In the 2026 elections, Ramzan Kadyrov secured another term with a remarkable 99.85% of the vote, while United Russia won 84.15% in the regional parliamentary election. With no genuine competition, few doubted that Kadyrov would remain in office and further consolidate his position as Russia’s longest-serving regional leader.

For more than two decades, the Chechen Republic has enjoyed an informal status as an exceptional region, enjoying a degree of political autonomy unmatched by other constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

Since 2007, Ramzan Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya as a nationalist authoritarian state within a larger nationalist authoritarian state. As Moscow’s relations with other regions take on an increasingly feudal character, with regional loyalty secured at the expense of political autonomy, Kadyrov has been given a blank cheque and a degree of freedom unknown to any other regional head. But has Putin, by doing this, managed to secure Chechnya’s unconditional loyalty and lasting stability?

Journalist and political scientist specialising in the North Caucasus, and a PhD candidate at Charles University in Prague and Sapienza University of Rome, Liza Chukharova takes a closer look at the post-election developments in Chechnya.

Funds in exchange for (fake?) loyalty

Chechnya remains deeply dependent on the federal centre economically although the Second Chechen War officially ended back in 2000. According to the Equality Project (Ravenstvo in Russian), in 2024, 92% of the 580 billion RUB (€6.1 billion) in consolidated spending by budgets at all levels in Chechnya was funded by the federal government. At the same time, Chechnya generated very little of its own revenue — just 37 billion RUB (€400 million), or around 6% of total expenditure. In relative terms, only Tuva is slightly more dependent on federal funding than Chechnya.

It is difficult to overstate the scale of state investment in rebuilding Chechnya after the wars. According to Russian media outlet RBC, between 2001 and 2013 the federal government allocated more than ₽464 billion (€5 billion) to Chechnya — an average of 59 billion (€625 million) a year. The money was used to repair homes, build hospitals, schools and roads, and provide large-scale compensation payments to residents affected by the wars.

In addition to virtually unlimited subsidies, Kadyrov was given something that amounted to a blank cheque to suppress dissent and restore order after the assassination of his father, Akhmat Kadyrov. As a result, Chechnya now runs on its own informal code, drawing on Sharia and local custom. Women accused of witchcraft are publicly shamed and made to apologise in front of cameras. Kadyrov has threatened to have his enemies beheaded. Families have been accused of killing relatives who stray from the traditional customs. Kremlin has largely looked away, avoiding any public criticism of these practices.

The Kremlin has allowed Kadyrov to do something even more extraordinary: create what is so to say his own army. Although Chechen formations formally belong to federal structures, primarily national guard Rosgvardiya and the Defence Ministry, in practice they are directly responsible to Kadyrov. The number of such formations has grown substantially since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to human rights defender Alexander Cherkasov, the number of personnel in security structures controlled by Kadyrov may have reached 30,000–33,000, in a republic with a population of 1.5 million.

While human rights defenders around the world watch in horror as abuses take place either with the silent consent of the authorities or at the hands of the security forces themselves, Putin uses the image of Chechnya — once associated with his promise to ‘wipe out terrorists in the outhouse’ — as in a model region whose experience should be adopted elsewhere.

At a major press conference in December 2025, for example, Putin said that “the peoples of the Caucasus have a good tradition of marrying their children off at a fairly young age”. He called this “really the right thing” and suggested that others should take the Kadyrov family as an example, noting that Kadyrov’s sons had married while still underage.

Moreover, long before the Kremlin started talking about traditional values as an official state policy, Chechnya had already had its own state-sponsored system of education that combined patriotism, religion, family and ideas about proper behaviour. In 2022, these narratives appeared in Putin’s federal decree approving the Foundations of State Policy on Preserving and Strengthening Traditional Russian Spiritual and Moral Values.

More broadly, Chechnya can be seen as a laboratory for Russia’s managed politics. Here, earlier and more brutally than in many other regions, the Kremlin tested a combination of personalised rule, patriotic mobilisation, religious conservatism, control over public behaviour, and political loyalty in exchange for financial resources. In practice, this model has proved remarkably durable.

At the same time, the question of how loyal Kadyrov really is to Putin remains open. Certainly, Putin receives a higher share of the vote in Chechnya at elections than anywhere else in Russia (99% in 2024 and 91,44% with 91,54% turnout in official figures in 2018, meanwhile independent observers reported the turnout of 30-35% in Grozny that year). Putins portraits hang in every school, and the main avenue in the Chechen capital, Grozny, is named after him.

There are no independent opinion polls that would provide a reliable picture of Chechens’ actual attitudes towards Putin. According to one of the largest opposition channels, NIYSO, which has 113,000 subscribers and has been designated an extremist organisation by the Russian authorities, many Chechens still regard Chechnya as occupied territory and view Putin, to put it mildly, with distrust. Ordinary Chechens benefit little from the vast financial flows the republic receives from the federal budget. Chechnya has traditionally ranked among Russia’s poorest regions, while the median wage remain among the lowest in the country.

