On his social media channels, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov shares a flashy video of his evening at the gym. Just hours after an independent Russian news channel reported that Putin’s unconditional ally would be suffering from a “terminal illness,” Kadyrov exhorted under his video “not to forget that taking care of your health is an investment in the future.”
While lifting weights, wrestling and stretching, Kadyrov seems to want to dismiss the message. And the music under the edited video was probably not chosen at random: “If God wills it, you will live forever,” is what the lyrics of the song say. Novaya Gazeta Europe, based in Latvia, reported on Monday that Kadyrov had already been diagnosed in 2019 with pancreatic necrosis, in which parts of the pancreas die. Anonymous sources within Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, built for Putin’s elite, told the news source that “MRI scans had caused anxiety among many in Kadyrov’s circle.”
Sleeping pills
It would not be the first time that Kadyrov has had to visit the exclusive hospital in Moscow. According to Novaya Gazeta Europe he has been recorded there several times since 2019. Last year he was said to have been in an artificial coma after an overdose of sleeping pills.
There have been speculations about Kadyrov’s health for years. The 47-year-old leader, accused by the US State Department of gross human rights violations, among other things, denies again and again that there is anything wrong with him, as he is now doing again.
Son at Putin’s table
In the meantime, he is doing everything he can to ensure succession and to keep power over the Russian republic in the family. His son Adam, best known in Russia since he won staged MMA fights as an 8-year-old, was appointed head of the security services at the age of 15, a position Kadyrov himself also held when his father was still in power. His eldest son was allowed to sit at Putin’s table last year.
The fact that Kadyrov, as colonel general, can count himself among the highest ranks of the Russian army, shows how close his bond is with Putin. Since Russia started the war in Ukraine, he has sent tens of thousands of soldiers from his paramilitary army to the front and the Russian capital. He previously called himself Putin’s “foot soldier”.
