#Warlord: Chechnya's Boss-for-Life Joins Twitter

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, right, alongside former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in June, 2010. Photo: Press and Information Office of President of Russia

Twitter is where you hang out with friends and meet new people. Now you can hang out with brutal pro-Kremlin warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

According to Russian news wire RIA Novosti, the Chechen president created a Twitter account Wednesday after meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's prime minister and former president. (Medvedev is an advocate of social media.) Kadyrov only sent two tweets the first day under the handle @RKadyrov. The first announced that Kadyrov was preparing to 'meet with young people,' with no word on the results. Several hours later, Kadyrov announced he was taking questions.

Kadyrov also apparently had a problem with Twitter impostors. A statement from the Chechen government said the account is official, and 'has nothing to do with other accounts in social networks attributed to the head of the Chechen Republic.'

It could also be an attempt to rebrand an image tainted by allegations of widespread human rights abuses, including using death squads to carry out abductions, torture and the killing of dissidents. Chechnya is also particularly mean to women, and Kadyrov's public persona is less than desirable. He's known for his taste (or lack of) in fast cars and gold pistols. His 35th birthday party 'was held on a floating stage on the River Sunzha,' reported The Telegraph, with ceremonies featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Hilary Swank. Grozny ' the Chechen capital that was bombed nearly flat in two wars with Russia but has since seen a construction boom ' 'was bedecked with portraits of a smiling Mr Kadyrov.'

Kadyrov had experimented with blogging. He kept up a LiveJournal account until last July, where he wrote posts about soccer, reconstructing battle-scared buildings in the capital and expanding the Chechen birth rate. In one post from last year, Kadyrov noticed a Twitter imposter, though with 'good intentions.' Yes, he writes about Twitter, 'I am going to start. When? Later.'

He must have been preoccupied. The war in Chechnya, which began as a conflict between separatists and Moscow, then later morphed into a war between separatists and Islamists against a pro-Kremlin regime controlled by the Kadyrov clan, was only declared over by Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee in 2009. Though the region continued to be marred by killings.

Last Friday, Kadyrov was the target of a suspected assassination plot that ended when two militants carrying firearms and explosives were reportedly killed by Chechen police while entering Grozny from a nearby forest. The militants were said to be carrying out orders from separatist leader Doku Umarov. Though there are questions the two militants may have just been on a routine mission.

Maybe someone should ask Kadyrov about that. Kadyrov is already up to around 6,000 followers, but it looks like only a few people have fielded him questions. A Moscow blogger asked, 'Why do [Russians] relate to you better than you do for us?' No response. It'd be worth checking in later to see how many questions come from Chechens themselves.