Russia FM: 2,000 Mideast militants fight in Nagorno-Karabakh

November 03, 2020

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Russia's top diplomat said Tuesday that about 2,000 fighters from the Middle East have joined the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, the worst outbreak of hostilities in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in more than a quarter-century.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement came as the warring parties traded accusations over new attacks in the region. “We are certainly worried about the internationalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the involvement of militants from the Middle East,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian business daily Kommersant. “We have repeatedly asked foreign players to use their potential to stop the transfer of militants, whose number in the conflict zone is approaching 2,000.”

Lavrov added that Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the issue in last week's phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The latest outburst of hostilities began Sept. 27 and has left hundreds — perhaps thousands — dead, marking the worst escalation of fighting since the war’s end.

Azerbaijan has relied on strong support from its ally Turkey, which has trained Azerbaijani military and provided it with strike drones and long-range rocket systems. Armenian officials accuse Turkey of being directly involved in the conflict and sending mercenaries from Syria to fight on Azerbaijan’s side.

Turkey has denied deploying combatants to the region, but a Syrian war monitor and Syria-based opposition activists have confirmed that Turkey has sent hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The heavy fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones has raged despite repeated international attempts to end hostilities. A U.S.-brokered truce frayed immediately after it took effect last week, just like two previous cease-fires negotiated by Russia, and the latest pledge by Armenia and Azerbaijan not to target residential areas was broken hours after it was made Friday. The warring sides have repeatedly blamed each other for violations.

Artillery fire hit the region's capital Stepanakert on Tuesday night and Nagorno-Karabakh emergencies ministry also said three rockets hit the strategically key city of Shushi. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has insisted that Azerbaijan has the right to reclaim its territory by force after three decades of fruitless international mediation. He said that Armenia must pledge to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh as a condition for a lasting truce.

Azerbaijani troops have reclaimed control of several regions on the fringes of Nagorno-Karabakh and pressed their offensive into the separatist territory from the south, trying to cut a link between the separatist territory and Armenia.

Lavrov said that Russia was continuing to push for hostilities to end, noting that it's working on a set of verification measures needed to achieve a lasting cease-fire, including the possible deployment of international observers under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, and Aida Sultanova in London, contributed to this report.

Putin rejected offer to use body doubles during Chechen war

February 27, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had rejected an offer to use body doubles for personal protection during a conflict in Chechnya. Speaking in an interview with the news agency Tass, another segment of which was released Thursday, Putin said the plan dated back to the early 2000s.

He said that it “came at the most difficult moment of fighting terrorism.” In the early 2000s, Russia was fighting a war against separatists in Chechnya who also launched attacks elsewhere in the country. Putin visited troops in Chechnya hours after predecessor Boris Yeltsin stepped down on Dec. 31, 1999. He later said that a helicopter he was using came under fire during that trip.

Putin also made several other trips to Chechnya while fighting was still raging there. During one of those trips in March 2000, Putin flew into Chechnya in the seat of a second pilot in a fighter jet.

Putin didn't elaborate on his motives behind rejecting the proposal to have body doubles. The 67-year-old former KGB agent who has ruled Russia for more than 20 years also reaffirmed that he has continued to shun a personal cellphone. He said that he feels “more comfortable" relying on protected communications means and may occasionally use an aide's phone.

Flash floods kill 6 in southern Russia; 1 person missing

October 26, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — At least six people died as flash floods hit southern Russia, paralyzing road and train traffic across the Black Sea region and forcing hundreds to evacuate their homes, rescue officials said Friday.

The region, which hosted many events for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, saw a huge amount of rain on a single day — Wednesday — that equaled the region's average rainfall for two months. The deluge caused rivers to overflow and roar down the mountainous area.

Weather forecasters predicted torrential rain Friday evening in Sochi, the Winter Olympics city on the Black Sea where Russian President Vladimir Putin often welcomes foreign dignitaries. Russia's Investigative Committee said Friday that six people died in several locations near the town of Tuapse when torrential rains and flash floods hit. An elderly woman also went missing after she was swept away by rushing water in Tuapse.

Footage on state television showed people being evacuated from villages in inflatable boats and emergency crews repairing a section of a collapsed bridge. The floods have damaged roads and railroad bridges, paralyzing traffic. More than 20 trains running along the Black Sea coast have been delayed after a section of a railroad bridge collapsed, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded at nearby stations. Emergency officials offered temporary accommodations and food to the passengers.

Russian Railways said Friday that they have repaired one of the tracks, allowing a train to travel between two major Black Sea coastal towns for the first time since Wednesday. Power cuts have affected nearly 2,000 residents, and water supply has been cut through the region, even in Sochi, where flooding was not anywhere near as disastrous as in Tuapse.

Russia blamed for attack on Chechen pair who fought with Ukrainians

Tuesday 31 October 2017

Ukrainian officials said they believed either Russian secret services or pro-Kremlin Chechen assassins were behind an attack on a Chechen man accused of plotting to kill Vladimir Putin.

The Chechen man, Adam Osmayev, who leads a battalion of Chechens fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the east of the country, was wounded in the attack, near Kiev, on Monday, and his wife, Amina Okuyeva, who also fought in the battalion, was killed.

Osmayev and Okuyeva were returning by car to their house outside Kiev, when unknown assailants opened fire on their car, apparently from a Kalashnikov rifle. Okuyeva was killed by two bullets to the head, while Osmayev was wounded but survived.

“I drove as far as I could until the car stopped, the engine was also hit. I tried to give her first aid, but she was shot in the head,” Osmayev told Ukrainian television from his hospital bed.

Oleksandr Turchynov, head of Ukraine’s security council, wrote on Facebook: “Russia, which continues its aggression in eastern Ukraine, has carried out terror right in the heart of the country.”

The attack on Monday was the second attempt to kill the couple this year. In June, a Chechen hitman posing as a journalist from French newspaper Le Monde attempted to open fire on Osmayev but was shot and wounded by Okuyeva.

Osmayev, the son of a successful Chechen businessman, was educated at a boarding school in the Cotswolds, in England, and studied economics at the University of Buckingham. He was arrested in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2012, on charges of planning the assassination of Vladimir Putin. He denied the charges, claiming he was set up, and he was released from prison in the aftermath of the Maidan revolution in 2014.

When the conflict with pro-Russia separatists broke out in east Ukraine, Okuyeva and Osmayev joined a pro-Ukraine battalion mainly made up of Chechens. The battalion’s commander, Isa Munayev, was killed in February 2015, and Osmayev took over as commander.

Okuyeva was a public face of the battalion, often posing in stylized photographs with a sniper rifle. She was an uncompromising critic of Russia and the regime of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya. Many of Kadyrov’s critics have been killed, in Moscow as well as further afield.

A group of Chechen fighters who fought alongside pro-Russian forces in east Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 said they had gone there with the express purpose of killing Munayev, whom they deemed a traitor. Osmayev and Okuyeva, as the highest-profile Chechens backing Ukraine after Munayev’s death, knew that they were also targets.

