The Kremlin on Monday said it had no information on the health of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Kadyrov is in critical condition.
“There is information that the war criminal Kadyrov is in a serious condition and the diseases that were there have worsened and caused such a serious condition,” said Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency, last week.
He added that Kadyrov’s hospitalization “is not about injuries. Other details require additional clarification. He has been ill for a long time, and we are talking about systemic health problems,” though “for the last few days, he has been in a serious condition.”
Kadyrov is a Russian loyalist who has been nicknamed “Putin’s attack dog” and has deployed Chechen troops to Ukraine to aid the Russian President’s 19-month-long war there.
This past July, Kadyrov sent Chechen soldiers to fight in Bakhmut. The detachment had a signed contract with Russia’s Ministry of Defense, unlike Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin who protested having his mercenaries sign on with Moscow.
Prigozhin died in a plane crash near Moscow last month, two months after staging a failed rebellion against the Kremlin military brass.
Russian Telegram channels have been swirling with reports that Kadyrov had fallen into a coma. A 26-second video of Kadyrov walking on a wooded path, posted Sunday on Telegram, aimed to dispel those claims.
According to a translation from Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, Kadyrov says in the video, “I highly advise everyone who on the Internet can not distinguish truth from lies, take a walk in the fresh air, put your thoughts in order. Rain is wonderfully invigorating.”
It’s unclear, however, when the video was recorded.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of Kadyrov’s hospitalization, “We have no information on this….In any case, the presidential administration can hardly give out health certificates, so we have nothing to tell you here.”
