Watch: Putin reunites with warlord Kadyrov on rare trip to Chechnya
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Vladimir Putin flew to Chechnya on Tuesday and met Ramzan Kadyrov, its leader, on his first visit to the region since 2011.
Kadyrov, a key Kremlin ally, says he has deployed thousands of fighters to help the Russian president with his Ukraine offensive.
In May, Putin said that he planned to visit Chechnya on Kadyrov’s invitation, saying “I will do everything possible for this trip to take place”.
Footage posted by RIA Novosti news agency and Kadyrov showed the Russian president shaking hands with the warlord and other officials after alighting from his helicopter in Grozny, the North Caucasus region’s main city.
Putin then put an arm around Kadyrov’s shoulder and hugged him before they got into a limousine together.
A ‘packed programme’ of events
Kadyrov wrote on Telegram that there would be a “packed programme” of events, adding: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, despite the hard working day, is full of energy and ready to visit several places in Chechnya.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Putin visited other North Caucasus regions including Kabardino-Balkaria and North Ossetia.
In North Ossetia, he visited the Beslan school and knelt at a memorial where more than 330 people died in a 2004 siege by Chechen rebels.
Putin also met mothers who lost their children and likened the school attackers to Ukrainians now mounting an incursion in Russia’s Kursk region.
Region defined Putin’s strongman reputation
While Putin has rarely visited Chechnya in recent years, the region has shaped him as a politician.
He launched the second Chechen war in 1999 while still prime minister, which helped define his strongman reputation and made him popular with many Russians.
Putin-loyalist Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya with an iron fist, seeking to stamp out a lingering Islamist rebellion and any forms of dissent, and massively reconstructing Grozny.
Putin appointed Kadyrov as leader in 2007 when he was aged 30, after his father, Akhmat Kadyrov, was assassinated by a bomb at a stadium in 2004.
On Tuesday, Putin began his visit by laying flowers at Akhmat Kadyrov’s grave, Interfax news agency reported.