The assassination of the Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov leaves Moscow with few reliable levers of influence over the troubled republic and could spark an escalation of violence in a region never known for stability, analysts said.
Sunday's bomb blast in a Grozny stadium that claimed Kadyrov's life may also have shattered Russian President Vladimir Putin's only reliable hope of finding a way out of a war that he started more than four years ago.
The timing of Kadyrov's assassination was almost a slap in Putin's face, coming just two days after he was inaugurated for a second term as president in a ceremony the Russian leader used to declare that peace had finally returned to the restless Caucasus region after a decade of violence.
"With the death of Kadyrov, Russia suffered a great strategic defeat in Chechnya," said independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
"It is very probable that a conflict between Kadyrov's forces and the other armed factions in Chechnya will only escalate.
"It does not really matter who replaces Kadyrov -- Chechnya
is facing the serious risk of
disintegrating into utter chaos," he warned.
Kadyrov was never an easy figure for Putin to trust. The former imam fought on the side
of the Chechen rebels in the first 1994-96 war and later became something of a local warlord.
But he himself appeared
disillusioned with the lawless Chechen government that ruled the republic in the years of its de facto independence between 1996 and 1999.
He switched sides to the Russians when Putin launched the second war in October, 1999, in what was meant to be a lightning "anti-terror" operation.
Kadyrov appeared to win the Kremlin's trust when he used his local contacts to allow Russian forces to take the republic's second city, Gudermes, without battle as federal troops moved on the capital Grozny in the campaign's first weeks.
The Kremlin, analysts suggest, understood that Kadyrov was not very trustworthy, but remained the only figure powerful enough to impose his control over the dozens of gangs and armed factions roaming Chechnya while keeping cordial relations with Moscow.
Putin's team helped Kadyrov win Chechnya's controversial presidential election last October and then allowed him to develop
a massive local security force that was looked on with suspicion
not only by the rebels but also
Russian troops stationed in Chechnya.
That force -- feared by locals because of reports that its men had no self-control and committed numerous human-rights violations -- was led by Kadyrov's son, Ramzan, a man believed to be in his late 20s who wears track suits and a shaggy beard.
Ramzan was appointed on Monday as the deputy chief of Chechnya -- a decision that suggests the Kremlin wants to keep the republic under the Kadyrov clan's control because it sees no other option.
Otherwise, the Kremlin could rely on obedient Chechens who now work in Moscow but exercise no true power in the republic, or negotiate with some of the rebels to give them a greater hand in leadership.
No one believes that Putin
will ever be willing to follow the second route.
"All of the political and military institutions were under Kadyrov's personal control," political analyst Sergei Markov said. "Now a crisis seems inevitable.
"The chances of Putin negotiating with the rebels were slim in the past. Now they stand at zero," he said.
Most analysts suggest that while Ramzan may run the local militia, he does not have enough administrative experience and is likely to be openly challenged by other factions smelling blood, if not his own men.
"There is no figure [other than Kadyrov himself] who could forge a consensus within Kadyrov's circle," including Ramzan, said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies.
The next Chechen presidential election must be held before Sept. 9. The administration is now headed on an interim basis by Sergei Abramov -- a 32-year-old former banker who analysts believe does not really want the job because of the risks it carries.
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