Three weeks after the ongoing feud between Wildberries CEO Tatyana Kim and her Kadyrov-backed husband Vladislav Bakalchuk escalated into a deadly shootout at the company’s Moscow headquarters, the Chechen governor has broken his silence. In footage of a meeting with security officials that he posted to Telegram on Thursday, Kadyrov declared a “blood feud” against several Russian lawmakers from the North Caucasus, including Dagestani Senator Suleiman Kerimov, and accused them of ordering his assassination. Here’s the latest.
Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov declared a “blood feud” on Thursday against three federal lawmakers whom he claimed ordered his assassination, including Dagestani billionaire and Federation Council member Suleiman Kerimov.
The threat comes just three weeks after Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged husband of Wildberries CEO Tatyana Kim and a longtime friend of Kadyrov, led a raid on the online retailer’s Moscow headquarters that ended in a deadly shooting. Bakalchuk and Kadyrov have vehemently opposed the company’s merger with the advertising operator Russ Outdoor, of which Kerimov is reportedly a top financial backer.
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On Telegram, Kadyrov shared a nine-minute clip of a meeting he had with high-level security officials in which he spoke primarily in Chechen. In the video, according to Russian state news agency TASS, Kadyrov mentions Kerimov as well as State Duma deputies Bekkhan Barakhoyev and Rizvan Kurbanov “in the context of the incident at the Wildberries offices.”
“If they don’t provide proof to the contrary, I officially declare a blood feud against Barakhoyev, Suleiman Kerimov, and Rizvan Kurbanov. We have witnesses, and we know the people they asked about the price of an order [for my assassination],” TASS quoted Kadyrov as saying.
According to the independent outlet Agentstvo, Kadyrov began talking about Kerimov after speaking about the Wildberries shooting. “There was a business situation. Bekkhan Barakhoyev was there, Suleiman Kerimov was there, Rizvan Kurbanov was there. They have their business, and not only did they take it from [CEO Tatyana Kim] — they also ordered [my assassination],” he reportedly said.
In a Russian-language post accompanying the video, Kadyrov wrote that he discussed the Wildberries incident at the meeting. “There are people trying hard to put a national spin on this and who are saying the instigators of the conflict were Kadyrovites. I’m addressing everyone who’s stoking these claims. If anyone has complaints about the Kadyrovites, you’d better express them to me directly, since I’m the top Kadyrovite,” the governor wrote.
“Ramzan Kadyrov and Suleiman Kerimov aren’t just two businessmen — they’re public officials,” journalist Farida Rustamova said, commenting on Kadyrov’s statement. “Actually, at least for some time, a more democratic approach was generally accepted in Russia, where public office holders couldn’t be involved in business conflicts — it was illegal for them. […] But now, things have completed changed: the masks have come off, and we’re witnessing a regression back to square one, to the level we started from after the breakup of the Soviet Union.”
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