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Bloomberg
Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who won a new five-year term last year, said it’s time for him to step aside and let the Kremlin choose a successor. A Russian official downplayed the statement as an emotional message meant to show he’s not clinging to power, the Interfax news service reported.
“There was a time when people like me were needed — to fight, to bring order,†Kadyrov said in an interview with state-run broadcaster Rossiya 1.
“Now we have order.†Kadyrov, 41, said it would be up to the Kremlin to decide on his successor. President Vladimir Putin last year asked Kadyrov to run for re-election, a month after the Chechen leader said on state TV that he wanted to quit. It would be strange to discuss Kadyrov’s departure after he got almost 98 percent in the 2016 vote, Interfax cited the unidentified official as saying on Monday.
Putin picked the former Chechen separatist in 2007 to fight extremists and maintain control after Russia fought two wars in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus republic. Kadyrov switched sides during the second war and backed the Kremlin with his father, Akhmad, who was made leader of Chechnya until he was assassinated by militants in a bomb explosion
in the capital, Grozny, in 2004. The younger Kadyrov has long been accused of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings and recently faced international condemnation over reports of an anti-gay crackdown in the region. He denies the charges.
Separately, Kadyrov said he’s convinced of the innocence of five men, including a top Chechen security official, who were convicted in the 2015 murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister. “I am more than certain that they have nothing to do with it,†Kadyrov said in the interview. “According to my information, these guys are totally innocent.†A Russian court in July sentenced Zaur Dadayev, who was deputy head of an elite police unit loyal to Kadyrov, to 20 years in prison for the murder. Four accomplices received jail terms ranging from 11 to 19 years.