Okuyeva was the latest high-profile target killed in the Ukrainian capital, which has been rocked by contract killings on numerous occasions in the past 18 months.

Last summer, the investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed in central Kiev by a bomb placed in his car. Ihor Mosiychuk, a nationalist MP, was wounded by a bomb that killed his bodyguard last week.

In March a Russian MP, Denis Voronenkov, who had fled to Ukraine and denounced the Kremlin was shot dead in broad daylight in central Kiev. Voronenkov had asked Ukrainian authorities for armed protection in the run-up to the hit, saying he had received threats.

In all these cases Ukrainian authorities have been quick to blame Russia, though in the case of Sheremet investigative journalists alleged that Ukrainian security agents could have been monitoring the scene before the hit.

A Ukrainian official, Anton Gerashchenko, said on Tuesday that Okuyeva’s funeral would take place according to Islamic traditions. “Amina was close to death many times, and asked her family to avoid a big, public, funeral,” he wrote on Facebook.

Source: The Guardian.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/russia-blamed-for-attack-on-chechen-couple-who-fought-with-ukrainian-forces.

Iraq's Caucasus tribes demand formal recognition

December 9, 2016

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Three Iraqi Caucasus tribes are uniting to seek recognition under the Iraqi Constitution. The Circassians, Chechens and Dagestanis want to unify their communities under one national name, “Caucasus,” much like the Christians of Iraq did when they formed the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council political party in 2007.

The tribes seek formal recognition in the constitution to guarantee equal rights and legal protection from violence against minorities. On Nov. 24, the nongovernmental organization Masarat for Cultural and Media Development (MCMD) hosted a meeting of representatives of the three groups in the Sulaimaniyah governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. There, they asked to be included among Iraqi minorities and officially declared their demands. MCMD is preparing a draft law regarding rights for minorities that it will submit to parliament.

Ahmed Kataw, the leader of Circassians in Iraq, spoke to Al-Monitor about these demands, saying, “The Iraqi Constitution should recognize the Iraqi Caucasus tribes — Circassians, Chechens and Dagestanis — like the rest of the officially recognized minorities. Their names should be included within the Iraqi minorities protected under the draft law. … We want to make sure the Caucasian minorities are represented in the parliament according to the quota system, by virtue of which other minorities are represented.”

The Caucasus tribes were late presenting their demands to MCMD because, they said, they were unable to form a political party to represent them at the official level, and there were disagreements about selecting leaders to convey these demands.

Kataw said tense security situations, such as scattered armed confrontations and the battle against the Islamic State, have made it risky to start a political movement. “We did not form a political party. We did, however, start establishing a cultural-social organization called Solidarity Association back in 2004, headquartered in Kirkuk," he said. "As a representative of the Circassians in Iraq, I have served as vice president of the association, and a Chechen was nominated president, while the secretary-general was a Dagestani. The 450 members of the general assembly took a vote, but the security conditions impeded us from turning the association into a political body. In addition, we were afraid we would be dominated by major political movements once we had announced we were forming an independent political party.”

Adnan Abdul Bari, who represents the Dagestanis in the Solidarity Association, spoke to Al-Monitor about the importance of joint work between the representatives of the Caucasus tribes. “These tribes are considered from the same origins. Their common history, geography, culture and traditions differentiate them from other tribes," he said. "They have the identity of the peoples of the North Caucasus, so it is time for them to come forward as one people with a single cultural identity.”

The small number of Caucasus tribes and the fact that they are not concentrated geographically has weakened their participation in public life.

Researcher Mohammed Hussein Dagestani, the editor of the magazine Tadamon (Solidarity), which is concerned with Circassians, Chechens and Dagestanis, is head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate in Kirkuk. He told Al-Monitor, “Russia forced the Caucasus tribes into displacement in 1864. They had to move from North Caucasus to Turkish territory, and the Ottomans then forced them out to Jordan, Syria and Iraq.”

Hussein Dagestani added, “This tragedy is similar to some experienced by other minorities, such as the Armenians, who fled to Iraq and other countries after the massacres committed by the Turks in 1915. We also share some experiences with the Yazidis, who had been subjected to a series of genocides, most recently by the Islamic State in 2016.”

Mazen Abdul Rahman, the Chechen representative of the Solidarity Association, told Al-Monitor there are scattered Chechen settlements, but "there are no settlements for either Dagestanis or Circassians because they are rather integrated into the urban centers.”

According to Katwa, there are more than 15,000 Caucasians, and the tribes' representatives agree that the Chechens are ranked first in terms of number, followed by the Dagestanis, then the Circassians.

Only a limited number of seniors in Caucasus families still speak Caucasian languages, but their numbers are gradually decreasing, which means their languages will inevitably be forgotten.

Another factor contributing to the demise of Caucasian culture is their way of blending in and their refusal to stand out in society. They act as Arabs in Arab areas, as Kurds in Kurdish areas and Turkmen in Turkmen areas. The Caucasian families who lived in Shiite-dominated areas embraced the Shiite sect, while those who lived in Sunni areas followed the Sunni sect.

However, the long years of blending in did not stop these tribes from practicing their traditions, such as applying the norms and principles of the so-called Adiga law, by virtue of which parents and grandparents have to follow Caucasus traditions when it comes to marriage, childbirth and other social occasions.

Source: al-Monitor.
Link: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/12/caucasus-circassians-chechens-dagestanis-iraq.html/.

Kadyrov to seek new term as Chechen president

July 02, 2016

MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin-backed strongman leader of Chechnya says he will seek another term in office. Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's president since 2007, had said earlier this year that he considered his mission to be complete. His term was to expire in April, but Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed him interim leader until a September election.

Russian news agencies cited Kadyrov as saying Saturday he has filed to run in the election. Putin has relied on Kadyrov to stabilize Chechnya after two separatist wars, effectively allowing him to rule the region like a personal fiefdom. Critics allege human rights violations have been widespread under Kadyrov.

The suspected triggerman in the 2015 killing of prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov was an officer in Kadyrov's security force.

Report blames Chechen leader over killing of Kremlin critic

February 23, 2016

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian opposition activist bluntly accused Chechnya's Moscow-backed regional leader of involvement in the killing of a prominent Kremlin foe, describing the Chechen strongman as a top security threat to Russia in a report released Tuesday.

Ilya Yashin said he had "no doubt" that Ramzan Kadyrov was behind the killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead on Feb. 27, 2015, outside the Kremlin in Moscow. Yashin said he was sure the suspected triggerman, an officer in Kadyrov's security force, and his alleged accomplices wouldn't have acted without Kadyrov's approval. Kadyrov has denied the accusations and the official probe has failed to identify the mastermind behind the murder.

The Chechen leader posted a link to Yashin's report on his Instagram account, where he has 1.7 million followers, and other social networks hours before its official release, dismissing it as "chatter."

