MOSCOW, 12 May 2004 — Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered security to be beefed up in Chechnya after making a rare visit to the war-torn republic yesterday following the assassination of its pro-Moscow leader Akhmad Kadyrov.

It was the Russian leader’s first visit to Chechnya since April 2001 and underscored the severity of the blow the death of Kadyrov dealt to Putin’s plans to restore peace.

Putin ordered that an additional 1,125 Interior Ministry troops be stationed in Chechnya and ordered top government officials to fly to the republic in the coming days to assess the situation in the impoverished region. He vowed that the assassination of Kadyrov, who was killed when a bomb ripped through a stadium in Grozny during a military ceremony Sunday, would not shake Moscow’s resolve to restore order in the republic under Russian command.

“No one should have any doubt that the basic conditions for restoring Chechnya - the military aspect, the judicial, the organizational - are so deeply rooted that no one will be able to reverse them,” Putin said.

“The May 9 tragedy is a new lesson for us,” he said in televised remarks. “This is a great tragedy for us, a great loss,” he said, calling Kadyrov “a unique man.” Putin poured troops into Chechnya in October 1999 in what was meant to be a lighting “anti-terror” operation that has since unraveled into a bruising guerrilla war.

Kadyrov was elected Chechnya’s president last October in a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign that Moscow hailed as the beginning of a political solution to the Chechen war.

The republic, wearied by 10 years of armed conflict, is now bracing again for new violence that many say will follow the weekend assassination of its Kremlin-backed president.

Yesterday’s television footage showed Putin examining the remains of the shelled capital Grozny as he flew over the city in a military helicopter and then meeting Kadyrov’s relatives to whom he was awarding medals for bravery.

“From the helicopter, it (Grozny) looked terrible,” Putin told his government on his return to Moscow. The Chechen commission is to be made up of ministry and government agency officials, with Putin saying it could be headed by Economic Trade and Development Minister German Gref.

It appears that the Kremlin is now placing its bets on Kadyrov’s 28-year-old son Ramzan, who Monday was named second in command in Chechnya ahead of new elections that must be held by Sept. 5.

Ramzan met Putin on Sunday in Moscow and has since appears to have assumed a presidential air, vowing to fight terrorism. Some analysts said that Putin is scrambling for a solution after the death of Kadyrov, his main hope of restoring Moscow’s control in the region. “Putin’s visit and his decision to send a commission (to Chechnya) is an attempt to understand what is really going on there... and to avert a civil war between the various clans,” said Carnegie Moscow Center analyst Andrei Ryabov.

“The question of Chechnya’s future remains an open one for Putin,” he said.