Kadyrov And Gazprom Settle Dispute

The dispute between the Kadryov administration and Gazprom, Russia’s powerful natural gas monopoly, has finally been settled, according to an April 14 article by Aleseik Grivach in Vremya novostei. Kadyrov and Gazprom head Aleksei Miller signed a five-year cooperation agreement on April 13 covering such matters as the transit of natural gas across the territory of Chechnya.

Gazprom agreed to provide some 282 million cubic meters of gas to the Kadyrov-controlled “Chechengazprom” firm as payment for transit rights. Previously the Russian monopolist had refused to make any agreement about such payments until the question of Chechnya’s back debts of more than 4 billion rubles for previous natural gas supplies, going back to the mid-1990s, had been settled.

Kadyrov’s success in winning this new agreement looks like yet another sign of his political strength in Moscow.