Patrick Pleul/Pool/AFP / Alexsey Druginyn/AFP / Yelena Afonina/TASS, all via Getty Images
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov responded to Elon Musk's surreal offer to fight President Vladimir Putin in single combat over the fate of Ukraine, arguing that Musk would face swift defeat.
Kadyrov, a top Putin ally who rules Russia's quasi-autonomous Chechnya region, posted at length to say Putin would destroy Musk in a fight. "I would not advise you to compete with Putin," he wrote on Telegram.
It came after the Tesla chief made the challenge on Twitter on Monday, challenging Putin to "single combat" over Ukraine.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2022
Kadyrov seemed amused in his response and offered Musk some ways to get stronger before facing Putin. Both Ukrainian and Russian news sources have reported Chechen soldiers fighting in Ukraine, and Kadyrov has claimed to be on the battlefield himself.
Kadyrov noted Putin's qualifications in judo, but said this was not the main reason Musk would lose. Musk, he said was merely a "businessman and Twitter blogger" compared to Putin, a "world politician, strategist, a scourge of the West and the US."
Putin, he concluded, "would look unsportsmanlike beating a weaker opponent."
Instead, he said, Musk should undergo training at one of his Special Forces academies as well as "Fight Club Akhmat" — a chain of Chechen boxing clubs he founded and named after his father, former Chechen ruler Akhmat Kadyrov.
Kadyrov is one of Putin's firmest loyalists. Putin formally handed Kadyrov the leadership of Chechnya in 2011 after Kadyrov spent several years as the region's prime minister.
His personal fighting units have earned a bloodthirsty reputation. While Putin has embraced that image for his own propaganda purposes, an analysis from think tank the New Lines Institute said "their operational effectiveness has not lived up to the hype."
In the invasion of Ukraine, Kadyrov has repeatedly called for harsher attacks, frustrated by Russia's lumbering advance. On Sunday, he claimed to be near Kyiv with his soldiers, without providing evidence.
Kadyrov's hyper-masculine posturing is underpinned by brutal rule. According to Human Rights Watch, he has led a crackdown on LGBTQ rights and is known for extensive use of torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, all tolerated by Putin.