Kadyrov’s rise to power

Kadyrov came to power after the death of his father, Akhmat Kadyrov, who was killed on 9 May 2004 in a blast at the Dynamo stadium in Grozny.

At the time, Ramzan Kadyrov was 27 and could not run for president of Chechnya because the republic’s constitution required candidates to be at least 30 years old. After his father’s death, Kadyrov was appointed first deputy prime minister and given control over the security bloc.

In the early elections in August 2004, Chechnya’s interior minister Alu Alkhanov won with an official 73.48% of the vote and a turnout of around 85%. Kadyrov nevertheless continued to strengthen his influence in the republic, although he has not yet occupied central place.

After Prime Minister Sergey Abramov was injured in a car accident in November 2005, Kadyrov became acting chair of the government, and in March 2006 he was formally appointed prime minister. At the same time, he strengthened his control over Chechen security structures and gradually pushed out people associated with Alkhanov.

In February 2007, Alkhanov resigned. Officially, Vladimir Putin accepted his resignation, submitted “of his own accord”, and appointed him deputy minister of justice of Russia. In reality, however, the republic had long been under a system of dual power: Alkhanov retained the formal position of regional leader, while Kadyrov increasingly controlled the security apparatus and decision-making processes.

On 12 February, just days before his resignation, Alkhanov told representatives of federal security agencies that “totalitarian methods of governance” contradicted Chechen traditions and criticised the “cult of personality” — an apparent reference to Kadyrov.

Immediately after Alkhanov’s resignation, Putin appointed Kadyrov acting president of Chechnya. Two weeks later, on 28 February, Putin nominated him to the republic’s parliament, and on 2 March the parliament approved his candidacy. Fifty-six of the 58 deputies voted for Kadyrov, while the remaining two ballots were declared invalid.

In 2011, Kadyrov secured another term without consulting the republic’s voters, through a parliamentary vote. In February 2011, then-president Dmitry Medvedev nominated Kadyrov to the parliament for another term, and on 5 March the Chechen parliament unanimously extended his mandate for another five years. All 41 deputies present voted in favour.

His next term Kadyrov secured in a direct election. Federal legislation reinstated gubernatorial elections in 2012, and Chechnya held its first direct gubernatorial election in 13 years in 2016. At the vote on 18 September, Kadyrov, who ran as a United Russia candidate, received 97.94% of the vote with a turnout of 94.8%. His opponents — Idris Usmanov, Gairsult Bataev, and Sultan Denilkhanov — each received less than 1%.

In 2021, Kadyrov stood for election again and “achieved“ an even higher result. With a turnout of 94.61%, 99.7% of voters backed him, according to the official figures of the Russia’s Central Election Commission. His opponents Isa Khadzhimuradov and Khalid Nakaev received 0.15% and 0.12%, respectively.

Kadyrov entered the 2026 election after several years of publicly discussing the possibility of stepping down. In the preceding years, numerous media reports had raised concerns about his reportedly deteriorating health.

In September 2022, Kadyrov declared that he had “stayed in the post too long” and had deserved an “indefinite and lengthy holiday”. Several days later, Kadyrov added that he could not leave without the consent of Russia’s president and the people of the republic.

In 2023, Kadyrov changed his position and said he intended to run for the next term “if the people elect me”. Then, in May 2025, he again speculated about stepping down and said he was asking to be relieved of his post.

In December 2025, Kadyrov confirmed that he was prepared to participate in the 2026 election and reiterated that he had no desire to remain in office. During a live broadcast on local TV, he said he was “fed up with this power and serving the people”, but would run if Vladimir Putin proposed his candidacy and the people of Chechnya supported him.

In April 2026, during a meeting in the Kremlin, Putin  expressed hope that Kadyrov would secure the support of Chechens in the upcoming election.

At the same time, speculation that Kadyrov might not seek re-election was fuelled by the fact that, for the first time, he did not head United Russia’s list of candidates for the State Duma. However, few days later, Kadyrov was nominated by the same United Russia party for the position of Chechen Governor and submitted his documents to the election commission.

On 2 July, Kadyrov’s candidacy was unanimously endorsed by the Council of Elders of the Chechen Republic. Council representatives said that supporting the incumbent Chechen Governor in the upcoming election was necessary to preserve the unity of all teips (traditional Chechen and Ingush clan-based kinship groups united by common ancestry and family ties), religions and nationalities in the republic.

As in the previous elections, Kadyrov was facing two nominal opponents. The Communist Party again nominated Chechen parliamentarian Khalid Nakaev, who received 0.12% in the 2021 election, while Just Russia nominated Chechen Public Chamber chair Ismail Denilkhanov. The number of opponents — just two — is lower than in other regions holding direct gubernatorial elections.

It is worth noting that Kadyrov’s eligibility to seek another term in 2026 was made possible by amendments to federal legislation. In 2015, previously served gubernatorial terms were reset, while a new law on public authority, adopted in December 2021, abolished the limit of two-consecutive terms.

