A charity affiliated with the president of impoverished Chechnya will provide $7.5 million in humanitarian funds to benefit war-torn areas of eastern Ukraine, the Chechen leader said Wednesday.
The money will go toward medical supplies and equipment, Ramzan Kadyrov said on his Instagram feed.
"These people need help. And we will provide it," he urged, after claiming that dozens of children, women, and elderly people had been killed in the conflict.
The charity, The Akhmad Kadyrov Public Foundation, is named after the Chechen president's late father and presided over by Kadyrov Jr.'s mother Aimani.
Kadyrov Jr. has claimed that the foundation is sponsored by unspecified wealthy friends of his father, a repentant militant who served as Chechnya's first president until he was assassinated by terrorists in 2004.
Chechnya, which survived 15 years of separatist and jihadi strife, gets most of its income from federal subsidies.
But this has not stopped Kadyrov from indulging in vanity projects, from lavish parties attended by Hollywood stars, to the creation of Russia's biggest mosque.
Kadyrov confirmed last month that Chechen volunteers are also fighting for the pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine.
He also threatened officials of the Ukrainian government, which is fighting the insurgency, and offered to send 74,000 Chechens to Ukraine to "sort out the mess" there.
See also:
Chechnya's Kadyrov 'Blacklists' Obama, EU Officials Over Ukraine
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