PUTIN-ALLY KADYROV REMAINS IN POWER IN CHECHNYA WITH 99.85% OF VOTE

Tue 22 September 2026:

The Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has been credited with 99.85% of the vote in his re-election as head of the Russian republic in the North Caucasus.

The figure quoted by the election commission on Monday was even higher than the 99.73% recorded in the previous election in 2021, the state news agency TASS reported.

Kadyrov has ruled the troubled region of Chechnya with an iron fist for more than 20 years with the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Civil rights activists have documented grave human rights violations and the murders of critics.

At the same time, there are recurring reports claiming that Kadyrov is suffering from serious illnesses. In public, he is attempting to position his 18-year-old son Adam as a potential successor.

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Ramzan Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya since 2007 as a fiercely loyal Putin ally. After his father was assassinated, he crushed remaining separatists and turned the republic into a personal fiefdom with Kremlin subsidies and his own armed force, the Kadyrovtsy.

Human-rights groups have long accused his security forces of torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and collective punishment of entire families. In 2017 authorities rounded up, tortured, and in some cases killed men suspected of being gay; Kadyrov publicly denied gay people even existed in Chechnya. Critics, journalists, and opponents have been murdered inside Russia and abroad, with Kadyrov or his inner circle frequently named as suspects.

His fighters have taken part in Russia’s war in Ukraine. In 2025 Ukraine charged him in absentia with war crimes for publicly ordering subordinates to shoot captured Ukrainian soldiers rather than take them prisoner and later to place prisoners on rooftops in Grozny as human shields. He is under U.S., EU, and UK sanctions.

Kadyrov presents himself as a devout Muslim strongman who rebuilt Grozny, yet he runs a cult-of-personality regime that brooks no dissent, enriches his family, and flouts Russian law with Moscow’s tacit approval. Reports of serious illness have recently raised questions about succession.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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