If not Kadyrov, then who?

Kadyrov’s re-election as Governor of Chechnya came amid repeated reports of serious health problems. Since September 2023, Chechen opposition sources have regularly reported that Kadyrov has been hospitalised, allegedly because of kidney failure.

In April 2024, Russian independent media outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe, citing sources, reported that Kadyrov allegedly suffered from pancreatic necrosis, which it said had been diagnosed as early as 2019.

In September 2025, another independent media outlet, Verstka, citing its own sources, reported that Kadyrov had serious kidney problems, required dialysis and had undergone a nephrostomy.

A new wave of reports emerged in January 2026. Ukraine’s state-run news agency Ukrinform, citing a source in Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, reported that Kadyrov’s condition had deteriorated because of kidney failure and that, due to an emergency hospitalisation, he had been unable to attend a meeting of the State Council alongside the leaders of Russia’s other regions.

On 14 January, Kadyrov released a video in which he denied having any problems with his kidneys, liver, spleen or stomach, insisting that he was “absolutely healthy”.

For several years, independent Russian media, citing sources in the presidential administration, have reported that the Kremlin has been actively searching for a successor to Kadyrov. But who are potential successors to Kadyrov, and what would life in Chechnya look like under a different leader?

One of the names most frequently mentioned as a successor was Magomed Daudov, the former speaker of the Chechen parliament, whom Kadyrov unexpectedly appointed prime minister of the republic in May 2024. Daudov is among Kadyrov’s closest political allies and an influential figure in the Chechen political elite.

If Daudov were to come to power, the overall situation in Chechnya would probably change little under his leadership. However, abuses by the security forces might become less overt than they are today. Extrajudicial killings, torture and abductions are unlikely to disappear altogether. However, as an experienced politician, Daudov understands that such practices are not exactly what the Kremlin wants to see in Chechnya, nor are they likely to earn him the trust or loyalty of the population.

Another potential successor mentioned was Adam Delimkhanov, a State Duma MP and one of Kadyrov’s closest allies. Delimkhanov has considerable influence within Chechnya’s political and security system and is regarded as one of Kadyrov’s most trusted associates.

Another possible candidate has been named as Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat special forces unit and a major general. His name became known across Russia largely through staged videos from the front line in which his units were purportedly taking part. His name is closely associated with the expression ‘TikTok troops’.

At the same time, Ramzan Kadyrov is allegedly planning to keep power within his family, effectively passing it down as an inheritance. His third son, 18-year-old Adam, has most often been mentioned as his potential successor. Kadyrov began appointing Adam to various government positions when he was just 15. In April 2025, at the age of 17, Adam Kadyrov was appointed secretary of Chechnya’s Security Council.

In September 2026, he was seen wearing lieutenant's insignia, despite having been promoted to junior lieutenant only in the spring 2026. The promotion to lieutenant had not been officially announced.

However, Adam Kadyrov faces the same legal restriction that prevented Ramzan Kadyrov from becoming regional leader immediately after his father’s assassination: under Russian law, a regional governor must be at least 30 years old.

After Adam Kadyrov was reportedly involved in a fatal road accident, in which he himself was also injured, journalists reported that he may have undergone surgery to remove his spleen, although this has not been independently confirmed. Sources subsequently claimed that he had fallen out of favour with his father. Ramzan Kadyrov allegedly stopped considering him a successor and turned instead to his eldest son, Akhmat.

This version, however, does not stand up well to scrutiny. Akhmat Kadyrov was appointed deputy prime minister just weeks before the accident, while Adam Kadyrov continues to appear alongside his father at all public events. In June, he was even awarded the title of Hero of Chechnya for the second time.

One plausible scenario for Chechnya in the event of Ramzan Kadyrov’s departure from power would be a repeat of the succession process that brought Kadyrov himself to power. Until his sons reach the legally required age to become regional leaders, the position could formally be filled by a Kremlin-appointed and Chechnya-approved regent.

Magomed Daudov could well emerge as a candidate for this role. He appears to be acceptable to both sides and shows little sign of seeking power for himself. Unlike many other Chechen officials, Daudov has also been relatively restrained in promoting his relatives, despite his considerable influence.

All in all, speculation about Kadyrov’s successor remain little more than guesswork. Contrary to the expectations of his detractors, Kadyrov is still alive and could potentially remain in power for several more terms. After all, current legislation effectively allows him to stay in office for life.

The central question is whether the Kremlin will be able to find a successor to Kadyrov who is willing to maintain the existing model of relations with Moscow. This arrangement rests largely on personal ties, political loyalty and generous financial support from Moscow. A new leader may require even more resources to secure the same level of loyalty, or the Kremlin may have to devise alternative ways of maintaining control over Chechnya. Much will also depend on who leaves the political stage first — Kadyrov or Putin. If Putin goes first, the transfer of power in the republic could unfold under very different circumstances.