What next for Chechnya?

By Stephen Dalziel
BBC Russian affairs analyst

As Chechnya buried its president, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated by a bomb on Sunday, the Kremlin was considering its next move in Chechnya.

According to the Chechen constitution, the election of a new president should take place within four months. But some are calling for direct presidential rule from Moscow.

Finding a solution to the Chechen problem will not be easy

The assassination has torn apart the mantle of respectability which the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, had tried to drape over the mess that is Chechnya.

Mr Putin had described the election of Mr Kadyrov last October - in a process where the Kremlin ensured that there was effectively just one candidate - as the last step in the political peace process in Chechnya.

As a former Muslim religious leader in the republic who had crossed over to the Kremlin's side, Mr Kadyrov was regarded as highly suitable by Moscow.

That claim by the Russian president now looks even more threadbare than it did at the time it was made. Despite the Kremlin's claims that the situation in Chechnya is "normalising", fighting goes on on a daily basis.

Young Kadyrov

Mr Putin's initial reaction to the news of the bomb in the Dynamo Stadium in Grozny was to say that retribution was, "inevitable". Indeed, Mr Putin's standard response to outrages in Chechnya, such as the massive suicide bomb attack on the government headquarters in December 2002, has been to step up military action. This looks likely now.

President Putin has appeared with Kadyrov's son Ramzan

But that still leaves Mr Putin with the problem of re-establishing the political system in Chechnya. Under the constitution, it should hold elections for president in the coming months. But it's difficult to see a viable contender for the post.

The Russian president appeared on Sunday alongside Mr Kadyrov's younger son, Ramzan. But if this was meant to be an endorsement of the younger Mr Kadyrov's right to replace his father, the Russian president may have to think again.

Ramzan Kadyrov has created his own military force in Chechnya. But this is feared and loathed by both Chechens and Russians.

Two of Mr Putin's most prominent supporters in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, have called for direct presidential rule in Chechnya. Lyubov Sliska, from the United Russia party, which has a large majority in the Duma, is in favour of this, as is Dmitry Rogozin of the Motherland bloc.

Dialogue

Mr Rogozin also proposed that Mr Putin appoint an envoy to the region. Mr Rogozin himself has already performed such a function in Kaliningrad, and negotiated with the European Union over travel through EU territory to this isolated Russian enclave.

Whether he would be so willing to take on Chechnya's problems - and whether Mr Putin himself would wish to be directly responsible - remain huge questions.

The exiled Russian tycoon, Boris Berezovsky, who helped negotiate the end of the Chechen War of 1994 to 1996 has said that the only way that Moscow can hope for any lasting solution to the Chechen problem is to open talks with Chechen representatives. But with whom?

Moscow has so discredited Aslan Maskhadov, whose election as Chechen president it recognised in 1997, that opening a dialogue with him now would be a huge loss of face for the Kremlin.

In the meantime, once the bomb which killed Mr Kadyrov has slipped from the world's headlines, Moscow will try to keep Chechnya out of the news again. But until Russia can find a genuine solution, the dreadful sense will remain that that will be only until the next atrocity occurs.