(Moscow) Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Tuesday evening in Chechnya, a Russian republic in the Caucasus ruled with an iron fist by his ally Ramzan Kadyrov, where he had not been since 2011.
“Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has arrived in the Chechen Republic. A rich program is planned as part of his visit,” Kadyrov said on Telegram.
Russian state television showed footage of Mr Putin arriving, stepping off a helicopter and being greeted on the tarmac by Mr Kadyrov and his closest aides.
“People will be happy. They will be glad that the president came to the republic. For us, it is a stimulus, a surge of energy. It is a great happiness,” Kadyrov told reporters.
According to the Chechen leader, Mr Putin began his visit by visiting the grave of his father and predecessor as Chechen leader, Akhmat Kadyrov, who was killed in an attack by Islamist rebels in 2004.
PHOTO VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
Russian state television showed footage of Mr Putin arriving, stepping off a helicopter and being greeted on the tarmac by Mr Kadyrov and his closest aides.
Mr Putin’s visit to Chechnya follows one earlier Tuesday to Beslan in North Ossetia, another Russian republic in the Caucasus, where he paid tribute to the victims of the bloody school hostage-taking by a Chechen Islamist commando in 2004.
Chechnya experienced two deadly conflicts in the 1990s and 2000s between Russian federal forces and a progressively Islamized separatist rebellion that spread across the region and pledged allegiance in 2015 to the jihadist organization Islamic State.
The Russian republic has been ruled since 2007 by Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces are regularly accused of multiple human rights violations in the territory.
Mr Putin’s visit comes as Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive on August 6 in the Russian border region of Kursk, seizing dozens of towns.
Chechen forces are deployed in the Kursk region to counter this Ukrainian assault.