Three factors have come together to explain Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s renewal of older Russian plans for the reconstruction of a highway from Chechnya into Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge (Kavkazsky Uzel, Fortanga.org, February 10): Kadyrov’s own desire to show himself as the defender of Chechens living there, Moscow’s interest in gaining more leverage over Tbilisi, and the combined desire of Grozny and Moscow to be in a position to intervene militarily against anti-Kadyrov and anti-Moscow Chechens in that Georgian region.
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