Ramzan Kadyrov’s 20-year-old daughter Khutmat Kadyrova awarded Order of Chechnya for ‘immense contribution to development of medicine’

Khutmat Kadyrova, the 20-year-old daughter of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, has been presented with the Order of Chechnya, a state award instituted in honor of her grandfather, Akhmat Kadyrov. The Chechen Minister of Information and Print Akhmed Dudayev announced Kadyrova’s award on Telegram.

According to Dudayev, Khutmat Kadyrova shows “excellent results” in anything she is entrusted with. “At such a young age, she has made an immense contribution to the development of medicine in the region,” the minister wrote, adding that “it’s all because she is a patriot of her people and her country!”

Khutmat Kadyrova was appointed to oversee healthcare in Chechnya in March 2023. She is also the deputy chief of her father’s administration in the republic.

This new award follows a pattern of advancing the younger members of the Kadyrov clan to key positions in the Chechen government. In October 2021, Kadyrov’s older daughter, Aishat, then 22 years old, was appointed Chechnya’s minister of culture. In April 2023, the governor’s 26-year-old nephew Khazmat Kadyrov became his uncle’s special advisor for law enforcement. Not long before, he had been appointed the minister of property and land relations in the republic.

This pattern appears to have been stable for years. In 2018, BBC News Russian calculated that 30 percent of the 158 major officials in Chechnya were Kadyrov’s relatives. Another 23 percent were members of his community, and 12 percent were Kadyrov’s friends and their family members.