The return of the Chechen billionaire

In an interview with a popular Moscow anchorwoman, the oligarch Umar Džabrailov, very powerful in the early 2000s, at the time of Putin's first enthronement, has reappeared on the scene. A ghost of a dark period, he seems to be reappearing to resume from scratch a 'refounding' of Russia linked once again to war and power plots.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The interview given on television by Chechen businessman Umar Džabrailov to the popular presenter Ksenja Sobchak has sparked many reactions. The well-known oligarch of the 1990s had an as yet unclear role in the events that shook the Caucasus until the early 2000s, with the civil war in Chechnya, and would also have influenced the presidential elections in the region.

Džabrailov was then the president of the Plaza group, which controlled the large shopping center in Manežnaja ploshchad, the Manege square next to the Moscow Kremlin, and many hotels and important centers in the capital.

In 2000 he presented himself as one of the candidates in the presidential election, where he obtained 0.08% of the votes, acting as a valet at the first enthronement of Vladimir Putin. Today he is 65 years old and presents himself as a "pensioner", as he said during the interview with Sobčak.

Very little remained of his great wealth and personal charm, in his words, due to his drug addiction, from which he only recently recovered. Abandoned by relatives and friends, he lives alone with his kitten, and today he willingly talks about the events in which he took part in Russia and Chechnya.

Many are wondering the reason for this return to the scene of the most "fashionable" oligarch of the past, just when Putin's "new beginning" elections are being prepared, perhaps precisely to recreate the scene of 2000: the billionaire valet, today redeemed, he returns to hold the train of the sovereign's robe.

There has been no shortage of major scandals in Umar Džabrailov's career, starting with the assassination in 1996 of the American businessman Paul Edward Tatum, his direct competitor in the hotel business, mowed down by a barrage of Kalashnikovs in the center of Moscow.

Tatum had posted notices everywhere denouncing Umar as a member of the Chechen mafia, but the trial absolved him of any guilt, even though the Americans denied him entry to the USA and Canada.

In 2002, Džabrailov's name was associated with another attempt on the life of Moscow's deputy mayor Iosif Ordžonikidze, during which his cousin Salavat was left stranded, and Umar immediately left the capital.

The mayor-godfather of Moscow, Yurij Lužkov, after this event broke the contracts with Džabrailov's companies, which had put at risk the "pax mafia" on which the Moscow economy was based until 2010, when Putin managed to fix the his trusty Sergej Sobyanin, still mayor of Moscow.

Even in Chechnya Džabrailov attempted a political career, becoming a senator and supporter of the pro-Putin president Akhmat Kadyrov, father of the current head of Groznyj, Ramzan, and then disappearing from the scene in 2007 for unclear reasons.

In the 2003 elections he supported Kadyrov against his own brother Husein Džabrailov, who had a good chance of winning, and who was forced to withdraw from the competition together with two other candidates, thus turning the elections into a farce.

From the stories of the fallen oligarch, we understand even better how the end of the war in Chechnya was a plan by Putin to obtain the necessary support in Russia too, with the great support of the mafia capital of the Chechen "families", still represented today by Ramzan Kadyrov.

Džabrailov was put aside and abandoned himself to narcotics, and today he reappears as a ghost of a dark period, to start from scratch a "refoundation" of Russia linked once again to war and power plots.

• Russia
• Mosca
• Cecenia
• Vladimir Putin
• Umar Džabrailov
• Kadyrov