This chapter explores how kinship relations have functioned as a source of social power in Chechnya and, since the end of the second post-Soviet Chechen war, constituted a bond between Moscow and Grozny that has allowed Russia governance over Chechnya. This bond is personified through the father-son-like relation between Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov.

The chapter points to the challenges such a relation poses for Russian rule over the Federation as a whole.