Yashin's presentation of the report at the opposition party's headquarters in Moscow Tuesday was interrupted by a bomb threat and police moved to clear the hall. An unidentified protester threw replica U.S. dollars at Yashin, suggesting perceived U.S. support for the Russian opposition.

In his report, Yashin accused Kadyrov of misappropriating generous federal subsidies to Chechnya to enrich himself and his loyalists and relying on a personal army of 30,000 to enforce his rule. "Chechnya has become a separate state within the Russian state," Yashin said. "Kadyrov effectively rejects the federal law and ignores the Russian constitution."

President Vladimir Putin has relied on Kadyrov to stabilize the region in Russia's North Caucasus after two devastating separatist wars. The gruff 39-year-old succeeded his father, the former rebel who switched sides to become Chechnya's first Moscow-backed leader before dying in a rebel bombing in 2004.

Kadyrov has used personal ties with Putin to ensure a steady flow of federal funds and effective immunity from federal controls. His unparalleled clout has angered leaders of Russia's powerful law enforcement agencies, who have pushed for Kadyrov's dismissal.

The killing of Nemtsov, who was shot dead while walking across a bridge outside the Kremlin, reportedly made Putin mad and emboldened Kadyrov's foes. The probe into the killing has bogged down, however, apparently reflecting Putin's view of Kadyrov as a linchpin of stability in Chechnya.

Tensions around Kadyrov heightened in recent weeks when he launched scathing criticism of Russian opposition leaders. With Kadyrov's term set to expire in early April, some observers saw his statements as an attempt to secure Putin's support for keeping the job.

In a radio interview broadcast Tuesday, Kadyrov mixed obedience with expressions of unswerving loyalty to the Russian president, saying he was proud to be a "foot soldier" of Putin ready to step down when he says so.

"If they tell me to keep on serving I will serve, and if they say goodbye I will bid farewell," Kadyrov said. He added that he dreams about leading a military unit to fight "enemies of Russia." Yashin strongly called for Kadyrov's ouster, describing his regime as a "threat to national security."

"Vladimir Putin has placed a time bomb in the North Caucasus that may blow up in case of any serious political crisis and turn into a third Chechen war," he said.

Car bomb kills 2 police, wounds 19 in Russia's Dagestan

February 15, 2016

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — A powerful car bomb exploded Monday at a police checkpoint in Russia's Dagestan republic, killing two officers and the car's driver and wounding 19 others, in what appears to have been a suicide attack, investigators said.

The attack was believed to have been organized by Islamic militants who have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and carried out by a man who spent time in Syria, said Rasul Temirbekov, spokesman for the Dagestani branch of the federal Investigative Committee.

The explosion, set off by two 122 mm shells, destroyed the Russian-made Lada Priori and four other vehicles parked at the police post near Derbent, he said. All that remained of the Lada's driver were fragments of his head, hands and feet, the spokesman said.

The suspected attacker was tentatively identified as a 23-year-old man who had studied in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan and spent time in Syria and Turkey, Temirbekov said. A search of his father's home in Derbent turned up materials confirming the suspect's allegiance to the Islamic State and past travels, he said.

Dagestan has become the center of an Islamic insurgency that spread across the Caucasus region after two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya. For more than a decade, Dagestan has seen bombings, attacks on police and kidnappings blamed on the Islamic militants.

In recent years, many of the militants have proclaimed allegiance to IS, while at the same time the republic has grown markedly less violent as hundreds of them have left to join the IS in Syria. Some are now coming home with battlefield experience. While the returning fighters usually land in jail or are kept under close police surveillance, there have been concerns that the presence of radical Muslims trained in IS warfare could lead to greater instability and violence.

"Those who went to fight in Syria are now returning to the republic and continuing to do the same things — to bomb and kill," Dagestan's regional leader, Abdusamad Gamidov, told members of his administration on Monday. "We need to unite to fight terrorism and do everything to defend our residents."

His spokeswoman, Tamara Chinennaya, said 16 of the wounded remained hospitalized, three of them in critical condition. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the IS threat to Russia as a key factor behind his decision to launch air strikes on militants in Syria. He said that between 5,000 and 7,000 people from Russia and other former Soviet countries are now fighting alongside Islamic State militants.

Meanwhile, Russia's air campaign in Syria has drawn threats of retaliation from militants there.

Chechen wedding scandal, leader's defiance put Putin in bind

May 19, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — The groom is approaching 50, a silver-haired boss in the Chechen strongman's feared police force. The bride is 17, a shy beauty reportedly devastated at the idea of wedding a man nearly three times her age.

Many Russians expressed outrage over the nuptials, causing a firestorm in the media and putting Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — on the defensive. The wedding went forward over the weekend anyway, the bride deathly pale and her voice barely audible as she agreed to marry Nazhud Guchigov, who reportedly was taking her as his second wife as allowed by Islamic, but not Russian, law.

Kadyrov's chief of staff played the best man, clutching the bride by the elbow to control her every step, and Kadyrov himself danced a folk dance at the wedding reception. The scandal comes amid a tug-of-war between Kadyrov and Russian federal law enforcement, which escalated after the slaying of charismatic Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Kadyrov's defiance in shielding Chechen suspects in the killing has aggravated longstanding tensions between him and Russian security agencies. That creates a headache for Putin, left with the delicate task of moderating the conflict to avoid destabilizing the region.

The tensions are unlikely to spark open hostilities or lead to Kadyrov's removal. But they reflect an apparent effort by the Kremlin to cut the 38-year-old Chechen leader down to size and make him obey the rules — even as Putin continues to stand by Kadyrov.

Kadyrov has enjoyed an exclusive relationship with Putin, who saw him as the linchpin for peace in Chechnya after two devastating separatist wars that killed tens of thousands. In exchange for restoring stability, Putin gave Kadyrov, a former rebel, carte blanche to run the region in the North Caucasus as his personal fiefdom and funded a costly reconstruction.

The relationship goes beyond Realpolitik. Putin, a macho judo master, and Kadyrov, a gruff red-head with a penchant for boxing, have developed a close personal relationship. Kadyrov has issued a stream of adulatory statements, calling himself Putin's "foot soldier" and launching diatribes at the West and Putin's domestic opponents. And with Kadyrov's apparent blessing, Chechens have poured into eastern Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels.

Putin's patronage has allowed Kadyrov to effectively shed federal controls. He makes it clear he listens to the president and nobody else. And he has imposed some Islamic rules, overruling federal law, allowing men in Chechnya to take several wives and introducing a tight dress code for women.

Lavish reconstruction projects along with Kadyrov's promotion of Islamic law and his rejection of federal controls have helped swell his popularity, enhancing stability. The Kremlin, in turn, has sheltered the Chechen leader from criticism over killings, abductions, torture and other abuses by his feared security forces.

