The No Parking newsletter

What this newsletter is and could be.

Pivden ’23 is out now and we’ve had several screenings with more in the works, but the overall workload associated with that is lightening up, so I want to look forward.

I spend a lot of my day reading stories, digging through primary sources, looking at maps, and all that sort of thing, so I figured I should share some of what I find and share some thoughts. I debated whether to do this as a text newsletter or as an audio podcast, so for the time being I’m going to do a bit of both. I’m happy to answer questions submitted through the Substack and discuss whatever. The newsletter will provide links to good reporting and sources, as well as some further analysis.

I expect the formatting and focus could change, expand, etc., but I’m not too worried about that right now. We’ll see how it goes. Either way, it’ll go out weekly.

Of course, a good chunk of this is going to be about Ukraine, but this is not a Ukraine newsletter or an Eastern Europe newsletter. I’ll be talking about humanitarian issues and conflicts across the world and in particular in areas I’m most familiar and interested in, like North and Central Africa and Central Asia. The fight for resources is very real in these massive regions and there is plenty of meddling both foreign and domestic currently underway that have the potential or already are affecting the people there and all of us around the world.

I’ll be picking out stories that I feel deserve more attention and discussing the big news items of the week. And seriously, email or message me questions or suggestions for coverage and discussions.

This week will focus on Ukraine, Chechnya, and Sudan.

Ukraine and Russia

Kadyrov wants out (again)?

Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov again asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to dismiss him from his post as Head of the Chechen Republic. The 48-year-old effectively inherited the Russian Federation republic from his father Akhmad Kadryov in the mid-late 2000s. He’s clearly been sick the last couple of years and reportedly has pancreatic necrosis.

The elder Kadyrov once fought Moscow during Chechnya’s two brutal wars for independence against the Russian government, but he switched sides in 2003 and helped pacify the notoriously independent region of southwest Russia. Unsurprisingly, Wahhabis assassinated him a couple years later. The Russian government quickly set up his son Ramzan to take over the Chechen Republic and he took over as head of the republic in 2007 at age 30, as soon as he was legally allowed to hold the post.

Kadyrov has been a staunch ally of Putin in the region since his father went to the Russian government, helping to keep down his separatist countrymen with brutal oppression and extreme violence. He is in effect Putin’s chosen warlord.

Kadyrov has asked Putin to dismiss him a handful of times since 2016. Why? I don’t know for sure. It may just be an attempt to make himself look like he doesn’t really want to run a little kingdom but duty compels him to remain. That sort of thing. Maybe he wants to secure legal protections from Putin while he can. Kadryov reportedly wants his 17-year-old son Adam to take over for him, but independent Russian media outlet Новая газета Европа (Novaya Gazeta Europa) reports that Putin isn’t a fan of the idea and that he and Kadyrov’s relationship is under strain.

Either way, a potential power vacuum in Chechnya is a serious concern for Russia. The Chechens have shown they have no problem burning down their whole country to fight off the Russians, and whenever Kadyrov ultimately does leave power, Putin needs to immediately fill the vacuum.

Here are a few good docs on the first two Chechen Wars. You can find plenty of combat footage and more online, if you so wish:

• 60 hours of the Maikop Brigade — a documentary focused on the New Year’s Eve 1995 assault of the Chechen capital of Grozny during the First Chechen War. The first two minutes includes a radio call between a Chechen commander and Russian commander Ivan Savin (Alik) early on in the assault. It’ll give you an idea of the Chechen mindset at the time.

• Babitsky’s War — This chronicles journalist Andrei Babitsky’s largely unauthorized work in Chechnya during the Second Chechen War. He regularly interviewed Chechen rebels and disregarded Russian government and military attempts to keep him from doing his work. He’s a complicated figure who later supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea and lived in the occupied territory of Donetsk until his death just days after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. Either way, his work in Chechnya was excellent.

• Close Up With Chechnya’s Deep War — Whereas the First Chechen War was a national disaster for the Russia, the second was far more successful and ultimately saw the end of any major organized resistance. This short documentary follows Chechen fighters, now clearly fighting from a disadvantage, coordinating their guerilla resistance to what they see as the Russian occupation.

And here’s an absolute banger of a late 1980s quasi-dance freedom fighter anthem. DISCLAIMER: I have no idea about this guy’s politics, the song is truly a jam though ok? Khas-Magomed' Hadjimuradov’s Свобода или Смерть (Freedom or Death):