I just thought that I would chuck this bit of red meat into the forum. To be honest, given the political discussions on this forum, I’m surprised no one has brought this up before. I haven’t learnt Russian to any level (el que mucho abarca, poco aprieta,) so I will try to keep my personal observations circumspect.
But would anyone be able to give me any insight into what is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting political figures on the international stage right now?
To be honest, the guy sort of reminds me as being a Russian version of Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen from Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2012 movie “The Dictator.”
He’s getting a bad rap in the Western press at the moment, not the least over accusations that he is ‘massacring’ gays in Chechnya. I have no idea whether these are true or not.
According to this article from the British newspaper The Independen,t a spokesman for Kadyrov, Alvi Karimov, speaking to Interfax News in response to the allegations, claimed that: “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic…If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them since their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.” Reassuring…
Probably much like many other westerners, I remember first reading about him after that whole Boris Nemtsov affair back in 2015. I then checked out his Instagram page, and have done so a few times since. It seems like an eclectic mixture of ordinary photos of Kadyrov doing regular politician stuff, clips of MMA/military manoeuvres, videos of him working out and cute animal memes.
Again, any insights?