Federal police and security services have been all but invisible in Chechnya, unable to make a move without Kadyrov's permission. That has worried many, who say the much-touted order in Chechnya hinges on the Putin-Kadyrov relationship and could be upset quickly if it falls apart.

"Kadyrov's behavior long has caused irritation," said Grigory Shvedov, editor-in-chief of the Caucasian Knot, an online news portal focusing on the Caucasus. Kadyrov's protective shield started to crack after Nemtsov was gunned down on Feb. 27 just outside the Kremlin, and federal investigators quickly tracked down and arrested five alleged perpetrators, all Chechen. The suspected triggerman was an officer in Kadyrov's police force.

The top brass in Russian law-enforcement agencies, who have always detested the Chechen leader, saw Nemtsov's killing as an opportunity to settle scores. But Putin, while calling the slaying a "disgrace" for Russia, awarded Kadyrov with a medal underlining his support.

The Chechen leader was at first openly defiant, praising the suspected triggerman as a good patriot and a deeply religious man. When federal investigators tried to get to another key suspect, a senior officer in the Chechen police force, they were unable to interrogate him in Chechnya, where he enjoyed police protection.

Despite the setback, federal law enforcers kept up the pressure. In April, police in southern Russia made a surprise foray into Chechnya to nab a suspect in a separate criminal case, and shot the man dead when he resisted arrest.

A day later, a furious Kadyrov ordered his forces to shoot to kill any police from outside the region if they dared to venture into Chechnya. With the brash statement, Kadyrov sought to burnish his credentials as a ruler on par with Putin and above federal law.

He may have hoped that Putin would side with him once again. But Kadyrov miscalculated. While Putin did not publicly comment, his spokesman said in a steely statement that Chechen police should unconditionally obey federal authority.

Realizing his blunder, Kadyrov quickly backed off and offered new pledges of loyalty, saying he would step down if ordered to do so. The tensions have abated, but the investigation into Nemtsov's killing remains deadlocked.

The latest blow to Kadyrov came earlier this month, when a leading independent newspaper reported that the 46-year-old Guchigov was forcing a 17-year-old into becoming his second wife by blocking her village so she couldn't leave.

Kadyrov stood by the police chief, saying the girl and her family voluntarily agreed to the wedding. The Chechen leader also fired his information minister, accusing him of failing to quash what he described as slanderous reports.

The teenage bride, blushing and looking down, told a news portal controlled by the Kremlin that she faced no intimidation. The Russian children's rights ombudsman also said he looked into the case and found no violations.

The wedding took place Saturday in Chechnya's capital, with the bride looking stiff as she was escorted by Kadyrov's black-clad chief of staff. The quiet resolution of the scandal signaled that Moscow had decided that Kadyrov had been taught a lesson and there was no need to push things further.

In past years, Kadyrov's men have operated with impunity not just in Chechnya but also on the streets of Moscow. In 2008, one of Kadyrov's most prominent foes was shot dead just outside Russian government headquarters. Several Chechens were convicted of perpetrating the attack, but the organizers have never been found. Two years earlier, another Kadyrov rival with ties to federal security was shot and killed in central Moscow.

Russian media reported that Chechen businessmen have dramatically expanded their clout in Moscow under Kadyrov, and some members of his feared security forces have been permanently deployed there to help protect Chechen interests and act as musclemen in business disputes. Some reports claimed that Chechens have even challenged the murky economic interests of Russia's law enforcement agencies, which have considered themselves omnipotent under Putin.

With a multi-pronged attack on Kadyrov, federal law-enforcement chiefs clearly want to reorder the rules of the game and strip Kadyrov of his exclusive status. Putin himself may welcome the idea, sensing that the Chechen strongman was shaking his "vertical of power."

"I wouldn't exclude Kadyrov's dismissal," Shvedov said, arguing that the Chechen's purported role as a guarantor of stability may be overestimated, and that a new conflict in Chechnya was unlikely even if he were arrested, because Kadyrov's men wouldn't take up arms against Putin.

But others believe that Putin still sees Kadyrov as key to Chechen peace. Alexei Malashenko, a Chechnya expert with Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, said that Kadyrov has reaffirmed his special status by pushing through the wedding despite the media uproar. He said that while tensions between Kadyrov and law enforcement chiefs will likely continue, Putin can be expected to stand by the strongman.

"It makes no sense to replace him," he said. "It will lead to infighting and instability in Chechnya."

Chechen commander in Ukraine drawn into Russian intrigue

April 12, 2015

LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine (AP) — From a dimly lit room at his base in eastern Ukraine, the commander of a battalion of Chechens fighting Russia-backed rebels looked shaken as TV broadcast news of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's slaying. Adam Osmayev hailed Nemtsov as a "true hero" both for condemning Russia's war against separatists in Chechnya and for decrying Russian intervention in the current conflict in Ukraine.

"Watch them try to tie Ukraine to this (murder) in some way," Osmayev added. He was half-joking. But two weeks later, Kremlin-friendly Russian newspapers published reports based on unidentified sources in the security services that accused the Ukrainian government and also Osmayev himself of ordering the Feb. 27 murder of Nemtsov in central Moscow in an attempt to destabilize Russia.

Osmayev denies involvement and no evidence has been presented linking him to the hit on Nemtsov, who was a relentless critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Attempts to implicate the British-educated Chechen commander appear to be part of efforts aimed at deflecting attention from anyone close to Putin, including his security services and the powerful leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Within days of Nemtsov's assassination, investigators arrested five Chechens, including a senior officer in Kadyrov's police force, and charged them with carrying out the killing. All five have denied the charges.

The arrests heralded a crisis in relations between the Kremlin and Kadyrov, who rules Chechnya like a personal fiefdom. With generous subsidies from Moscow, he has rebuilt the region after two separatist wars and has relied on his feared security forces to track down and kill foes. His men have steadily expanded their sway beyond Chechnya to control lucrative businesses in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

Leaders of federal law enforcement agencies have watched Kadyrov's growing power with dismay and have made no secret of their desire to curb him. Some observers speculated that the killing might have been ordered by Kadyrov's enemies in the federal government — an attempt to prompt Putin to fire or at least punish the Chechen leader.

If such a plan existed, it underestimated Putin's reliance on Kadyrov. The relative stability in Chechnya is seen as one of Putin's main achievements, and he sees the burly red-haired Chechen strongman as key to maintaining the status quo.

Putin quickly sent a signal that he intended to stand by Kadyrov by awarding him the Order of Honor for distinguished public service, a day after Kadyrov spoke out in defense of the arrested Chechens.

The arrests were a rare case in which federal law enforcement agents managed to nab a member of Kadyrov's security force, but the investigation then seemed to fizzle. Russian media, citing investigators, have pointed to a possible link between the suspected triggerman, Zaur Dadaev, and his commander, Ruslan Geremeyev, a senior officer in the Chechen police force. But Geremeyev is in Chechnya and off limits to federal investigators.

