When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ramzan Kadyrov – the strongman leader of Chechnya and a close ally of Vladimir Putin – gathered his troops in the main square of the region’s capital, Grozny, to signal his readiness to join the war.
Positioned on a dais overlooking the crowd, Kadyrov stood against a backdrop of the most powerful men in Chechnya. Among them was Abuzayed Vismuradov, the dictator’s right-hand man who was the target of sanctions by the United States government in 2019 for his role in Chechnya’s purge of sexual minorities. Vismuradov also happens to be in charge of Kadyrov’s mixed martial arts fight club – an entity also the target of sanctions by the US Treasury.
