How does Vladimir Putin outsource Russia’s dirty work to the Kadyrovs?

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This is the script for my video posted on May 14, 2026. Watch it on TikTok.

There’s a family in Russia that has been credibly tied to political assassinations on European soil, and Vladimir Putin uses them as his preferred subcontractor for dangerous work. The Kadyrov family has ruled Chechnya since 2000, and though they haven’t always had a positive relationship with the rest of Russia, they have repeatedly done Putin’s dirty work in exchange for money and independence. In many ways, this one family is the case study for how Putin runs Russia.

In 1995, during the First Chechen War in which Russian forces attempted to regain control over the newly declared Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, a man named Akhmad Kadyrov became the Chief Mufti, or head Islamic leader, of Ichkeria. Akhmad fought as a militia commander against the Russian military. The First Chechen War ended in 1996 with de facto Chechen independence, but by 1999 a militant jihadist organization in Ichkiria had grown powerful enough to launch an invasion of Dagestan, which was still part of Russia and gave Vladimir Putin his pretext for another war. Kadyrov, who was a traditionalist Sufi muslim, saw this faction as both a religious threat and a strategic dead end, so he defected to Russia.

In 2000, Russian forces finally seized control over Chechnya, and Akhmad Kadyrov was appointed head of the Chechen administration, then in 2003 he became president under a new constitution and a sham election. Interestingly, Akhmad’s defection became the foundation for Putin’s overall strategy in Chechnya, which is now known as Chechenization. This strategy was controversial inside the Russian security establishment because it basically delegated counter-insurgency efforts to loyal Chechens rather than using Russian troops.

But in 2004, Akhmad attended a Soviet Victory Day parade at a stadium in the Chechen capital of Grozny. He did not know that during recent repairs, a bomb was placed in the concrete of a support column adjacent to the VIP seating. The bomb detonated, killing Akhmad and many others, and the attack was later claimed by Shamil Basayev, a rival Chechen warlord who opposed Chechnya being part of Russia. Akhmad’s son, Ramzan, was 27 years old at the time and constitutionally too young to succeed his father, so Putin allowed him to run the Chechen security services and consolidate power until he turned 30.

Ramzan Kadyrov became president of Chechnya in 2007, and since then he and his loyal Kadyrovites have been partially absorbed into Russia’s formal structures, including the National Guard, the Interior Ministry, and the Ministry of Defense. On Ramzan’s recommendation, Putin offered amnesty to thousands of former Ichkerian fighters, and thousands of these were absorbed into Kadyrov’s security forces. Since 2009, Chechens have been convicted for multiple assassinations abroad. In one case, a Vienna court convicted three Chechens for killing a former Kadyrov bodyguard who had filed a torture complaint against Ramzan with the European Court of Human Rights. And when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Kadyrov’s roughly 20000 personal forces fought in tandem with the Russian military.

But the important thing to note here is that this support isn’t free. Roughly 90% of Chechnya’s annual budget comes from federal subsidies, and this is very different from any other Russian federal subject because Chechnya’s subsidies are sized according to how much it is spending. In other words, Putin sends Kadyrov however much money Kadyrov needs to support Russia’s goals in places like Ukraine or Syria, and Kadyrov can do effectively whatever he wants. On one hand, this means that Chechnya wouldn’t be able to last even three months, according to Ramzan’s own words, without Russian financial backing. But it also means that if Russia chose to stop paying, tens of thousands of armed men with a personal grievance might actively seek recourse against Vladimir Putin.

Ramzan Kadyrov and his Kadyrovites are provably responsible for extrajudicial killings, systematic torture, assassinations abroad, and purges of suspected members of the LGBT community, and amid all of this Kadyrov’s family has also proven itself to be incredibly strange. Ramzan has at least 12 acknowledged children thanks in part to the fact that he reportedly practices Islamic polygamy despite it being illegal in Russia. His oldest son Akhmat is only 20 years old but serves as Chechnya’s Minister of Physical Culture and Sports, and now also as Deputy Prime Minister.

Ramzan’s favorite son, Adam, has a more interesting background. In 2023, a 19-year-old Russian was arrested in Volgograd for burning a Quran. The case was transferred to Grozny against typical procedure, where the perpetrator was charged with insulting religious feelings and hooliganism, then later given a separate 14-year sentence for treason. Adam beat the man on camera and Ramzan posted the video himself. Adam was then given the title Hero of the Chechen Republic. By his 16th birthday, he already had six state awards, and he served as the head of his father’s personal security service at the age of 15. At 18, he is now secretary of the Chechen Security Council but also holds at least seven concurrent official positions.

Unfortunately for Ramzan, his sons are too young to succeed him, and he has suffered repeated health issues that may include pancreatic necrosis and kidney failure. Kadyrov himself denies it, but multiple emergency hospitalizations and active succession planning support the underlying reporting. He’s reportedly been seeking a legal mechanism to transfer power to Adam, but Putin has not endorsed this yet. Technically, Russian federal law requires regional heads to be at least 30, and a former Kadyrovite named Apti Alaudinov seems to be Russia’s first pick. He’s a Lieutenant General in the Russian military, but his father and brother were killed in 1994 while fighting for Russia during the First Chechen War. Realistically even if he took over on paper in the event of Ramzan’s death, the Kadyrovs would still exert control. Russia’s greatest fear when it comes to Chechnya is that these dynamics could cause another insurgency.

In the end, Chechnya is an excellent case study for how Putin likes to operate in his own country. He prefers to outsource coercion to a single actor he understands on a personal level, similar to how he prefers dealing with foreign autocrats rather than democratic representatives. Putin likes his most damnable actions like foreign assassinations to be deniable because they’re routed through a third party, and he likes his manpower to be disposable and easy to use because all he has to do is ask for something and throw money at a problem. But Ramzan Kadyrov is proof that this strategy is vulnerable, because it relies so heavily on one person. It’s like a personal friendship, only if that person dies, or they can no longer be trusted, or they outright harm your interests, the collateral damage of that friendship ending is potentially catastrophic.

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