Chechen opposition blogger
Тумсо Абдурахманов
Brief description
Tumso Abdurakhmanov is a Chechen opposition blogger and one of the most vocal critics of the regime of Ramzan Kadyrov.
Opposition activities
Abdurakhmanov has been a vocal critic of the Kadyrov regime, using YouTube as a key platform.
He fled Russia in 2015. He received political asylum in Sweden, after being previously refused it in Poland and Germany.
Reaction of the Chechen authorities
In 2018, Magomed Daudov — at the time Chechen parliamentary speaker — repeatedly threatened Abdurakhmanov over the latter’s criticisms of the Kadyrov family and regime. Daudov declared a blood feud against Abdurakhmanov (Caucasian Knot, 2023).
In 2020, Abdurakhmanov was attacked with a hammer in his house; the Swedish prosecutor implicated the Chechen regime in the attack (RFE/RL, 2021).
Controversies
In late 2022-early 2023, Abdurakhmanov and 1ADAT became embroiled in a controversy that significantly damaged their credibility. In December 2022, the 1ADAT Telegram channel reported that Abdurakhmanov has been shot dead in Sweden and his brother taken into protective custody. Anzor Maskhadov, another prominent Chechen dissident, confirmed his death, and several videos purporetedly corroborating the attack were posted online (OC Media, 2022).
However, in February 2023, Abdurakhmanov resurfaced and announced he was alive and would resume opposition activities. The following April, he admitted that he had faked his own death — according to his own account, in order to evade a real assassination attempt ordered by the Chechen authorities. Abdurakhmanov claimed that a contact had offered $50,000 to 1ADAT to confirm the death. 1ADAT’s leader, Ibragim Yangulbayev, simultaneously accused Abdurakhmanov of taking money from the Kadyrov regime, via an intermediary in Austria, to fake his death and admitted that he had accepted $50,000 to publish the false information. According to Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina, Abdurakhmanov received $1,100,000 for the simulation, while another Chechen blogger living in Turkey, Khasan Khalitov, received $600,000 from the same source to also fake his own death (Novaya Gazeta, 2023; OC Media, 2023).
Abdurakhmanov, meanwhile, insisted that there was no evidence that the intermediary was connected with Kadyrov. Abdurakhmanov and Yangulbayev became embroiled in a public dispute over the conflicting claims, which also involved inter alia Milashina and human rights association Vayfond, which reported on the deaths (Caucasian Knot, 2023).
Known associates
Person 1 | Person 2 | Details | Type of relationship | ⛲ Media sources | 📜 Academic sources | Core relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Daudov repeatedly threatened opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov over the latter’s criticisms of the Kadyrov family and regime. | Acts against |
