The well-known and popular Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov held an inaugural meeting and presentation of his new party «Voice of Chechnya» in Strasbourg. The full speech of the leader of the new party can be found here: https://youtu.be/BKlezf_1FOA.
According to Tumso, the difference between his project and other Ichkerian initiatives is that they claim to be in power but are not, while his party honestly admits that it is not in power but is striving for it — by winning future elections in independent Chechnya.
From his speech it can also be concluded that by creating the party he will try to gather the efforts of his supporters to work in it. All these are undoubtedly very interesting and hopeful thoughts, and from our side we can only wish our brothers success in all good endeavors.
The only thing we would like to warn not only Tumso and his supporters, but everyone, against is the peddling of territorial claims, which he effectively declares in the name of Chechnya for the transferred Aukh region in Dagestan.
We keep emphasizing that the impending collapse of the Kremlin’s vertical power structure could be the historic opportunity that it would be criminal not to seize. But it may well be missed — if, instead of presenting a united front among themselves and with all possible allies, they engage in infighting among themselves and with their neighbors. This will end predictably, as it did last time, and it is not so important under whose specific strikes.
Therefore, in addition to another call for internal consolidation in one or another national camp, we strongly advise all of them to refrain from unilateral actions to «reclaim historical lands» and instead create platforms for dialogue between the interested parties. Just like it was done recently in Kyiv at the meeting of the Caucasian Union.
One sincerely hopes that our brother Tumso will have the wisdom and responsibility to come to such an understanding, and bring benefit rather than harm to the cause of reviving the statehood of his people.