Consider This from NPR - How One Republic Went From Resisting Russia to Supporting Its Attacks In Ukraine

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Between the 1990s and late 2000s, people in Chechnya described Russia's wars there as a nightmare. Its former leader, Akhmad Kadyrov, resisted Russian forces. But today, the Muslim-majority Chechen Re...public is ruled by Kadyrov's son, Ramzan. He's a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is accused of numerous human rights abuses and is also leading his own forces against Ukraine to aid the Kremlin. Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division, explains Ramzan Kadyrov's stake in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. NPR National Security Correspondent Greg Myre, who reported from Chechnya during the wars, also breaks down the republic's evolution over the last 25 years. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Maura Reynolds remembers talking to Chechen war survivors from the 1990s to the early 2000s. And as she talked to them about surviving Russian attacks on Chechnya, one word kept coming up. The word they would use over and over again was kashmar, you know, nightmare. But that's trivial compared to what they really experienced. More than two decades before the current war in Ukraine, Russia launched its second war in Chechnya, a majority Muslim republic that is now part of Russia. Reynolds was the LA Times Moscow correspondent back then. At the time, Boris Yeltsin was Russia's president,
Starting point is 00:00:36 and Vladimir Putin was prime minister. She remembers them characterizing the mission in Chechnya as a campaign to stamp out, quote, bandits and terrorists. It was a chorus, bandits and terrorists, just like you hear Russian officials, including Putin now, talk about, you know, Nazis. David Filipov covered the Chechen wars for the Boston Globe. He was in Grozny, the Chechen capital, when Russia's offensive began in 1999. And he remembers that in both Chechen wars, there were widespread, apparently targeted attacks on civilians.
Starting point is 00:01:11 Everybody in the area is now part of the war. There is no safe zone. And then it's anything goes. Maura Reynolds says after the fighting ended, very little was left of Grozny. The ground was literally charred. There were very few buildings in the center of Grozny still standing. The remains of a wall here and there and not much else. All the trees were burned, you know, had lost all their branches and leaves. Even though it was spring, there was no green, there was no sign of life. Both reporters are following the news now out of Ukraine, and all of it, the visuals, the Russian rhetoric, and the tactics, it all feels grimly familiar. I think anyone who visited Chechnya during or after either war is having flashbacks when we look at the pictures right now of what's happening.
Starting point is 00:02:06 And today, the same region that was once defending itself against Russia is now actually backing Russia, all under the leadership of a man sometimes described as Vladimir Putin's puppet. Kadyrov is Putin's most loyal and most enthusiastic subordinate. Having said that, it is a very complicated relationship. Consider this, the Chechen military is now fighting alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. How did this republic go from resisting Russia less than a generation ago to fighting for Russia? From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Monday, April 25th. It's Consider This from NPR. About a million and a half people live in the Muslim-majority
Starting point is 00:03:10 republic of Chechnya. They have seen many bloody wars, two of which happened at the hands of Russian forces. Russia invaded and unleashed a relentless bombing campaign during the two Chechen wars, reducing major cities and towns to rubble. During the second campaign, Ramzan Kadyrov became head of the Chechen Republic. He is a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and we'll hear more on Kadyrov in a moment. But first, the wars that played out in Kadyrov's home country may tell us what we can expect to see as the current war plays out in Ukraine. NPR's Greg Myrie reported from Chechnya during the 1990s, and he recently spoke to my colleague David Fulkenflik about the parallels
Starting point is 00:03:51 between these conflicts. It's been a few years. Remind us, how did that first Chechen war begin? So Chechnya is this tiny Muslim republic in southern Russia, and it began agitating for independence after the Soviet Union broke up. So Russia then invades in 1994 with relentless airstrikes and artillery, tens of thousands of civilian deaths, completely flattening Chechnya's capital, Grozny. Now, David, I've covered a dozen or so wars. This is the greatest devastation I've ever seen. Just block after city block, every building completely destroyed. The only sort of point of comparison are those black and white photos of European cities leveled in World War II. So after two years of this in Chechnya, Russia actually lost.
Starting point is 00:04:39 It pulled its army out of Chechnya, granted autonomy, and it was a huge humiliation for Russia's military. We should note that this war and that infliction of damage was done before Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999. What happened when he took over? Right. So President Boris Yeltsin was still in charge of Russia, but he was about to leave office. And he named this largely unknown figure, Vladimir Putin, to be the prime minister on August 9th, 1999. And then just 17 days later, on August 26th, Russia re-invades Chechnya, unleashing another major bombing campaign. Now, it was equally brutal and ultimately more effective. Russia took control after a few months. And then Putin flew into Grozny in a Russian fighter jet wearing a full pilot outfit, and he climbed out of the cockpit in a symbol of triumph.
