Is the Ruler of Chechnya Out of Control?

The more paranoid in Moscow’s opposition circles see Kadyrov as a potential successor to Putin. That’s highly unlikely—preposterous, even—but Kadyrov has made himself an irreplaceable part of the political system. Nikolay Petrov, the head of the Center for Political Geographic Research, said that, whatever turn the Russian political system takes in the future, Kadyrov will have to be accounted for, and could perhaps play a decisive role. “Kadyrov has the potential to be a tsar-maker,” Petrov said. “Not because he has more men at his disposal than, for example, the minister of defense, but because his men—tens of thousands of them—will carry out his orders without thinking twice. If the minister of defense tells his troops to storm the Kremlin, he can’t be sure that all of them will actually do it. But Kadyrov can.”