Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived tonight in Chechnya, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus ruled by with an iron hand from his ally Ramzan Kadyrov, which he has not visited since 2011, France Press reported.
„Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin arrived in the Chechen Republic. A rich program is planned within the framework of this visit, Kadyrov said in Telegram.
Russian state television showed footage of the arrival of Putin, who disembarked from a helicopter and was met at the airport by Kadyrov and his closest aides.
„People will be happy. They will be happy that the president has arrived in the republic. For us it is stimulating, a surge of energy. This is a great joy“, Kadyrov told journalists.
According to the Chechen leader, Putin began his visit by visiting the grave of his father and predecessor at the head of Chechnya, Akhmat Kadyrov, who was killed in an assassination attempt by Islamist rebels in 2004.
Putin's visit to Chechnya follows his visit to Beslan in North Ossetia, another Russian republic in the North Caucasus, earlier today. There, the Russian president paid tribute to the victims of the bloody 2004 school hostage crisis sparked by Chechen rebels
During the 1990s and the first decade of the present, Chechnya experienced two bloody conflicts in which Russian federal forces faced off against separatist Islamist rebels.
Since 2007, this Russian republic has been ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, whose security forces have been accused of numerous human rights violations.
Putin's visit comes after Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive in Russia's border region of Kursk on August 6, seizing dozens of settlements. Chechen forces from the "Akhmat" battalion are also deployed in the Kursk region to counter this Ukrainian offensive, AFP points out.