Starting point is 00:05:34 Putin installed a friendly leader in Chechnya. Now, he was assassinated a few years later, but his son still leads Chechnya today. And Chechen troops are fighting with the Russian military in the war in Ukraine. What then should we take from these Chechen wars as we think about Ukraine right now? So I called Thomas DeWall. He was a journalist covering Chechnya in the 90s. He's now in London with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He sees military parallels between Chechnya and Ukraine and also political parallels. There was a project which was to restore Chechnya to Russian control.
Starting point is 00:06:11 Nowadays, in 2022, to restore Ukraine to the Russian sphere of influence. And there was no plan B. Once the people started resisting, which came as a surprise in Chechnya and is coming as a surprise in Ukraine, there's no political plan B about what to do with the resistance. Now, he says Putin was expecting or at least hoping to invade with little or no pushback. The model was that sort of bloodless Russian conquest in Crimea in 2014. But what he got was Chechnya 1994. Crimea, of course, is part of Ukraine. Why was it such a cakewalk
Starting point is 00:06:46 for the Russians? The Russians really just snuck in. Everybody was talking about these little green men. They didn't even know where they were from because they had no insignias on their uniform. And they quickly took over Crimea, where Russia already has a naval base. And there was really no shooting, no fighting. And that's what Putin was hoping for again. NPR's Greg Myrie speaking with our colleague David Folkenfleck. That's the voice of the Chechen Republic's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, in a video posted the day after Russia invaded Ukraine. Kadyrov is prolific on social media. He published this highly produced video showing thousands of armed fighters in combat gear. He says, I officially declare that Chechen fighters will occupy the hottest hot spots in Ukraine.
Starting point is 00:07:38 He taunts the Ukrainian defense, inviting them to meet his troops. He's been described as brutal, as Vladimir Putin's attack dog. The U.S. has sanctioned him for human rights abuses, including the persecution and torture of LGBTQ people. To better understand who Ramzan Kadyrov is and what role he and his troops are playing in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, I spoke to Rachel Denver. She's deputy director of the Europe and Central
Starting point is 00:08:05 Asia Division for Human Rights Watch. And I started by asking how Kadyrov has earned his reputation. Kadyrov earned this reputation through his absolutely brutal and feudalistic type tighthold grip over Chechnya, where he has been the leader, basically, since the assassination of his father, who was the leader of Chechnya in 2004. He exercises total control over all public and he tries to exert control over aspects of private life as well through his fearsome security services. These security services are responsible for great numbers of enforced disappearances, summary executions, house burning. Kadyrov exercises control through his brutal sort of praetorian guard, and also through extensive surveillance of online chat groups and the like, also by filtering out people who are believed to even express even the most mild criticism of him or government policies. And can you paint a picture for us of the man himself? I mean, you've described a really iron-fisted rule, but the man himself, Ramzan,
Starting point is 00:09:30 is almost a larger-than-life figure. He has developed a cult around himself. For a number of years, he was quite active on Instagram, where he allowed himself to say the most outrageous, flamboyant, and inflammatory things. Like I said, he's the son of the first Chechen leader. After his father was assassinated, he was famously sort of brought to Moscow for a meeting with Putin. He sees Putin as kind of his patron. But I think it's also a complicated relationship because the Kremlin believes that
Starting point is 00:10:10 Ramzan keeps a lid on any kind of dissent through these absolutely brutal methods of enforced disappearance, killings and the like, torture, quelled the Islamist insurgency that had continued after the Second Chechen War had ended. So I think that the, you know, the Kremlin for, you know, felt that Ramzan kept lit on insurgency. So Ramzan pretty much has a carte blanche to do whatever he wants. But what might surprise people here is that Ramzan's father was at one point fighting
Starting point is 00:10:43 against the Russians and was considered a Chechen nationalist. And so how did leadership go from trying to fight for independence to fighting on Russia's behalf against Ukraine? Well, that's right. Ramzan's father, Ahmad Kadyrov, was aligned with the anti-Russian forces in Chechnya and eventually changed sides. And when Papa changed sides, obviously, Ramzan changed sides. And they tied their fate to the Kremlin. For what reasons? I know it's really hard to say. They acquired a tremendous power in Chechnya by doing so. And so when you look at the role of Chechen forces, who are actually known as Kadyrovsky, they're that loyal to the leader, when you look at their role in Ukraine, is this simply doing a favor for a patron, Vladimir Putin, or is there more going on here? I think that it's showing their power, because if they throw their force behind Russia's forces in Ukraine, then they're owed something, aren't they? But it's also, I think it's also important to underscore that Kadyrov has total control over his own security services and the like in Chechnya, if they remove him, who knows what he might do.
Starting point is 00:12:19 He's been very active on social media. Kadyrov has been tweeting a lot during this war. He engaged with Elon Musk. His posts often get more than a million views. What does-aggrandize so that the boss notices you, but you also self-aggrandize, you know, so the local folks also notice, you know, see you in a particular way. That is Rachel Denver, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division for Human Rights Watch. Thank you for speaking with us.
Starting point is 00:13:00 Thank you so much. Earlier in this episode, you heard reporting from NPR's Sarah McCammon and Connor Donovan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.

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