The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has publicly accused three Russian lawmakers — Daghestani Federation Council Senator Suleiman Kerimov, as well as State Duma MPs Bekkhan Barakhoev and Rizvan Kurbanov — of plotting to assassinate him and threatened to declare a blood feud against them.

At a meeting with Chechnya’s commanders and security forces leaders on 9 October, Kadyrov, speaking in Chechen, reportedly claimed to have information about a contract on his life. He warned that if the three Russian lawmakers did not prove that they were not involved, he would ‘officially declare a blood feud against Barakkhoyev, Suleyman Karimov, and Rizvan Kurbanov’. 

Like Karimov, Kurbanov is also a Daghestani, while Barakhoev is from Ingushetia.

Kadyrov linked the alleged assassination plot to an incident at the Moscow office of Russia’s online retail company, Wildberries, which occurred on 18 September.

That day, around 30 men attempted to enter the building, leading to a gunfight. Two Ingushetian men were killed, and three others were wounded. The bodies of the two men killed, Adam Almazov and Islambek Elmurziev, were soon delivered to Ingushetia, where thousands of local residents gathered at the airport to meet them.

The shootout was interpreted by some Russian media outlets as a consequence of a business-related conflict following Wildberries’ merger with the outdoor advertising company Russ, allegedly owned by Kerimov. On the day of the incident, a group of ‘athletes, including those from Chechnya’ reportedly accompanied Vladimir Bakalchuk, an opponent of the merger and the estranged spouse of Wildberries’s owner Tatyana Kim, to the premises, which escalated into violence. Among those accompanying Bakalchuk was, according to Russian news outlet Agenstvo, a former prosecutor from Chechnya, Anas Elmurzaev.

On Wednesday, Kadyrov reiterated the claim he made in July after meeting with Bakalchuk. At that time, Kadyrov supported Bakalchuk’s accusations of a hostile takeover of the company. According to Kadyrov, the takeover was led by ‘brothers Levan and Robert Mirzoyan, as well as several well-known individuals from the Caucasus’ and vowed to help Bakalchuk in his effort to stop the merger. In his latest public statement, Kadyrov made clear the individuals he was referring to were Kerimov, Barakhoev, and Kurbanov.

‘They have their own businesses, and they didn’t just take this woman’s [Kim’s] business, they even put a contract on me to have me killed’, Kadyrov reportedly claimed on Wednesday, referring to the three Russian lawmakers he accused of placing a hit on him.

While discussing the same 9 October meeting on Vkontakte and Telegram, Kadyrov complained about attempts to give the incident a ‘nationalistic spin’, accusing some of alleging that the instigators of the conflict were Kadyrovites, a reference to security forces in Chechnya under the direct command of Kadyrov.

Kadyrov’s comments seemed to reflect the rising anger among some in Ingushetia who have criticised the Chechen leader and the ‘Kadyrovites’ following the Wildberries incident, which resulted in five Ingush casualties, two of them fatally.

The head of Chechnya challenged critics of the Chechen security forces to bring their complaints directly to him, ‘as I am the chief Kadyrovite’.

While this was the first time Kadyrov had commented on the Wildberries incident, earlier, on 23 September, representatives from Chechnya and Ingushetia met in an apparent attempt to mitigate tensions. During the meeting, Adam Delimkhanov, a State Duma deputy from Chechnya, reportedly blamed his Ingushetian colleague Bekkhan Barakhoev for the Wildberries conflict, accusing him of placing ‘his people’ in charge of the office’s security, which allegedly provoked the shootout.

The day after Kadyrov’s statement, the Interior Ministry of Ingushetia issued a warning to local residents about ‘provocateurs’ who were allegedly encouraging Ingushetian residents to stop cars with Chechen license plates and ‘shave’ the drivers as an act of retaliation.