Kadyrov is dying. If the effort to install a new leader causes disputes among the elite, war will break out, the analyst says

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is apparently terminally ill, so the agreement that Putin imposed on him after the second Chechen war of 1999-2009 is in jeopardy.

After the war in Chechnya, Russia bought stability with hot federal subsidies, bribing Kadyrov, the elite, and a truce between rival militias.

Claims that Russian officials, including Putin, are terminally ill appear regularly – and are mostly untrue. But the news about Kadyrov is confirmed by the Ukrainian intelligence service and well-informed Russian sources. His illness is said to be incurable and Kadyrov will die soon.

Kadyrov has pancreatic necrosis and was recently seen with a swollen face and abdomen.

Already in 2019, he was diagnosed with pancreatic necrosis. Since last year, his state of health has been rapidly deteriorating, he has been in the hospital several times even in artificial sleep. He rarely appeared in public and always had a slurred speech, a swollen face and a bloated stomach.

Putin will want a smooth transition of power

Moscow has long considered Chechnya an “annoying problem”, so it solves it with massive repression and bribing the new Chechen elite. Kadyrov, for example, is known for his private zoo and luxury car collection, including one of only 20 in the world, a Lamborghini Reventon worth almost £1.5 million.

Given the current crises, Putin will strive for a smooth transfer of power. Kadyrov succeeded his father. He hoped to build a dynasty, but his eldest son Akhmat is only 18 – this did not prevent him from being appointed as minister of sports and youth, but by law the Chechen president must be at least 30 years old.

The most serious candidate seems to be Major General Apti Alaudinov, the commander of Chechen mercenaries in Ukraine. There are other people close to Kadyrov who may think they have a greater claim to the top job.

That’s why Kadyrov’s likely death is such a problem. After the war in Chechnya, Russia bought stability with hefty federal subsidies to bribe Kadyrov, the Chechen elite, and a truce between rival armed groups.

They swore allegiance to Kadyrov, but they don’t trust each other. If the effort to install a new leader causes a split in the Chechen elite, not only a political but also an armed struggle will probably break out.

Putin will then have a huge dilemma: pacifying Chechnya and preventing instability from spreading to other parts of the restive North Caucasus would almost certainly require the deployment of large numbers of Russian troops.

Putin can deploy the National Guard, but experience shows that this may not be enough. Then the Kremlin would have two equal options – either transfer troops to Chechnya and lose momentum in Ukraine, or leave troops in Ukraine and risk losing Chechnya and destabilizing the North Caucasus.

Putin’s regime is based on bribing elites with opportunities for enrichment, embezzlement and corruption. Loyalty is no longer enough and you need to threaten a little. Kadyrov, for example, organized protests in support of Putin, but with the implication that without him a third Chechen war might break out. And every time the Kremlin tried to cut federal subsidies to Chechnya, which make up 80 percent of its budget, Kadyrov threatened to resign.

Russian gerontocracy

The whole situation presents a serious problem for the increasingly older and more conservative leadership. The 47-year-old Kadyrov is essentially a youth in the Russian elite. Putin’s dependence on people of his own generation and the mindset and reluctance to make changes in the highest places make his regime a gerontocracy.

The powerful secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, is 72, as is Alexei Bortnikov, the director of the FSB security service, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is 74 years old.

This has visible consequences on their energy, opinions and ability to adapt to the new reality. At the same time, it causes dissonance among the next political generation, which is impatiently waiting for its turn.

Above all, however, this means that the 71-year-old Putin will have to make more and more difficult decisions due to illness, poor health or death, and it will not always be convenient for him. It is also an open secret that Bortnikov has also been ill for some time, but Putin is forcing him to stay in office because of the controversy surrounding his successor, Sergei Korolev.

Putin goes to great lengths to protect the regime from predictable and manageable threats, from the risk of a coup to the impact of sanctions.

However, Kadyrov’s case shows that there are also important situations with which he cannot do anything that would not significantly change the regime. And he doesn’t seem to be able to. He can only wait and stay in a situation that can be very difficult, concludes Mark Galeotti.

Listen to more in the audio recording of the program World in 20 minutes, prepared by Gita Zbavitelová and Tea Veseláková.