If Russia can chop Crimea off of Ukraine just because Crimea's residents speak Russian, then maybe Chechnya whose residents speak their own native language deserves the independence from Russia that the Chechens have fought for for centuries.

My impression is that the resolution of the 1993-2000 wars was that the younger Kadyrov (the elder having been blown up) was offered (or proposed?) the RF equivalent of a twenty-first century Marcher Lordship, and both sides found the arrangement acceptable[1]. Is this not the case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcher_Lord

(What I wonder is how Baskov's marriage had been supposed to take place in Grozny a few years back. On the equation svadba==vodka, my best guess is that although the sale of alcohol is heavily controlled in the Chechen Republic, the consumption of alcohol, at a private party, would not have been.)

Also related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23914667

[1] from time to time I've seen Kadyrov invoke the spectre of foreign separatist influences. Given his paternity and history, a wild guess from the outside is that he'd likely know about such things, from back when the influences were on his side.

Understood, that makes sense.