Chechen leader to adress Russian parliament

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov will address the Russian parliament's upper house on Wednesday, RIA Novosti reports.

Kadyrov will deliver his speech in the framework of the parliament's Days of the Chechen Republic.

The Chechen parliament spokesman, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, will also address Russian parliamentarians.

The Kremlin has claimed to have brought stability to Chechnya, which saw two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s, but an audacious militant attack on the Chechen parliament in Grozny earlier this month prompted fears that the Islamist underground had been rejuvenated.

The once war-torn republic has seen relative calm in recent years under Kadyrov, a former militant turned Kremlin ally whom critics have accused of cultivating a personality cult and involvement in human rights abuses.