Open Media: Chechnya’s Kadyrov family has spent a billion rubles on personal security over the past five years

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has spent at least one billion rubles ($13.7 million) in state funds on security for himself and his family since 2017, according to a new investigation from Open Media. 

Citing records from the public procurement database Kontur.Focus, Open Media reports that Kadyrov spends approximately 200 million rubles ($2.73 million) a year on employing between 388 and 430 officers from the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya) to protect himself and his family.

In February 2021, the department serving Kadyrov’s working residence and family home signed several one-year contracts with the national guard totaling 201.4 million rubles ($2.75 million). More than half of this sum — 102.1 million rubles ($1.39 million) — was allocated for funding the protection of Kadyrov’s mother, Aymani Kadyrova, and her family. 

In 2017, according to the report, the same department hired 200 security guards to the tune of 101.6 million rubles (about $1.39 million at today’s exchange rate): 62 of them were sent to guard the Chechen leader’s official residence, and the same number were sent to guard Kadyrov’s private family home. The remainder provided security for the Kadyrov administration building in Grozny.

The addresses of the facilities under protection have since been removed from the procurement database, Open Media reports. That said, the documents still note the residences that are protected in accordance with the law “On social and other guarantees for the widow of the first president of the Chechen Republic Kadyrov A.A.” Aymani Kadyrova and her family members are entitled to security under this law, on top of the fact that she herself is exempted from public utility bills and provided with a monthly allowance equal to 23 old-age pensions, free medical care, and transport services.

For comparison: the annual protection of Chechnya’s Federal Tax Service costs the budget 6.7 million rubles [about $91,500 per year], and all the republican courts [cost] no more than 26 million rubles [about $355,000].