Russian newspapers have floated a variety of theories about the killing that have muddied the waters — a possible attempt to defuse tensions with Kadyrov. Some reports claimed that investigators believe Dadaev and his suspected accomplices could have acted on their own, even though most observers agree that a senior officer in Kadyrov's security force would not have acted without sanction from his superiors.

Dadaev, in turn, has rescinded his initial testimony, saying he was beaten and pressured to confess. The reports pointing to Osmayev, a Kadyrov foe, were seen as part of these efforts to deflect attention.

"State-controlled media have put forward a theory that is politically satisfying for Russia's security forces, the Kremlin, Kadyrov and all of their rival groups — namely, that Chechen Adam Osmayev ordered Nemtsov's murder," political analyst Georgy Bovt wrote in a commentary published in The Moscow Times.

Osmayev, 33, has a troubled history with both Kadyrov and Putin. After graduating from Wycliffe College, a prestigious private school in Britain, and attending the University of Buckingham, he returned to his native Chechnya shortly after the second war there ended in 2000. He worked alongside his father, who had been appointed the head of Chechnya's state oil company.

Chechnya at that time was led by Kadyrov's father. After his assassination in 2004, power passed to his son, Ramzan, and his relationship with the Osmayevs quickly deteriorated in a dispute over lucrative energy contracts. The Osmayevs fled to Ukraine.

In February 2012, Adam Osmayev was arrested at Russia's behest and charged with planning an assassination attempt against Putin. Ukraine at the time had a pro-Kremlin government. Osmayev spent three years in detention until being released in November 2014 by Ukraine's new Western-leaning government.

Shortly after his release, he joined a battalion formed by prominent Chechen commander Isa Munayev to fight against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. When Munayev was killed on Feb. 1, Osmayav took over the command.

His battalion includes several dozen Chechens, many with combat experience gained in the separatist wars in their homeland against Russian army troops. They regularly get calls from Ukrainian army units asking them to carry out reconnaissance missions or diversionary raids behind rebel lines.

Hundreds of Chechens also are fighting on the separatist side. They first joined the rebels last summer in the early stages of the conflict, and with their combat gear and professional demeanor they stood out among what was then a ragtag local force. Kadyrov has described pro-Russia Chechens fighting in Ukraine as volunteers, the same explanation the Kremlin provides for the Russians among the separatist forces.

Osmayev said he has few doubts that the perpetrators of Nemtsov's killing have ties to Kadyrov, but that the security services now need a convenient scapegoat whose guilt would be easily acceptable to the Russian general public.

"The fact the FSB is . trying to somehow implicate me in Nemtsov's murder is utterly ridiculous," Osmayev said, "but not hard to believe now that I am involved in the situation here in Ukraine."

Lynn Berry and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Chechen leader: militants' families to be deported

December 05, 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — Following a rebel raid that left 25 people dead, Chechnya's Kremlin-backed strongman said Friday the families of rebels who take part in killings will now be punished by being deported and having their houses destroyed.

Thursday's clashes in Grozny dented a carefully nurtured image of stability created by Chechnya's regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov after two separatist conflicts. The violence raised fears of more attacks in Chechnya and widening unrest in the rest of Russia's volatile North Caucasus region.

Kadyrov, who has relied on his feared security force of former rebels like himself to pacify the province, said he would avenge the deaths of 14 police officers, including his relative, who died in clashes with the Islamic rebels. He said 11 attackers were killed and 36 policemen were wounded. Earlier official reports had said 10 police officers and 10 rebels were killed.

In a message Thursday on his Instagram account, which Kadyrov uses to issue public statements, he said that "the time when they said that parents can't be held accountable for the action of their sons and daughters has come to an end."

He warned that a father who sees that his son has joined the rebels should report him to the authorities or stop him by any other means before he spills blood. "If a militant in Chechnya kills a policeman or any other person, the militant's family will be immediately banished from Chechnya without the right to come back, and their house will be razed to the ground," Kadyrov said.

He said he wouldn't care about criticism from rights activists. International human rights groups long have accused Kadyrov of rampant abuses, including arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killings.

Kadyrov said he also warned local administrators and police officials that they would have to resign if any local man joins the militants.

Gun battle breaks out in Chechen capital, 9 dead

December 04, 2014

GROZNY, Russia (AP) — A gun battle broke out early Thursday in the capital of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, leaving at least three traffic police officers and six gunmen dead, authorities said. The fighting punctured the patina of stability ensured by years of heavy-handed rule by a Kremlin-appointed leader.

Security officials and the leader of Chechnya said militants traveling in several cars killed three traffic police at a checkpoint in the republic's capital, Grozny. State news agency RIA-Novosti cited an unidentified law enforcement source as saying that five police officers were killed.

More than six hours after fighting broke out, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said a multi-story building the militants had occupied in central Grozny had been destroyed by fire and six of the gunmen had been killed.

He later said several other gunmen had been found in a city school and an operation was underway to "liquidate" them, the Interfax news agency reported. There was no indication that any children were in the school in the early morning.

Although unrest is common across the North Caucasus, forceful security measures adopted by Kadyrov have spared Grozny significant violence for several years. That has allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin to claim success in subduing an Islamic insurgency in Chechnya after years of war.

Dmitry Trenin, who heads the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in a Twitter post that "the night attack in Grozny looks senseless, except as an attempt to embarrass Putin hours before his annual address to parliament." Putin, who is to give his state of the nation address on Thursday, already was under pressure to reassure Russians as fears grow over soaring inflation and a plummeting ruble.

An Associated Press reporter saw the building — a publishing house — in flames and heard the sound of heavy-caliber gunfire before dawn, several hours after the unrest erupted. The AP reporter also saw the body of someone in civilian clothing in the street near the publishing house as fighting continued, but it was not clear how and when the person had been killed.

The Moscow-based National Anti-Terrorist Committee, a federal agency, announced that it had imposed a counterterrorism regime on the center of Grozny. This officially allows heightened security measures to be enforced, and typically indicates the imminent use of heavy force to quash unrest.

Life News, a news outlet believed to have links to Russian security services, cited law enforcement officials as saying about 15 people seized three cars late Wednesday in the village of Shalazhi and drove to Grozny, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.

Kadyrov said on his Instagram account, which he uses to issue public statements, that the traffic police officers were shot dead as they attempted to stop the cars carrying the gunmen. Kadyrov said the situation was calm and that all essential public services were operating, but he urged Grozny residents to be cautious.

"I ask residents in areas where (security) operations are being carried out to abide by safety measures, and not to go out onto the streets without cause or to go near their windows," he wrote. "All the talk about the city being under the control of the military is absolutely false."

In a message posted several hours later, Kadyrov said that six militants were killed in the standoff at the publishing house. "Not one bandit managed to get out. I directly ran the operation myself," he wrote.

