The Price of Peace

[Zak]

​

The morning call to prayer had only just faded into the dusty Grozny skyline when the presidential convoy emerged from the Government Complex gates. The streets had been cleared in advance, though that didn’t stop dozens of silent onlookers from lining alleyways and balconies. They watched with a mixture of fear, and weariness as five black vehicles rolled down the broken avenue like tanks. This was a city still in recovery, burnt from two wars, scarred from shifting allegiances. And at the center of it all rode Akhmad Kadyrov, President of the Chechen Republic, former rebel now turned Moscow backed strongman. The man seen by many as a traitor, by others as a stabilizer, and by all as dangerous.

The blast came without warning. One moment, the hum of engines and murmurs from the crowd. The next, a violent, consuming flash of orange and white, followed by a thunderous roar that swallowed the entire street. The lead SUV, armored and reinforced, was lifted into the air and disintegrated midair, shrapnel slicing through nearby cars, kiosks, and bystanders. The second vehicle, Kadyrov’s, caught the edge of the explosion and was hurled sideways across the road. It landed on its flank with a sickening crunch, metal screeching against pavement, as smoke and fire bloomed from underneath. In an instant, the air was choked with dust and screams, the acrid scent of fuel and blood mingling in the wind.

From the twisted wreckage, there was movement. A hand pushed against the cracked rear door, then a boot kicked it outward with defiant force. Staggering out, one arm slung low and dripping red, came Akhmad Kadyrov who was bloodied, dust-covered, barely upright. His black robe was shredded down one side, revealing the deep crimson of an open wound stretching from collarbone to stomach. His beard, once neatly trimmed, was now soaked and clumped with soot and sweat. But his eyes were sharp, enraged, refusing to dim. He looked around at the fire, the bodies, the shocked faces in the distance, and then raised his voice in a cracked rasp. “So that’s how they greet a father of Chechnya today,” he muttered through bloodied lips, half to himself, half to the smoke.

His bodyguards rushed forward, two visibly wounded themselves, one limping on a torn ankle. They reached him just as he staggered forward again, catching his full weight between them. Another blast of gunfire cracked in the distance, sporadic, panic-induced, not aimed but enough to trigger an immediate response. The guards tightened their circle, rifles raised. Overhead, the familiar scream of approaching sirens cut through the chaos. Ambulances, two of them, swerved around burning debris, bumping over the curb before slamming to a stop just meters from the site of the attack. Medics poured out, ducking behind doors and shouting instructions, some with their hands in the air to show they weren’t armed. The convoy was gone. Security was scattered. And Kadyrov who was wounded, dazed, soaked in his own blood was suddenly the center of a street-wide, volatile war zone.

Under the veil of smoke and confusion, the guards half-dragged him toward the nearest ambulance. He resisted, legs buckling. “No retreat,” he hissed. “Not now. Not while they’re watching.” A bodyguard who's face was smeared with ash replied sharply. “You’ll be dead in five minutes if we don’t move.” Kadyrov winced as he was hoisted again, and this time he didn’t argue. They reached the back of the ambulance, its interior sterile and fluorescent, a strange contrast to the rubble-strewn battlefield outside. As they slid him inside, a medic tried to cut away his robe, but Kadyrov swatted weakly at the scissors. “Not here,” he whispered, chest rising and falling in uneven gasps.

As the doors began to close, he reached out suddenly, grabbing a nearby guard by the sleeve. His voice was weak, barely audible over the blare of sirens.

“Ramzan… tell him… to stay low. Not yet. Not until we know who did this.”

And then he slumped back as the oxygen mask was fitted over his face, his eyes fluttering shut just as the ambulance peeled away down the boulevard. The last anyone saw of him was a streak of blood across the glass window as the city swallowed the sirens once again.

Back at the scene of the attack, chaos reigned. Smoke drifted upward, black and thick. Civilians ran with torn clothes and bloodied hands. A camera crew, late to the scene, filmed in wide shots from behind a burned-out van. And high above it all, fluttering in the heat shimmer and ash, the Chechen flag remained half-burned, limp but unfallen, clinging to a fractured pole like a survivor refusing to let go.

 

[Zak]

​

The trauma ward was already overflowing when the ambulance screeched to a halt at the entrance. The courtyard had become a fortress in minutes as police armored personnel carriers squatted outside like metal beasts, while federal troops in mismatched camouflage barked orders at one another. Searchlights swept across the hospital’s facade, and every entrance bristled with rifle barrels. Word had spread within minutes that the Chechen leader had been hit.

Inside, the narrow corridors reeked of disinfectant and smoke. Medics rushed Kadyrov down the hall, shouting for blood bags, clamps, sutures. His body left a dark trail on the gurney’s sheet, his breaths shallow, lips gray. A surgeon barked commands in clipped Russian while an assistant whispered Quran verses under her breath, as if both faith and medicine might anchor him to life.

In the waiting chamber beyond the swinging doors, Ramzan Kadyrov sat hunched forward, fists clenched so tight the knuckles were white. Only twenty-seven, already broad and heavyset, he radiated the nervous fury of a man too young for the burden about to fall on him. His camouflage jacket still smelled of cordite from the rifle he had fired in vain during the ambush. Around him clustered relatives, allies, a few Moscow handlers with cold eyes and clipped suits. None dared speak first.

When the double doors finally burst open, a surgeon emerged with his mask dangling, his face lined with sweat. For a moment he said nothing, just scanned the crowded room with the shell-shocked gaze of a man who had seen too much war. Then his voice came low, tired:

“Leader Kadyrov is alive for now. But the wounds are deep. The next hours will decide.”

Ramzan rose slowly, his heavy boots thudding against the tiles. He stared past the surgeon toward the blood-stained doors, his jaw clenched, his brow slick with sweat. A lifetime of violence had taught him to read omens in silence, and this silence carried a message that his father might never stand again.

Outside the hospital, Grozny trembled. Roadblocks were thrown up on every major avenue. Convoys of federal troops rumbled in from Khankala base, their armor scarring the already broken streets. Militants loyal to rival clans whispered in alleyways, weighing opportunity against risk. The city felt as if a match had been struck in a room soaked with fuel.

At midnight, Ramzan stepped out onto the hospital steps. Floodlights blinded him, microphones were shoved forward, cameras blinked red in the dark. His face was swollen with grief, but his voice came out like gravel dragged over stone:

“Whoever did this thinks Chechnya can be broken. They are wrong. My father is alive. And until his voice returns, mine will be the voice of this land. To his enemies, I say, your days are numbered.”

The words rippled through the crowd, through the cameras, through the city itself. Some heard a vow of vengeance. Others heard the first clear declaration of succession. And in the shadowed streets, unseen men with radios and rifles exchanged glances, calculating, planning, deciding which way the wind now blew.

In a dim hospital room upstairs, Akhmad Kadyrov lay unmoving beneath a tangle of tubes. His chest rose and fell faintly, as if straining against a mountain pressing down. His eyelids flickered, a whisper of thought slipping through the haze, Ramzan. Not yet.

But history was already moving, whether his voice returned or not.