Ramzan Kadyrov accuses RBC of staging story and is offended by journalist

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, was offended by the RBC news service and personally by the reporter and deputy editor, Andrei Reut, who recently came to Grozny for an interview with the head of the Chechen republic as part of a group of Russian media leaders.

Ramzan Kadyrov said today that the residents of the republic watched with surprise and indignation the footage shown on RBC. It depicted two women allegedly using a Russian flag for carrying fallen leaves and grass.

"Initially, I did not want to focus on the story, in which Andrei Reut says that he allegedly saw the women who cut the grass and piled it in the Russian flag. According to Reut, while everything around was filled with Chechen flags, women hauled trash with the Russian flag. And Reut says "it's a shock," Kadyrov's press office quotes his statement.

"I knew that this did not happen and could not have happened in Chechnya. Today, however, at every meeting angry residents of the country are asking me why there is no response to this statement," the head of the Chechen Republic said. "I was most shocked by the fact that Reut, a citizen of Russia, did not approach the women and did not explain to them how to handle the flag, why didn't he take it from these women, if he witnessed this instance? Either Reut does not consider himself a citizen of Russia, or he and his cameraman staged the scene," Kadyrov said.

The head of Chechnya described Reut's allegations that everything around him was hung with Chechen flags as fake, and stressed that "in Chechnya, thousands of flags  of Russia and the Chechen Republic are in the streets, but there is no separate flags of the Chechen Republic anywhere." "Reut had dinner that evening with me. Prior to that he communicated with ministers. Why didn't he even hint at what he had seen, if by chance he did witness such a fact, if it touched him so deeply?" Ramzan Kadyrov asked.

Today, Ramzan Kadyrov telephoned Andrei Reut. He conveyed to the reporter his opinion on the matter. Kadyrov asked a direct question as to why Reut had not intervened in the situation if it actually took place, and why he hasn't made anybody aware of this on the day of the meeting.

Kadyrov told Reut that he has every reason to believe that the scene was staged with a single purpose - to bring hot footage from Chechnya.