Kadyrov posted a picture showing the lower half of an apparently dead gunman lying beside a rifle, but it was not immediately clear if it showed one of the presumed attackers. The Kavkaz Center website, a mouthpiece for Islamic militant groups operating in Russia's North Caucasus, carried a link to a video message by an individual claiming responsibility for the attacks. The man in the video claimed to be operating under orders from Chechen Islamist leader Aslan Byutukayev, known to his followers as Emir Khamzat.

The video could not immediately be verified. A few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya was plunged into a full-scale war when separatist rebels pursued independence for the republic. The violence was largely confined to that small republic, but rebels ventured into other parts of Russia.

A fragile peace settlement was reached with Moscow until 1999, when an insurgency movement increasingly inspired by radical Islamist ideas reignited the conflict. A military crackdown succeeded by years of aggressive rule by Kadyrov has quietened the region, pushing unrest to neighboring provinces.

Kadyrov has been widely denounced for human rights abuses, including allegations of killing opponents. He has also imposed some Islamic restrictions on the region, including mandatory public headscarves for women.

Chechen in Syria a rising star in extremist group

July 02, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — A young, red-bearded ethnic Chechen has rapidly become one of the most prominent commanders in the breakaway al-Qaida group that has overrun swaths of Iraq and Syria, illustrating the international nature of the movement.

Omar al-Shishani, one of hundreds of Chechens who have been among the toughest jihadi fighters in Syria, has emerged as the face of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, appearing frequently in its online videos — in contrast to the group's Iraqi leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdad, who remains deep in hiding and has hardly ever been photographed.

In a video released by the group over the weekend, al-Shishani is shown standing next to the group's spokesman among a group of fighters as they declare the elimination of the border between Iraq and Syria. The video was released just hours before the extremist group announced the creation of a caliphate — or Islamic state — in the areas it controls.

"Our aim is clear and everyone knows why we are fighting. Our path is toward the caliphate," the 28-year-old al-Shishani declares. "We will bring back the caliphate, and if God does not make it our fate to restore the caliphate, then we ask him to grant us martyrdom." The video is consistent with other Associated Press reporting on al-Shishani.

Al-Shishani has been the group's military commander in Syria, leading it on an offensive to take over a broad stretch of territory leading to the Iraq border. But he may have risen to become the group's overall military chief, a post that has been vacant after the Iraqi militant who once held it — known as Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Bilawi al-Anbari — was killed in the Iraqi city of Mosul in early June. The video identified al-Shishani as "the military commander" without specifying its Syria branch, suggesting he had been elevated to overall commander, though the group has not formally announced such a promotion.

As the militant group's operations in Iraq and Syria grow "more and more inter-dependent by the day, it is more than possible that someone like (al-Shishani) could assume overall military leadership," said Charles Lister, Visiting Fellow with the Brookings Doha Center.

The extremist group began as al-Qaida's branch in Iraq, and many of its top leaders are Iraqi. But after it intervened in Syria's civil war last year, it drew hundreds of foreign fighters into its operations in Syria. Now with victories on the two sides of the border, the two branches are swapping fighters, equipment and weapons to an even greater extent than before, becoming a more integrated organization. Its declaration of the caliphate — aspiring to be a state for all Muslims — could mean an even greater internationalization of its ranks.

Alexei Malashenko, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, said ethnicity is not a major factor in jihadi movements, only dedication to jihad. Al-Shishani "is a fanatic of Islam with war experience, and he obviously has had a strong track record (among fellow fighters)," he said.

Syria's civil war, in its fourth year, has attracted militants from around the world. Some estimates run as high as 10,000 foreign fighters in the country. But the Chechens — hardened from years of wars with Russia in the Caucasus region — are considered some of the best fighters.

Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency known under its Russian acronym FSB, said last October that about 500 militants from Russia and hundreds more from other ex-Soviet nations are fighting in Syria.

Al-Shishani, whose real name is Tarkhan Batirashvili, is an ethnic Chechen from the Caucasus nation of Georgia, specifically from the Pankisi Valley, a center of Georgia's Chechen community and once a stronghold for militants.

He did military service in the Georgian army but was discharged after an unspecified illness, said one of his former neighbors, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. At one point, Georgian police arrested him for illegal possession of arms, the neighbor said. As soon as he was released in 2010, Batirashvili left for Turkey. Georgian police refused to comment.

He later surfaced in Syria in 2013 with his nom de guerre, which means "Omar the Chechen" in Arabic, leading an al-Qaida-inspired group called "The Army of Emigrants and Partisans," which included a large number of fighters from the former Soviet Union. A meeting was soon organized with al-Baghdadi in which al-Shishani pledged loyalty to him, according to Lebanon's al-Akhbar newspaper, which follows jihadi groups.

He first showed his battlefield prowess in August 2013, when his fighters proved pivotal in taking the Syrian military's Managh air base in the north of the country. Rebels had been trying for months to take the base, but it fell soon after al-Shishani joined the battle, said an activist from the region, Abu al-Hassan Maraee.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant entered the Syria conflict in 2013, and initially it was welcomed by other rebels. But rebel groups — including other Islamic militant factions — turned against it, alienated by its brutal methods and kidnappings and killings of rivals, and accusing it of trying to take over the opposition movement for its own ambitions of creating a transnational Islamic enclave. Rebel factions have been fighting against the group since last year in battles that have left thousands dead. Al-Qaida's central command ejected the extremist group from the network.

For the past two months, al-Shishani has led an offensive in Syria's eastern Deir el-Zour province against rival rebels, seeking to solidify his hold on a stretch of territory connected to neighboring Iraq.

In May, some Arab media organizations reported that al-Shishani was killed in the fighting. An activist in Iraq in contact with members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant said al-Shishani suffered wounds in his right arm and was taken into Iraq where he underwent treatment before returning to Syria. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security concerns.

Since then, al-Shishani has appeared multiple times in photos and videos put out by the group. The photos and videos are consistent with the AP's reporting from activists on the ground. In a recent photograph, the young, round-faced al-Shishani, wearing a black cap and beige gown, is seen with a big smile as he examines a Humvee said to have been captured in Iraq and brought into Syria.

Hussein Nasser, spokesman for the Islamic Front coalition group of rebels, said Chechens are among the most feared fighters in Syria. "A Chechen comes and has no idea about anything (in the country) and does whatever his leader tells him," Nasser said. "Even if his emir tells him to kill a child, he would do it."

Associated Press writers Bilal Hussein in Beirut, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia contributed to this report.

Chechnya leader inaugurates new mosque in Israel

March 23, 2014

ABU GHOSH, Israel (AP) — The president of Russia's republic of Chechnya has inaugurated a new, $10 million mosque in an Arab village in Israel.

Ramzan Kadyrov said on Sunday that it was an honor to visit "this good and holy land" during a stop in the village of Abu Ghosh. Isa Jabar, the village's mayor, says Chechnya donated $6 million for the mosque. He says some villagers trace their ancestry to 16th century Chechnya and the Caucus region.

