Putin has enabled and supported an intolerant, nominally Islamic regime in Chechnya

Submitted by William (United States), Nov 17, 2018 at 13:11

After brutally subduing the Chechen separatist movement in the second Chechen war (prosecution of which bolstered support for Putin himself), Putin has lavishly funded and enabled a thuggish, kleptocratic, extremely repressive regime in Chechnya, a Ramzan Kadyrov cult of personality, which pays at least lip service to many of the most regressive norms of Islamist behaviour.

Russian human rights activists, including many who helped Soviet Jewish refuseniks, are appalled, and believe that this 'pact with the devil' that Putin has concluded to try and keep a lid on the region is fueling long-term instability in the North Caucasus. Chechnya under this regime has been a source of many jihadist warriors who have fought in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. So much for Putin's supposed enlightened defence of Western and Christian values.

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