Kadyrov

First, let me start by stating we don’t know whether Ramzan Kadyrov is alive. But Russian Telegram has been awash, first with Kadyrov being in a coma. Now that he has died. So here I am, not ready to say that he is dead for sure. However, some interesting patterns are emerging.

The first is about him being no longer among the living. Under Muslim law, he should be buried before sundown. So a video appeared earlier in the day, soon followed by a video, lacking metadata, of him running at Grozny. The screengrab above is from that video. It came out right after this broke through some channels, and the rumors started last night:

Kadyrov died — Chechen human rights defender Abubakar Yangulbayev

Then we had a nice denial. This is hardly an unusual pattern in Russia. Here is it.

1ADAT confirms that Kadyrov is alive.

“In general, let’s close the topic about these gossips about Kadyrov’s alleged death, since they are already pretty boring.”

Russia is a strange place in this respect. When people die who are essential to the stability of the systema, their deaths are carefully managed. If you are old enough, you surely will remember the end of Yury Andropov. They dragged the official announcement for weeks.

They did the same with Leonid Brezhnev. One way Western intel knew they were…