For Russians and Chechens who followed the news on social media, this April began with extremely shocking news that revealed an important cultural conflict between Chechens and their Moscow-imposed leadership.
On the evening of April 7, a young man attacked patrol officers with a knife, leaving one dead, in the small Chechen town of Achkhoy-Martan. The suspect, 17-year-old Eskarhan Khumashev, was executed without any trial or investigation.
Two days later, the teenager’s corpse was put on display in the city square, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the de facto Russian occupational administration in Chechnya, launched a punishment campaign, ordering the kidnapping of the boy’s relatives and demanding that the attacker’s family be expelled from Chechnya. Even 13-year-olds were reportedly among those kidnapped.
Eskar...
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