Russia’s Ramzan Kadyrov once again demanded that the United States lift sanctions against members of his family—and his horses—this time offering Ukrainian prisoners of war in exchange, Russian state media reported on Friday.
Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s loyal ally, made the offer via former American intelligence officer Scott Ritter, who was visiting Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
Kadyrov has previously railed against the sanctions, imposed by U.S. and its Western allies on Kadyrov and his relatives, along with dozens of top Russian officials and Putin allies, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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“We have prisoners whom we took in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” Kadyrov was quoted as telling Ritter, a former U.S. official and, more recently, a Russian media darling.
“I am passing on to our guest the list of prisoners of war. If they lift sanctions from my mother, my daughters, innocent people, horses, except for myself, then we will give up these people,” the Chechen warlord added.
According to TASS, the state media agency, a video recording of captured Ukrainians was shown as the list was handed over to Ritter. Kadyrov allegedly went on to propose the release of 20 Ukrainian prisoners in exchange for the removal of sanctions against his relatives, planes and even his prized horses.
It is not immediately clear why Kadyrov decided to reach out to U.S. authorities via Ritter, a disgraced former UN weapons inspector and Marine Corps analyst, who is also a convicted sex offender. Ritter was guilty in 2011 of unlawful contact with a minor, among other charges, and served a year and a half in a U.S. prison between 2012 and 2014.
Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. State Department for comment.
He has in recent years become a regular contributor to Russian government-owned media, including outward-facing outlets RT and Sputnik, often promoting Kremlin-friendly narratives and an anti-NATO agenda.
Kadyrov’s mother, Aymani Kadyrova, was sanctioned in August 2023 as part of the U.S. State Department’s wider effort “to promote accountability for individuals and entities connected to forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children.”
The State Department also sanctioned the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation (AKF), overseen by his mother, which it said is used by the Kadyrov family to carry out the “‘re-education’ of Ukrainian children in camps outside of Grozny in the Chechen Republic.”
Kadyrov, whom the U.S. sanctioned in 2017 and 2020, has repeatedly spoken out against the restrictions, which he called unfair, illegitimate and “unethical.”
In September 2023, he released a video demanding the U.S. remove sanctions imposed on his mother, which he claimed showed “a deliberate and cynical disregard for all ethical norms.”
“I had already ceased to be surprised by the illogical sanctions decisions of the U.S. and the West. And suddenly again, now my own dear mother has been put on the list. The entire world knows that she is engaged only in charitable activities,” Kadyrov said in the video at the time.
“Quickly, give me an answer, remove the sanctions,” Kadyrov concluded. “And the fact that you imposed sanctions on my mother, I won’t forgive you for that. I’ll do anything.”
Kadyrov has served as Chechnya’s leader since 2007 and has been accused by international groups of overseeing human-rights abuses, including abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, and repression.
His Chechen fighters have fought alongside Putin’s troops in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.