Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty takes the time to pick apart the words of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov – the consistencies and contradictions reveal, well, a frightening and important reality.

Many aspects of Kadyrov’s interpretation of the events of the past 15-20 years in Chechnya are open to question. He has emphatically denied (in an April 2009 interview with “Rossiiskaya gazeta”) ever having fought on the side of the resistance during the 1994-96 war. At the same time, he has admitted having as a boy regarded ChRI President Djokhar Dudayev as “a national hero.”

In a statement in December 2006 to mark the 12th anniversary of the Russian attack on Chechnya, Kadyrov blamed the onset of the war on “the shortsighted and irresponsible policies of the political leadership of both Russia and Chechnya at that time.” But he now argues that both the 1994-96 war and that of 1999- 2000 were the result of a conspiracy by “international terrorism” to weaken and dismember the Russian Federation, and that Chechnya heroically “saved Russia” by taking on itself the brunt of those attacks.