In Chechen Presidential Race, Kremlin Takes Center Stage
During the presidential race in Chechnya last fall, Akhmad Kadyrov, the candidate who eventually won, campaigned on promises that through personal cooperation with the Kremlin, he would stabilize and then revive a place ruined by war. “The fate of Chechnya,” one of his posters read, “is my fate.” Within months of taking office, Mr. Kadyrov was dead, killed by an assassin’s bomb. With Mr. Kadyrov gone, a new election season has begun in earnest in Chechnya, a Russian republic that barely functions at all. The Kremlin is busily reasserting its strategy for managing one of its thorniest problems.Full Story