The statement by Ivan Zhdanov, one of Alexei Navalny’s associates, about the «unfinished Chechen terrorist» Ramzan Kadyrov has already provoked a reasonable reaction from many of our readers, especially among the fighters for Ichkeria’s independence and their supporters.
Here’s what Zhdanov said: «Kadyrov is an unfinished Chechen terrorist who sends Russian soldiers to fight in Ukraine» (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXRqi-mmqpM&t=279s). In this regard, many just and angry comments have already been made about the seemingly irreparable imperialism of the mainstream of the Russian liberal opposition, which, while condemning one imperialist war (with Ukraine), de facto justifies others (with Ichkeria and sometimes even in Syria).
We would like to say a few words about something else — irreparable stupidity, an example of which was demonstrated by Zhdanov in this case.
After all, if anyone is unfinished today, it is literally him — the one who managed to escape arrest by Russian law enforcement officers, who took revenge on his father by imprisoning him on false charges. And it wasn’t Kadyrov’s men who did this, but ordinary Russian law enforcement officers — the very ones who, according to him, were supposed to finish off the «Chechen terrorists».
And if anyone says that instead of «finishing off Chechen terrorists» they wasted their time fighting peaceful Russian opposition members, they still don’t get it. Because it was precisely the «Chechen terrorists», who were not terrorists at all, but initially the same fighters for national freedom, just like the Ukrainians today, on whom the power machine was tested and then rolled further, both within Russia, throughout its civil society, and beyond its borders.
It seems that some members of the Russian liberal opposition, including Navalny’s associates, have recently begun to understand this. Hence the broadcasts of Lyubov Sobol with Tumso Abdurakhmanov, and the recent video of Vladimir Milov, in which he decided to talk about Dzhokhar Dudayev, but finally admitted that the deployment of Russian troops in Chechnya was a huge mistake by Boris Yeltsin, which had long-term consequences for the (abolition) of Russian democracy.
And now, in such a situation, when some of Navalny’s supporters (by the way, he himself defended Tumso when he was facing extradition from Poland) are trying to build bridges with those Chechens who are a real alternative to Kadyrov, Zhdanov’s statement destroys the fruits of this work.
We know that we are being read, if not by Tumso himself, then by his followers, as well as by the Muslims who follow the streams of people from Navalny’s team, including Zhdanov. In this regard, we ask you to convey a message to Zhdanov: to use his brain (if he has one) before speaking, and to his colleagues from Navalny’s team to comment on their colleague’s statement and acknowledge his mistake.
Without this, the Muslim audience will have every reason to believe that Zhdanov is expressing Navalny’s position, and if Navalny possibly comes to power, instead of engaging in a dialogue with Chechen society about the future relationship between Chechnya and Russia, he will «finish off» Chechens as «terrorists».