Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says he survived an assassination attempt 4 months ago

Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Russia’s Chechen Republic, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti in an interview that he survived an assassination attempt four months ago in the Chechen capital of Grozny. According to Kadyrov, a bomb had been placed at a construction site of a Grozny sports and tourism complex, and it was supposed to go off when Kadyrov arrived to view the complex.

Kadyrov said that the bomb had been placed by combatants from a criminal group headed by a man named Khamzat Bityukayev. 

“I can name other instances like that. For example, two guys once came over from Dagestan, two young dudes. They were also preparing a terrorist attack. Then we caught them. You could tell they were from a poor family,” Kadyrov explained.

“I said, ‘tell me about your family.’ The father was killed, the brother was wounded, the mother lost 75 percent of her vision at a hospital. They’re 50,000 rubles short for an operation. I said, 'here, have 100,000 rubles, the other guy can have 50,000 too.’ I said, ‘bring it home,’” Kadyrov recounted.

There have been several attempts to assassinate Ramzan Kadyrov. In 2000, a bomb went off next to his car on a federal highway in Russia. Kadyrov suffered shell-shock from the blast. A man named Aslan Maskhadov was held responsible. In 2002, Kadyrov’s car was shelled in the Gudermes district of Chechnya. In 2003, a suicide bomber tried to assassinate Kadyrov.