Onet. [link]
The small republic is unlike any other entity in the Russian Federation. Formally, it is fully integrated, but in practice it is a sovereign principality over whose affairs Moscow exercises only minimal control. There is only one master in Chechnya. Anyone who travels to Chechnya will deal with Kadyrov, not Putin. And they know that Kadyrov will call the shots there. Nothing will happen there unless Kadyrov wants it to. "He has effectively become the leader of an independent regime, linked to Putin through a personal union. His unique relationship with Putin goes beyond that of a ruler and a viceroy ruling in his name. It is more like a family bond," says Nikolai Petrov, a Russia expert at Chatham House. "The paradox is obvious: Moscow's strategy to suppress separatism in Chechnya has created a regional player whose loyalty is conditional and whose power increasingly extends beyond the boundaries of Russia's political system," observe Laura Linderman and Anna Harvey of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.