With a bulging chest and a chain of ammunition draped around his neck, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov recently put on a show playing his favorite role: that of the warlord more enamored of social media than the battlefield. In a video posted on August 17 on his Telegram channel, he is seen showing off at the wheel of a Cybertruck made by American carmaker Tesla, which he tests while careering through the deserted streets of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a small territory south of Russia where he has reigned as a despot for 17 years.

Claiming to have received the vehicle "from the respected Elon Musk," the Tesla CEO, Kadyrov praises the features of "this 'beast'" that "will be of great use to our soldiers." The Cybertruck, which was customized on-site with a mounted machine gun, will be sent to Ukraine, he said in the video, for the Russian "special operation" he ardently supports. A ridiculous assertion, as electric charging stations are rare on the Donbas front in Ukraine and in Russia's Kursk region, where Chechen units supposedly securing the border − more present on TikTok than on the ground − have been outflanked by the Ukrainian army, which entered Russian territory on August 6.

Posted on all of "president" Kadyrov's channels (Telegram, Instagram, YouTube), which serve as mouthpieces for Kremlin propaganda, this show was a message of loyalty to Russian President Vladimir Putin, three days before his visit to Grozny, where he arrived on Tuesday, August 20.

It was also a snub to Musk. Detractors of the Tesla and SpaceX founder immediately cried treason. "West Point [the famous US military academy] just had Elon Musk [on August 16] as its convocation speaker, when Musk is providing vehicles ready for military use to sanctioned enemies of America. (...) Why is West Point coddling a man working openly against the US?" said Seth Abramson, a left-leaning lawyer, author and teacher with 900,000 followers on X.

Musk's reply was scathing. "Are you seriously so retarded that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general? That's amazing," the Tesla CEO replied on his X account on August 18. Kadyrov's claims that the Cybertruck was a gift from the American billionaire are hardly credible, for no other reason than the fact that Teslas are not available to buy in Russia − at least not officially. What's more, the Chechen warlord, who has been under US sanctions since 2017 for "extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights," has no particular business relationship with Tesla.

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