On 20 January, the President of the Russian Autonomous Republic of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov announced that the criminal underworld in the region had been completely wiped out, reported Vestnik Kavkaza.

Kadyrov emphasised that his forces have killed six suspected militants in the village of Katar-Yurt. He said that those killed included warlord Aslan Byutukayev, whom Russian authorities accused of involvement in the January 2011 suicide bombing at the arrivals area of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport that killed 37 persons.

The spokesperson of Russia’s President Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin congratulated Kadyrov on this occasion. "President Putin had a phone conversation with Ramzan Kadyrov. He congratulated him and other participants of the operation on eliminating a group of Byutukayev’s criminals. We are talking about the so-called last emir of Chechnya, a well-known terrorist who has been wanted for a long time. They searched for him both in Ingushetia and in Chechnya within the framework of the operation under the auspices of the NAC [the National Antiterrorism Committee],” Peskov said, adding that all participants of this operation would receive state awards.

It should be noted that in the past few months, a large number of anti-terrorist operations were held in Chechnya. On 7 January, Russian human rights defenders condemned the deaths of a family who were detained by the Chechen authorities in October 2020. They said that extrajudicial killings of militants' relatives are pushing the people on the path of radicalisation (Caucasus Watch reported). In the year 2020, Chechnya reported five armed incidents between the police and criminal gangs, which resulted in the deaths of people (Caucasus Watch reported).