On the evening of January 16, a road accident involving vehicles from the motorcade of 18-year-old Adam Kadyrov, the third son of the head of Chechnya, took place in central Grozny. According to the Chechen Telegram channel NYICO and sources cited by Novaya Gazeta Europe, he and his bodyguards were urgently flown to Moscow on a specialized EMERCOM medical aircraft after receiving first aid.
The crash occurred near the Safiya banquet hall. An eyewitness said the convoy was moving at high speed along Staropromyslovskoye Highway, and the driver of the lead car ignored both speed restrictions and a red light at the intersection with Tasuyev Street. The lead vehicle collided with a car entering the highway, after which several motorcade cars struck one another.
The lead vehicle, carrying Adam Kadyrov and three bodyguards, suffered the heaviest damage. The car was driven by security chief Apti Iraskhanov, a nephew of Chechnya’s interior minister Aslan Iraskhanov. All four were taken to the U. I. Khanbiyev Republican Emergency Hospital. According to the sources, Iraskhanov was diagnosed with a fractured cervical vertebra, while the others suffered concussion, bruises, cuts, and minor blood loss; doctors did not consider the injuries life-threatening.
According to one of the doctors cited by the newspaper’s source, Kadyrov’s son and his guards were hurt more by the airbags in their expensive cars, while the people in the vehicle hit by the convoy were far less fortunate.
Novaya Gazeta Europe reports that the driver of the other car was killed. A source in Chechnya’s Investigative Committee told the paper that the accident involving Adam Kadyrov was not entered into the official register of crime and incident reports either that evening or the following day. The source said that, as in similar cases, no criminal case or investigation was likely to follow.
The paper links the emergency evacuation to Moscow to Adam Kadyrov’s special status within Chechnya’s power structure. According to its sources, he remains the main candidate to serve as heir in a possible transfer of power, despite the recent appointment of Ramzan Kadyrov’s elder son, Akhmat Kadyrov, as acting deputy prime minister. The sources described those appointments as formal and said they did not alter the real balance of power in the republic.