Global Courant
(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Thursday, a state TV reporter said, three days after Kadyrov said he was proud of his 15-year-old son for beating a prisoner facing charges of burning the Quran.
A short video clip posted by TV reporter Pavel Zarubin showed the two men exchanging opening remarks, without any reference to the intense episode that drew condemnation even from some pro-Kremlin hardliners.
Putin said there was a “positive dynamic” in Chechnya, largely thanks to Kadyrov and his team. Kadyrov was shown handing him some papers from a file.
Putin has given Kadyrov a free hand to rule the southern Muslim region as a personal fief in exchange for keeping it stable and loyal after wars in the 1990s and 2000s in which the country tried to break away from Moscow.
Kadyrov has cultivated the image of a ruthless Putin ally and an aggressive cheerleader for Russia’s war in Ukraine, but some commentators suggested he crossed the line this week by endorsing his son Adam’s attack on prisoner Nikita Zhuravel.
He posted a video of the younger Kadyrov punching and kicking Zhuravel as the prisoner cowered in a chair, saying he was proud of his son for acquiring “mature ideals of honor, dignity and defense of his religion.”
The alleged Quran burning did not take place in Chechnya, but Russian investigators said they transferred Zhuravel to Chechen custody because Muslims there saw themselves as victims of the incident.
The beating left Putin accused of extraditing an ethnic Russian “to be devoured by the Chechens,” former Kremlin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov, now a fierce Putin critic, said this week. Even pro-Kremlin war commentators called the episode a disgrace.
Kadyrov, 46, has been the subject of intense speculation about his health, with rumors swirling this month that he was dead or in a coma. Last week he published a message on Telegram saying he was doing well, and that his reason for traveling to a hospital in Moscow was to visit the bedside of a sick uncle.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
