Hillary Read

“In other countries large segments of the nation were engaged in an underground struggle to bring about their independence. […] For us independence was a slogan and an ambition, but it had very little shared meaning among ordinary people.”
― Ilyas Akhmadov, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost

“The deceased President’s son, Ramzan Kadyrov, was summoned to the Kremlin still in his sweat clothes. Today, he is a member of the Academy of Sciences, but then he was an overgrown child in a track pants. He hadn’t finished middle school, he couldn’t tie two sentences together in either Chechen or Russian […]”
― Ilyas Akhmadov, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost

“[Akhmad] Kadyrov was killed by an explosion in Grozny’s stadium Dynamo on May 9, 2004 and both Maskhadov and I had very subdued reactions. All he said was that “Allah will judge us.” All I said was, “This is another casualty of this war.” It’s inappropriate to speak ill of the dead. The other reason we didn’t celebrate his death was that it didn’t change the situation; we knew that the Kremlin would find another representative. The personality of this person was not of primary importance as it turned out. Simple decency could have so easily been returned when Maskhadov was killed a year later, and I continue to marvel at how badly his memory was treated.”
― Ilyas Akhmadov, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost

“I deeply believe this bargain is only temporary. Once physical survival is more or less assured, Chechens will again seek justice, freedom, and independence.”
― Ilyas Akhmadov, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost