The men tend to work as security guards while women bring up the children.īut many on these streets dotted with Chechen grocery shops and wedding boutiques live in dread.ĭozens told AFP of the constant menace of being targeted by Kadyrov’s notorious henchmen, the “Kadyrovtsy,” who have been accused of hunting down his opponents abroad. Many of the 35,000 exiles live in nondescript post-war blocks in a working-class district of northeastern Vienna. He has since ruthlessly suppressed all opposition, and never tires of declaring his ferocious loyalty to Putin.Īustria has one of Europe’s biggest Chechen communities. The Russian leader later installed Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechnya’s strongman. Tens of thousands fled the small Muslim-majority republic in the North Caucasus in the aftermath of two bloody wars with Moscow, the last launched by Putin in 1999 to bring the breakaway region to heel.
Twenty years after Vladimir Putin flattened their capital Grozny in the same way that his forces are now destroying Mariupol, Chechen refugees in Europe still live in fear of Russia’s long arm.
