| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
WHETHER OR NOT VLADIMIR PUTIN WAS AWARE OF Politkovskaya's observation,
let alone that made by the Ancient Greek playwright nearly two and a half millennia
earlier, the former Russian President appears to have been sufficiently politically astute
to have worked out for himself the importance of keeping happy Ramzan Kadyrov,
his young prote´ge´ in Chechnya, as the regional guarantor of territorial integrity and
relative stability.
Although this essay is primarily addressed to the 'special' relationship between
Putin's Russia and Kadyrov's Chechnya, its title reveals the difficult choices facing
Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's hand-picked successor as Russian President, and raises the
question of the extent to which he agrees with his predecessor and 'tandem' partner
over how to handle 'arguably the most powerful-and dangerous-regional leader in
the Russian Federation'.1 Does Medvedev regard this legacy as a possible template for
future Russian regional policy in the North Caucasus, does he fear that Kadyrov's
idiosyncratic style of rule might test this strategy to its limits, or does he recognise that
the spread of Islamic radicalism might be a result of Putin's misguided policies which
could, in the end, prove troublesome for Russian control over the entire region?
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