Chechen leader Kadyrov is optimistic about an end to the war in Ukraine. However, peace talks are not the right path for the former separatist fighter.
The President of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is convinced that Russia can achieve its goals in Ukraine by the end of the year. It would also be wrong to negotiate with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kadyrov said in an interview with Rossiya-1 channel, the flagship of Russian state television. “I believe that by the end of the year we will be 100 percent able to fulfill the task set for us today.” Russia has the power to capture Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, second-largest city, Kharkiv, and main port, Odessa.
Kadyrov strictly rejected negotiations with the Ukrainian government about a ceasefire or even peace, which are currently not taking place anyway. “If we sit down with Zelenskyj at the negotiating table, yes, I think that’s wrong.”
Like the head of the Wagner mercenary unit, Yevgeny Prigoschin, Kadyrov has deployed his own troops in Ukraine, which operate largely independently of the Russian high command. For example, Kadyrov’s troops were instrumental in taking the port city of Mariupol.
Kadyrov has forged an informal alliance with Prigozhin and other nationalist hardliners that supports the war against Ukraine and calls for a massive crackdown. Kadyrov is a former Chechen separatist fighter. At the end of the 1990s he changed sides and joined his clan in the pro-Russian government in the Caucasus republic. In 2007, Russian head of state Vladimir Putin himself made Kadyrov president of Chechnya, an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation.