The mosque was built in the Ottoman Turkish style, the favored architectural style in Chechnya. It features four minarets, making it the only mosque of its kind in Israel. Abu Ghosh, near Jerusalem, enjoys good ties with its Jewish neighbors and is a popular culinary destination for Israelis.

Sweden's Princess Victoria drops Paralympic visit

March 04, 2014

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria has canceled her trip to the Paralympics in Sochi because of the crisis in nearby Ukraine.

The heiress to the Swedish throne was supposed to visit Sochi on Sunday and Monday, but royal palace spokeswoman Ulrika Naslund said Tuesday that she has canceled the trip after consultations with the Swedish government.

Naslund declined to give details, saying only that the visit was scratched because of the "current situation." A spokesman for Sweden's Paralympic team said the athletes are already in Sochi and will compete as planned.

Putin declares Sochi Winter Paralympics open

March 07, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — With a solitary Ukrainian athlete taking part in the opening ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the Winter Paralympics in Sochi on Friday against the backdrop of his country's military action in Crimea.

Ukraine delivered a pointed message by sending out only a single flag-bearer to represent the 23-strong team in the athletes' parade, an apparent protest at the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

The appearance of the flagbearer, biathlete Mykhaylo Tkachenko, drew a roar from the capacity crowd at the Fisht Olympic Stadium. Entering in a wheelchair with the Ukrainian flag, he wore a serious expression and displayed no emotion.

The Ukrainian team had announced only a few hours earlier that it would not boycott the games, but said it could pull out of the 10-day event if the Crimea situation escalates. "I declare should this happen we will leave the games," said Valeriy Sushkevich, president of the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee. "We cannot possibly stay here in this case."

A lavish ceremony based on the mythical firebird of Russian folklore marked the start of the 11th Winter Paralympics, which features 547 athletes from 45 countries. It's the first time the event has been held in Russia and comes less than two weeks since the close of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"I declare open the Winter Paralympic Games 2014, Sochi," Putin said at the ceremony, which was snubbed by many Western political leaders and dignitaries. In a separate statement distributed by games organizers, Putin said: "We are proud that our country has been entrusted with the honor to hold this unique event, which has no equal for its inspirational force.

"I wish all of the athletes success and all the best." Competition begins Saturday with Alpine skiing, biathlon, curling and hockey events. A Winter Paralympic record 72 gold medals are on offer. Ukraine's decision not to boycott the games came after discussions between team officials and athletes over whether to pull out in light of the crisis back home and Russia's takeover of the Crimean peninsula.

"I don't remember a situation when the organizing country during a Paralympics started an intervention on the territory of a country taking part," Sushkevich added. "I don't know what to extent the team can focus on the result now."

He said he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday night to discuss the situation and request peace during the games. Suskevich said he did not receive any guarantees but it was important that Putin agreed to listen.

Ukraine's decision to compete was welcomed by the International Paralympic Committee. "We want sport to prevail and a full complement of teams to compete in what we are confident will be a fantastic Paralympic Winter Games," IPC President Phillip Craven said.

"All week the IPC has been working closely with the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee in an effort to keep them here in Sochi. The talking point of Sochi 2014 needs to be great sport and great athletes, not global politics."

The IPC has appealed for Russia to recognize the U.N.'s Olympic Truce, which asks warring parties to cease hostilities during the Olympics and Paralympics. Ukraine finished fifth in the medals table at the Winter Paralympics in Vancouver in 2010, with a total of 19 medals and five gold.

Ukrainian athletes chanted "peace to Ukraine" as they apparently walked out of a flag-raising ceremony in Sochi on Thursday night. That is now under investigation by the IPC as a possible breach of rules banning political protests.

"What we're trying to do is gather the evidence, gather the transcripts and then we will see if any steps are necessary," IPC spokesman Craig Spence said. "If there was a political protest, obviously we'd be disappointed by that because we have said all week that this is about sport, not politics."

In his speech at the ceremony, Craven noted that the former Soviet Union had refused to stage the Paralympics in 1980 in conjunction with the Moscow Olympics. "But dreams do come true, and since winning the games seven years ago, this part of Russia has undergone a monumental transformation," he said.

Continuing the patriotism of the Olympic opening a month earlier, Friday's show began with rhythmic marching by 126 dancers in the colors of the Russian flag. Russian classical music and dance were constant features in the ceremony, with dozens of young ballet dancers performing to Tchaikovsky's "Sugar Plum Fairy."

There were also regular animated interludes featuring the firebird, drawn by Oscar winning animator Alexander Petrov. Even the Russian winter tradition of ice fishing was celebrated in a performance featuring dozens of wheelchair dancers.

Rarely publicly visible in Russian society, disabled people played a leading role in the ceremony, led by singer Yulia Samoilova, who led a choir in performing a song entitled "Together." A promotional video for the Paralympics that was displayed at the end of the ceremony explicitly spoke out against discrimination on the grounds of "sexual orientation," a contentious issue in view of Russia's law banning gay "propaganda" among minors.

Ukraine peace sought for Paralympics in Sochi

March 01, 2014

LONDON (AP) — Leaders of the Paralympics expressed hopes Saturday for a peaceful outcome in Ukraine after Russia executed a de facto military takeover of the Crimea region as athletes arrived in nearby Sochi for next week's start of the Winter Paralympics.

Russia's intervention in Ukraine has escalated in the days since the end of the Sochi Olympics, with global concern over the country's troop movements replacing the widespread praise for its staging of the Winter Games.

The Paralympic flame was lit Saturday at a ceremony in St. Petersburg, the birthplace of Russian President Vladimir Putin, ahead of the flame's 10-day trip that ends in Sochi on Friday for the opening ceremony of the games in the coastal Russian resort. Later Saturday, Russia's parliament gave Putin permission to deploy the military to protect Russian interests in the Crimean peninsula, west of Sochi on the Black Sea.

Russia's actions could violate the Olympic Truce, a U.N. resolution that asks warring parties to cease hostilities during Olympic events. The Paralympics end March 16. "As with situations around the world, we hope a peaceful resolution can be found in the spirit of the Olympic Truce, which has covered the Paralympic Games since 2006," the International Paralympic Committee said in a statement to The Associated Press.

"We want the story here to be the great festival of sport that has already taken place in Sochi and will continue now that athletes are arriving for the start of the Winter Paralympics." U.N. members, including Russia, have not always honored the Olympic Truce. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing in August 2008, Georgia and Russia fought over the Moscow-backed Georgian province of South Ossetia.

Sochi is just 475 kilometers (295 miles) southeast of the Crimean regional capital, Simferopol, but team officials expressed no security concerns. U.S. team spokesman Patrick Sandusky said he sees no threat to the Paralympics. "Nothing has changed in our planning," he said.

British Paralympic Association chief executive Tim Hollingsworth said his organization was monitoring events in Ukraine and took regular security advice from the UK's Foreign Office.

