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The health of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who earlier this month sought to resign, is deteriorating rapidly, sources and observers have told Al Jazeera.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want Kadyrov to be succeeded by his third son, they say.
Earlier this month, 48-year-old Kadyrov, who has long dubbed himself Putin’s “foot soldier”, said he wanted to quit.
“Another [Chechen leader] will have his own initiative, his own vision. I hope my request will be supported,” Kadyrov told a pro-Kremlin publication, Chechnya Today, before his May 7 meeting with Putin.
During the meeting in Putin’s office, Kadyrov boasted of 55,000 Chechen servicemen fighting in Ukraine and read a laundry list of economic achievements under his rule in Chechnya, a region home to 1.5 million people.
Kadyrov, known as a boxing and weightlifting aficionado, read his words aloud from cards with extra-large print.
Neither mentioned the resignation. Kadyrov clarified the issue a day later and habitually glorified Putin.
“Whatever I say, no matter how hard I ask, the decision is only made by one person – our Supreme Commander,” Kadyrov, who had streets and districts in Chechnya named after Putin, wrote on Telegram. “I’m a foot soldier. If there’s an order – I follow it.”
Two Chechen insiders familiar with the inner workings of Kadyrov’s government told Al Jazeera that, despite the deferential tones, Kadyrov has had a falling-out with Putin over his preferred successor – his third son, Adam Kadyrov, who turned 17 last November.
The sources requested anonymity, as rights groups have previously documented a harsh crackdown on dissent in Chechnya, including the persecution of Kadyrov critics and their loved ones.
“Putin refused to have Adam as a successor,” one of the sources said.
In 2023, Ramzan posted a video purporting to show his son in a pretrial detention centre assaulting a Russian man who had burned a copy of the Quran.
Ramzan said he was “proud” of Adam, who federal investigators said cannot face assault charges because of his age.
The younger Kadyrov has been appointed to several official positions, including head of Chechnya’s security council.
But according to one of the sources, he has been “raised as a prince” and has limited experience of the “real world”.
According to Chechnya’s constitution, no one below 30 can head it.
At the time of the 2004 assassination of his father, Akhmat, Ramzan was 28.
Akhmat was a mufti and separatist strongman who switched sides after conflicts with puritan separatists who rejected Chechnya’s Sufi traditions.
Akhmat was killed in a bomb blast, and Ramzan at the time relied on figureheads before officially becoming Chechnya’s leader in 2007.
Adam will turn 30 in 2037.
Kadyrov senior reportedly has necrotising pancreatitis, a health condition with a low survival rate, and kidney problems that require frequent dialysis.
The sources Al Jazeera interviewed claimed he was hospitalised several times in critical condition, and spends hours in the AiMed Family Clinic in Chechnya’s administrative capital, Grozny, every day and often stays overnight.
Kadyrov also resorts to prerecorded videos that are broadcast for several consecutive days to create the illusion of his busy, uninterrupted work schedule, they said.
Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify their claims, which are consistent with other media reports about Kadyrov’s reported ailing health.
The illness has reportedly forced Kadyrov to break unwritten rules.
For the first time in two decades, he did not record a television address to congratulate Chechens when the holy month of Ramadan ended in late March.
He also did not take part in this year’s February 24 commemorations of the Stalinist 1944 deportation of the entire Chechen community to Central Asia.
Kadyrov is “very worried” about his family’s destiny after his death, according to Ansar Dishni of Nyiso, a Telegram channel that publishes insider news from Chechnya.
“Of course, the Kremlin has given his family security guarantees, but everything can change because Putin is also not forever,” Dishni told Al Jazeera.
So far, Apti Alaudinov, a 51-year-old top security official in Chechnya, is the Kremlin’s preferred successor, the sources said.
Alaudinov is a poster boy of Chechens fighting on Russia’s side in Ukraine, even though the forces he commands have been ridiculed for staging videos of “participating” in the hostilities.
Al Jazeera reported that these forces barely distinguished themselves in combat and mostly have to police Russia-occupied areas in Ukraine.
For years, Kadyrov has been reportedly investing in real estate and businesses in the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern nations, creating a financial haven for his family.
Others have followed suit.
“Chechens are among our best buyers,” a Russian-speaking real estate agent in Dubai told Al Jazeera. “They show up with bags of cash.”
Three decades ago, Chechnya was a hotbed of separatism beset by kidnappings, assassinations and abject poverty.
“At one point, some believed that Chechnya’s status as part of the Russian Federation could serve as a guarantee against further degradation of the human rights situation,” Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a rights watchdog, told Al Jazeera.
But after two devastating wars and a decades-long, violent crackdown on “extremism” in the wider North Caucasus region, Chechnya has by far become Russia’s most privileged province.
Moscow floods it with federal funds that are reportedly misappropriated by Kadyrov, who has built palatial, heavily fortified residences, boasted a collection of luxurious sports cars and invited champion boxer Mike Tyson, as well as Western celebrities to perform at public concerts on his birthday.
Human rights groups accuse him and his personal guards of extrajudicial killings, torture, abduction and the destruction of properties that belong to alleged “extremists”.
Dale said Chechnya’s human rights abuses are being replicated in other Russian regions and Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine.
“The most horrific abuses in Chechnya have become the standard for Russia in general,” Dale said.
Observers believe little will change after Kadyrov’s death and the appointment of his successor.
But whoever rules Chechnya next “may try to use Kadyrov’s image in a negative key as a figure the people allegedly got rid of to present himself as a good-willed reformer”, Dishni of the Nyiso Telegram channel concluded.
