Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov turned 35 on Wednesday with congratulatory calls from Russia’s ruling duo and Hollywood stars attending grandiose celebrations in the Caucasus republic.
Actors Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kevin Costner and Hilary Swank all participated in the festivities, which were televised live and were officially decreed to be held for the opening of a new skyscraper complex, Grozny-City.
Violinist Vanessa-Mae also performed at the glitzy gala that culminated in a fireworks display.
Photo: AFP
The swaggering leader, whom critics accuse of megalomania and heavy-handed tactics, had banned bureaucrats from celebrating his birthday on pain of being fired, so the events in the former war zone of Chechnya were tied to the city day, as well as a national teachers’ holiday and a “day of Chechen youth.”
A former insurgent, Kadyrov took power in Chechnya after his father, Akhmat Kadyrov, was killed in a bomb attack as he attended a Victory Day concert in the volatile region in 2004. His critics say Kadyrov runs Chechnya as his personal fiefdom and enjoys carte blanche and hefty financial assistance from the Kremlin in exchange for loyalty.
Even though the Russian authorities remained conspicuously silent on the matter, Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov said that his patron received telephone calls with birthday wishes from both Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.
Photo: EPA
There were unprecedented security measures in Chechnya, where the Kremlin has waged two wars with separatists in the past 20 years, as authorities closed the main highways leading into Grozny on Monday and police carried out document checks on residents of all apartment blocks in the past two weeks.
Numerous stars were invited to participate in the birthday celebrations, with Colombian singer Shakira, known for hits such as Hips Don’t Lie, reportedly hired to perform, but she denied that on Twitter, saying she was never booked for the event.
However, Kadyrov claimed in a live televised interview on Tuesday that human rights activists had warned Shakira against coming.
Photo: Reuters
“Rights activists wrote a letter to Shakira telling her not to come to us, because the authorities here kill people, human rights are breached here. Only enemies of the people could write this,” he said in typically belligerent rhetoric.
Local media said that celebrities were handsomely rewarded for attending the celebrations, with British violonist Vanessa-Mae rumored to have received US$500,000.
Kadyrov had earlier banned any events being held for his birthday and warned officials that “anyone who even tries to give me a present will immediately be sacked,” RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Human rights activists accuse Kadyrov of presiding over a personal militia that carries out rampant rights abuses, torture and even murder.
Often photographed with luxury cars and the owner of a string of racehorses, Kadyrov has sought to draw positive publicity for Chechnya by inviting international celebrities.
This year he invited former soccer star Diego Maradona to play at a celebrity match and hired Dutch player Ruud Gullit to manage the republic’s Terek soccer team, only to unceremoniously sack him for spending too much time in nightclubs.
Such spectacular celebrations for long-serving leaders’ birthdays are commonplace in the former Soviet Union.
This year, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev invited British pop star Sting to perform at celebrations on his 71st birthday, which were also formally linked to a city day.
Sting pulled out at the last moment on the instigation of Amnesty International, citing violations of the rights of striking workers.
An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported yesterday. The Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February last year on the country’s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has since been deployed on the surface as an orbiter surveyed the planet from space. Among the images taken from space were China’s first photographs of the Martian south pole, where almost all of the planet’s water resources are locked. In 2018, an orbiting probe operated by the European
FEELING THREATENED: The first military commission under Kim Jong-un’s leadership to last longer than a day is a sign of a growing escalatory doctrine, an analyst said North Korea discussed assigning additional duties to its frontline army units at a key military meeting, state media said yesterday, suggesting that the country might deploy battlefield nuclear weapons targeting South Korea along the rivals’ tense border. The discussion comes as South Korean officials said North Korea has finished preparations for its first nuclear test in five years, as part of possible efforts to build a warhead to be mounted on short-range weapons capable of hitting targets in South Korea. During an ongoing meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party on Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and
TRADE TALK: Xiao Qian said that Australia had fired the ‘first shot’ in deteriorating trade relations with China, but improvements were possible if Canberra takes action China’s new ambassador to Australia chided protesters who heckled him yesterday during a speech about the future of relations between the two countries. Xiao Qian (肖千), who has only been in the role since January, had just begun his speech at the University of Technology Sydney when the first protesters interjected, calling for freedom for Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. The ambassador was repeatedly interrupted by sign-wielding protesters, some criticizing China’s treatment of the Uighur people as well as the university for inviting Xiao to speak. “People who are coming again and again to interrupt the process, that’s not expression of freedom of
A former South Korean Navy SEAL turned YouTuber who risked jail time to leave Seoul and fight for Ukraine said it would have been a “crime” not to use his skills to help. Ken Rhee, a former special warfare officer, signed up at the Ukrainian embassy in Seoul the moment Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked for global volunteers and was fighting on the front lines near Kyiv by early March. To get there, he had to break South Korean law — Seoul banned its citizens from traveling to Ukraine, and Rhee, who was injured in a fall while leading a special operations