So congratulations to him - I’ve been rooting for him since he took down Kevin Holland with unrelenting wrestling. But I was browsing R*ddit which was my first mistake and major sin. But people are speculating, which I found interesting, about Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, having Khamzat under his thumb. There was video of Kadyrovtaking the UFC belt. They were speculating that, if Khamzat said anything the warlord would have his family killed. There’s shit like this video of them sparring. This is, of course, before his “I have no enemies” arc (not important in the scope of this chat) where he was more of a hothead because it happened before his kill everybody interview (1:30 of the segment).. So I always found it weird.

But then, I suppose the point of this whole thing that I wanted to get at was why is Kadyrov such a dangerous seeming guy? How did he get there? I hear that there’s a wary respect for him because the Chechen people faced genocide a the hands of Russia for the last 90 years - meaning it went back to the USSR, so as long as a strong Russian-Chechen general in Kadyrov is around they get protection. And so I know nothing of it - I see Kadyrov’s wikipedia page and some shit about his dad being a separatist who sided with Putin in the second Chechen war which is rough because I didn’t know there was a first one.

So displacement during WW2? Collaboration with Nazis? Chechen wars? What were they cooking?

  • theturtlemoves [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    29 days ago

    I’m not Russian, so take this with a grain of salt. When the USSR broke up, the Chechens - whose homeland ended up in the Russian federation - tried to secede. The Russian army crushed them militarily, but realised that governing a hostile population would be difficult. Also, Chechen separatists started conducting terrorist attacks in Russia. So they cut a deal with the Kadyrovs (who are Chechens, but on friendly terms with the Russians), where they put them in charge and basically stopped interfering in local affairs, in return for them clamping down on the more extreme separatists. I guess the Chechen people see this as less bad than direct Russian rule.

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      2·
      29 days ago

      It seems what you’re describing is the first and second Chechen wars. It also goes deep because “In August 1999, Islamists from Chechnya infiltrated Dagestan in Russia. Later in September, apartment bombings occurred in Russian cities, killing over 300 people.” Where Dagestan is where you get many of Khamzat’s contemporaries. They get a lot of shine with Islam Makachev claiming that you can make your child a great wrestler by “send to Dagestan 2, 3 years and forget.”

      But there was a forced dislocation of Chechens during WW2 by the USSR and Wikipedia seems content to say most people agreed it was a genocide for dubious claims that they corroborated with Nazis. So they’ve had a really rough go of it in Chechnya.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Chechens_and_Ingush