Chechnya needs unique economic freedoms to rebuild its smashed economy, the pro-Russia government said on Tuesday in a push to broaden the region's already wide autonomy.
Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov said he wanted the financially murky region to be a "special economic zone" – a concept that was largely abandoned in Russia after it became synonymous with massive 1990s fraud and corruption.
"I am not ready to say what legal form this should take: an offshore zone, a zone of free economic development or a special economic zone," he told Interfax news agency.
"But I am sure that Chechnya's...problems cannot be resolved through standard means."
Chechnya's economy has been destroyed by intense fighting between rebels and separatists, and the massive Russian artillery bombardment of the capital Grozny, where factories still lie in ruins.
Kadyrov was one of the rebels who drove Russian forces out of the Caucasus region in 1996 but changed sides after President Vladimir Putin sent troops back three years later. Russia still has tens of thousands of troops in Chechnya.
Kadyrov's loyalty was rewarded when he was given leadership of the region, but he has pushed for wider autonomy than any other Russian region – including control over the ongoing military campaign and full right to all oil revenues.
His personal army or "Security Service" operates almost entirely outside central control.
Several Russian regions were made free economic zones in the 1990s, and Chechnya was offered the status in 1998 as Moscow tried to lure it back into Russia.
But the regions became havens for the most shadowy of Russia's famously opaque 1990s businesses, and nearly all the experiments were abandoned after Putin took control.
Free economic status would loosen Moscow's control over Chechnya, which is already a black hole where official figures show almost 10 percent of the 62 billion roubles ($2.18 billion) sent to rebuild the region has been embezzled since 2000.
Kadyrov said his government would still need an undiminished flow of aid from Moscow. //Reuters
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