“If they do not prove otherwise, I will officially declare a blood feud,” he said. Blood feuds in Chechnya refer to the act of avenging a grave insult from an enemy by killing them or their relatives.
In the same meeting Kadyrov also accused the three of being responsible for a September shooting at the Moscow office of Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer.
It’s the first time the Chechen warlord, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has commented on the shooting, in which two ethnic Ingush security guards were killed.
The crime took place two months after a merger between Wildberries and another private firm, Russ (allegedly owned by Dagestani senator and billionaire Kerimov) in a deal that Russian media said was backed by the president’s office in Moscow.
Vladimir Bakalchuk, estranged husband of Wildberries CEO Tatyana Bakalchuk, was against the deal. With his wife backed by Putin, Bakalchuk joined forces with Kadyrov to block the merger, and allegedly stormed the office together with other men, including several Chechens. He was later charged with murder, an allegation he denies.
Kadyrov has never publicly acknowledged that his men were involved in the shootout. Instead, he described such claims as attempts to “pit entire nations against each other on domestic disputes.”