Sochi Paralympic officials monitor Crimea crisis

March 01, 2014

LONDON (AP) — The International Paralympic Committee says it is monitoring the tensions between Russia and Ukraine as athletes arrive in Sochi for the Paralympics.

The discord between the Slavic neighbors has escalated since the Sochi Olympics ended Sunday. Ukrainian officials have said armed men they describe as Russian troops took control Friday of key airports in Crimea, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.

The Paralympics open Friday further down the Black Sea in the resort of Sochi, and run until March 16. IPC spokesman Craig Spence told The Associated Press on Saturday that the situation is "on our radar."

With Paralympians arriving Saturday in Sochi, Spence said that "there is no change to our plans for the moment."

Turkish security services declare wanted closest Kadyrov's assistant

5 October 2011

Turkish press reports that the country's security services declared wanted Ziyauddin Makhayev, the closest Kadyrov's assistant, who was among the group of killers who murdered the three Chechens in Istanbul on September 16, 2011.

According to the information from local sources, it was Ziyauddin Makhayev who finished off the wounded Chechens with control shots in the head, after they were fired at from a car.

Journalists found that Makhayev is well known in Turkey. He studied at Istanbul's Marmara University. The future killer graduated from the theological faculty of the university in 2005.

Makhayev first appeared in Turkey in 1994 as a supporter of the Chechen independence. However, later he was recruited by Russian secret services and was actively working for them.

During his studies and after graduating from the Marmara University, Ziyauddin Makhayev gathered information about Chechens, mostly about the Mujahideen and their supporters, on instructions of Russian intelligence.

He soon became a confidant of Kadyrov. The confidence is demonstrated by the fact that Makhayev was appointed the chief coordinator of a mosque "named after Akhmad Kadyrov" in occupied Jokhar, which was built by the Turks.

In addition, Kadyrov charged Makhayev with less sensitive tasks. For example, in the offseason Ziyauddin Makhayev personally delivered to Chechnya from Turkey watermelons and other fruits for Kadyrov and his mother.

Turkish press also reports that security services are investigating ties between the Turkish journalist Seyfullah Turksoy and the killer Makhayev. Nespaper Sabah published a photo of Kadyrov, Turksoy and the killer Makhayev, made in 2009 in occupied Jokhar.

It is to be recalled that Seyfullah Turksoy is one of the most active pro-Kadyrov's activists of Russian propaganda in Turkey.

The Turkish press also confirmed with reference to the security services that a person involved in the murder of three Chechen in Istanbul, a certain Maria M., is a member of the group of killers and entered and departed from Turkey as Ziyauddin Makhayev's fake wife.

Turkish television gave details of Kadyrov's assistant Ziyauddin Makhayev, saying that the security services of Turkey are very much interested to arrest the Kadyrov's killer. The TV report also details notorious bloody crimes of Russian secret services in other countries that took place during the Putin's presidency.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/eng/content/2011/10/05/15221.shtml.

Future of multibillion Sochi investment unclear

February 24, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — As the Olympic circus packs up and flies away from Russia, the Black Sea city of Sochi is looking anxiously toward the future.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors are leaving impressed by the shiny stadiums and hotels, smooth highways and new trains that have transformed a jaded Soviet-era resort into a modern tourist destination.

It has all cost $51 billion, but will it be enough to keep the tourist dollar - or ruble - flooding into Sochi? Sochi "definitely has a future", IOC President Thomas Bach said on Sunday. He listed all the international events that Sochi will be hosting in coming months — the G8 summit, a Formula One race and World Cup matches in 2018 — and expressed hope that Sochi's legacy will live on.

"What happened here, this transformation really is amazing, and now it will be important to secure the legacy of these games," Bach said. Ordinary Russians were also impressed. "We were in the mountain cluster yesterday and we were pleasantly surprised: It looks like a European ski resort," said Irina Mislivets from Togliatti. "I would love to come back."

On the Black Sea north of Georgia, Sochi was a tired seaside resort tailored exclusively for Russians who either could not afford to vacation abroad or were reluctant to leave the country. Former leader Josef Stalin had a Dacha here and President Vladimir Putin has a holiday home in the area, but lack of investment meant the town was gradually crumbling.

The Olympics brought in billions in investment and international attention to Sochi while rattling trucks and cement mixers have rumbled through the area day and night for more than five years. In this time, Krasnaya Polyana, a small mountain village, has been transformed into a Swiss-style ski resort with brand-new lifts and international hotels.

Sochi's mountains will definitely see an increase in visitors in the coming year because of the Olympic publicity, says Vladimir Kantorovich, first vice president of the Russian Association of Tour Operators, but its future will only be clear once the first full season is over.

"Ski slopes which are good for sports are not necessarily always good for recreation. You need to go to find out yourself," he said. "How things will go afterwards will depend on prices and conditions."

Russia built 14 venues for the games with total capacity of 145,000 people. Plans for how to use the venues are changing all the time. Organizers were originally thinking about converting the Iceberg arena into a cycling track. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak announced on Saturday, however, that authorities have been persuaded to turn it into "an international center for ice shows."

Some of the venues can be taken apart and moved to other cities. The Audit Chamber, the government's auditing agency, raised concerns about the future of the Olympic venues. Chairman Sergei Stepashin quoted expert estimates that maintaining the venues would cost Russia at least 60 billion rubles a year ($2 billion).

Kozak dismissed Stepashin's estimate, saying that it will cost "at least 10 times less." Olympic spectators and organizers say Krasnaya Polyana is a potential magnet for tourists. But industry experts are cautious about its long-term prospects.

Russian fans at the Olympic Park this weekend were optimistic about Sochi's future, but all of them complained about prices, saying they are too high compared to other eastern or central European destinations.

"We see that Sochi has changed for the better," Mikhail Savrasov from Latvia, said. "I hope the prices will go down." Ski resorts in the area reported strong sales in December and January before they were closed for the Olympics, and they say they will adjust prices once life in Sochi gets back to normal.

"From what we've seen so far the interest is huge," said Alexander Belokobylsky, director of Rosa Khutor resort up in Krasnaya Polyana. The company is now looking forward to the next season to see how well they can do when the games are over.

"A certain price adjustment will definitely come," Belokobylsky said: "If we see that our prices are too high and we don't get visitors we will adjust." Business and the travel industry experts, however, don't hold out much hope for Sochi as an international destination despite the breath-taking mountains and new hotels.

Unlike most European resorts, Sochi is hard to get to. There are few direct flights to Europe from Sochi, and airport fees at the Sochi Adler airport are too high for low-cost airlines to fly here. And Europeans need to apply for a visa if they want to come to Russia.

"Europeans can travel to most places in the world visa-free: Why would they want to come here if they need to get a visa?" asks Kantorovich. Belokobylsky of Rosa Khutor recalls praise and admiration he has heard from foreign officials and journalists in the past weeks, but says that getting them to come back here will be difficult.

"We need direct flights," he said. "But these are things we cannot influence."