With Ally in Office, Putin's Plan in Place
GROZNY, Russia — The announcement of Akhmad Kadyrov's victory in Chechnya's presidential election Monday was accompanied by the usual fanfare: Half a city block was shut down in downtown Grozny and two dozen federal troops fanned out along the streets. An armored personnel carrier idled uneasily nearby, entrusted with keeping the news conference from being blown up.
Pedestrians waited quietly only inches from the soldiers' raised guns, like cars at a railroad crossing. Inside a government building, elections chief Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov jubilantly declared an 87% victory for Kadyrov and a new era of stability for the broken republic, shattered by six years of war.
"We're hoping for the best. Of course Kadyrov will try. But we don't understand what he can do, really," said Apti Aslamov, a 36-year-old engineer, as he tried, and failed, to get by a soldier on the sidewalk.
"If it were me, I would stop the kidnapping of the people. And I would find," he said, surveying the scene around him, "some way to deal with these troops, to reduce them and then withdraw them altogether."
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's plan for Chechnya's rehabilitation has fallen into place with the election of Kadyrov, the Muslim cleric and former rebel who has served as Moscow's appointed administrator in the republic for the last three years.
Whether the tough new president can channel reconstruction funds where they're intended, bring residents back into Grozny's ghostly streets or stabilize the republic enough for Russian troops to withdraw in significant numbers remained questionable -- even after this week's election milestone.
"Helping Kadyrov get elected was a huge mistake on the part of Moscow," said Andrei Piontkovsky, director of Moscow's Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank. He said the Kremlin erred in backing a candidate who has very little popular support in Chechnya outside his own hometown.
"In fact, in electing Kadyrov, the Kremlin has irretrievably lost a very good chance to return the situation in Chechnya back to normal," he said. "Most people in Chechnya do not trust -- and fear -- Kadyrov
Putin launched the once-popular war in Chechnya for a second time in 1999, riding a wave of public anger over terrorist bombings of apartment complexes elsewhere in Russia and an incursion by Chechen rebels into neighboring Dagestan.
