Leader of Russia’s Chechnya Republic “Proud” of His Teenage Son for Beating Defenseless Prisoner

Ramzan Kadyrov, here at a 2018 meeting with Vladimir Putin, posted a video of his teenage son beating a prisoner accused of burning a Quran (Wikimedia Commons).

On September 25, Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of Russia’s Chechnya Republic since 2007, posted a video of his fifteen-year-old son Adam beating a defenseless prisoner accused of burning a Quran. In the post, Kadyrov said he was “proud” of his son for doing the “right thing” and accused the prisoner, nineteen-year-old Nikita Zhuravel, of collaborating with Ukraine. 

Russian authorities arrested Zhuravel in May in Volgograd but transferred him to the Muslim-majority Chechnya Republic after multiple republic residents claimed they were victimized by his actions.

The beating has been widely criticized both online and offline; Russian authorities arrested a protester in St. Petersburg for holding a sign saying “I/We are Nikita Zhuravel.” Many pro-Vladimir Putin politicians and leaders also criticized the beating. 

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova condemned Zhuravel’s actions but said punishment must be administered through the court system. Eva Merkacheva, a member of Putin’s Presidential Human Rights Council, called Adam’s actions a “challenge to Russia’s whole legal system.”

Meanwhile, Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the beating. Adam responded to criticism of his actions in an Instagram post, saying, “You can gossip, hate, envy and talk about me. But we both know that when we meet, you will smile at me sweetly.”

Zhuravel’s beating is the latest in a string of recent controversies surrounding Kadyrov. On September 23, a chairman of Chechnya’s Parliament claimed that Kadyrov banned the circulation of a new history textbook released by the Russian government because it justified Stalin’s deportation of ethnic minorities from the Caucasus region. The chairman later deleted his post, but the textbook’s author agreed to revise the offending section. 

In the middle of September, rumors emerged that Kadyrov was in poor health, and Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense reported that he was in critical condition. Kadyrov has denied these reports.

Putin met with Kadyrov on September 28, but the televised portion of the meeting contained no mention of the beating or recent rumors about Kadyrov’s poor health.

Kadyrov transformed Chechnya into Russia’s most authoritarian region over the course of his rule. He strongly supports Putin but has also emerged as a vocal critic of certain administration policies. Last year, for example, he criticized the Russian government’s poor performance in Ukraine and claimed that military leadership did not understand what was happening on the front. 

Putin has been reluctant to condemn Kadyrov in the past, and his response to Adam’s blatantly illegal actions will determine whether Kadyrov continues to rule Chechnya as an all-powerful dictator.