This Russian Leader Just Issued A Death Threat... On Instagram!

NEW DELHI: Ramzan Kadyrov is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally in the troubled region of Chechnya, but perhaps more importantly, Kadyrov is one scary man. And while that scary-quality is what prompted Putin to pick Kadyrov to run Chechnya, simmering with an Islamic insurgency, in 2007, it is now backfiring. Kadyrov has since become increasingly brazen, being accused of egregious human rights abuses -- torture, kidnappings, killings, and crushing dissent in Chechnya. Most recently, Kadyrov took to social media photo-sharing platform Instagram to issue a death threat of sorts.

In a post that has since been deleted, Kadyrov posted a video on Sunday that appears to aim a sniper’s scope at two prominent Russian opposition leaders. Part of the caption accompanying the post read: “Those who didn’t get it before will understand it now.” The two men targeted in the video are Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, and democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, both liberal figures who are well-known in Russia’s anti-Kremlin circles.

Along with the video, Kadyrov commented, “Kasyanov has come to Strasbourg for money for the Russian opposition.” The phrase, “whoever didn’t understand will get it,” is also the title of a forthcoming self-produced action film starring the Chechen leader.

The video was issued weeks before the first anniversary of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, another prominent opposition figure, who was gunned down near the Kremlin in February 2015. As the Guardian reported, last week, Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister, called on deputies at a parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to prepare a special report on the Nemtsov murder investigation and warned that Kadyrov’s comments, labelling the opposition “enemies of the people”, marked a broader crackdown on regime critics. During the trip, he also told the exiled Crimean Tatar leader, Mustafa Dzhemilev, that Crimea would eventually be returned to Ukraine.

In a Facebook post, Kasyanov called the video a “direct threat of a murder motivated by political hatred” and said President Vladimir Putin, who appointed Kadyrov in 2007, “bears personal responsibility for Kadyrov’s actions” and should condemn them.

An automated translation of the full post is as follows:

“I looked through the available r. Kadyrov at its personal web page Instagram video's "under the gun", Focusing on me and my associate Vladimir Kara-Murze.

I'll take that as a direct threat to the murder on the grounds of political strife, as an infringement on the life of the public and public figure, as publicly expressed intention to commit actions, intimidating the population.

The last time kadyrov is actively engaged in the unfolding in the country, a campaign of harassment dissenters, in its surrounded by all the louder are death threats over the people who openly declare their disagreement with the policy of the authorities. Persons accused of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, kadyrov called true patriots.

It is important to emphasize that kadyrov, is the head of one of the entities of the Russian Federation and the appointed to this post in person. Putin. As a guarantor of the constitution, the citizen's rights and freedoms, Putin is obliged to stop a pesky officials and to give his assessment of the actions of the public. Putin is personally liable for the actions of the kadyrov.

In accordance with the constitutional law "about government" to the president of the Russian Federation referred to the powers of the operational Manual Power Ministries and departments, the entire

The Law Enforcement System. Soon I'll give the necessary declarations in the law enforcement agencies.”

The RPR-Parnas deputy chairman, Vladimir Kara-Murza, seen walking with Kasyanov in the video, called it an “instigation to murder”.

Instagram deleted the crosshairs video for violating its rule that users respect one another, a spokesperson told Vedomosti newspaper.

This is not the first time that Kadyrov has courted controversy for his statement or actions. In April last year, Kadyrov ordered local security forces to fire on any Russian federal troops who might arrive in Chechnya unannounced.

In May, he openly supported an allegedly forced wedding between a 17-year-old Chechen girl and a juiced-in police chief about three times her age.

Before that Kadyrov publicly defended the prime suspect in the murder of Nemtsov.

In January this year, Kadyrov employed the Stalin-era phrase “enemies of the people” to argue that opposition activists were puppets of western intelligence and should be prosecuted for treason. As stated in the Guardian, Magomed Daudov, the head of Kadyrov’s administration, posted a photograph of his boss with a Caucasian sheepdog named Tarzan, declaring that its “fangs are itching” for opposition activists and journalists.

As stated by the Global Post in an article written last year, “Between promoting his own peculiar vision of Islam and apparently flouting federal authority whenever he sees fit, some suggest Kadyrov poses a growing, unpredictable liability to the Kremlin and its rigid vertical of power.” Russian security analyst Mark Galeotti said Kadyrov will likely become “more confident, more brash, more challenging” as time goes on.

Judging by the latest video, Kadyrov is at his brazen best (we actually mean worst).