Two prominent critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin have found themselves in the crosshairs of the notorious Chechen warlord-leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Late on Sunday, the 39-year-old self-professed "foot soldier for Putin" published a video on his popular Instagram account showing Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister who now heads the opposition People's Freedom Party (PARNAS), with opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, both in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle's scope.
Accompanying the video was an ominous message: "If you don't understand it, you will get it."
Kasyanov said in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday that he considers the video as a murder threat and plans to appeal to Russian law enforcement agencies. He told the Ekho Moskvy radio station that it's a "straightforward criminal offense."
Kara-Murza wrote on Twitter that Kadyrov had used those exact words in a threat against him the day before he fell ill and was hospitalized after an apparent poisoning that caused his organs to fail and left him partly paralyzed on his left side. He claims it was an Litvinenko-style assassination attempt.
In fact, it's a message used often by Kadyrov. Most recently, it accompanied a post showing him donning camouflage fatigues and holding a sniper rifle.
Фото опубликовано Аллах Велик!!! (@kadyrov_95) Янв 20 2016 в 8:44 PST
Kadyrov has ratcheted up his rhetoric towards the Russian liberal opposition in recent weeks, calling critical journalists and politicians who oppose the president "traitors" and "enemies of the people" who deserve to be tried for subversion or locked away in psychiatric hospitals. That hostility has worried some in Moscow who fear the Kremlin might have lost control over the man also known as "Putin's dragon."
But this video is particularly worrying as it comes just weeks ahead of the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, the prominent liberal opposition member who was the leader of PARNAS and a close colleague of Kasyonov and Kara-Murza.
Nemtsov was gunned down in the shadow of the Kremlin on Feb. 27, 2015. The suspects under arrest in Nemtsov's slaying are all Chechens, including the suspected triggerman, a Kadyrov loyalist and former officer in his security service. Kadyrov has not been officially linked to the murder and has denied any involvement.
International human rights groups have urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to address Kadyrov's statements and threats against opposition figures.
Kadyrov became Chechnya's leader in 2007, after his 30th birthday and the assassination of his father, former Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov, in May 2004.
Since then, he's been allowed to rule the region with an iron fist and given political and financial support from Putin in exchange for cracking down on Islamic militants in the Caucasus. Today, more than 85% of Chechnya's budget reportedly comes from Moscow, and Putin has awarded him several medals for his allegiance to Russia.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday declined to comment on the video, saying "we don't follow Kadyrov's Instagram."
But more than one and a half million people do follow Kadyrov on Instagram, where he regularly posts photos and videos. There was the video in which he grapples with a poisonous snake. In another one, he fires a Kalashnikov into the air while screaming. One post shows him scaling a snow-capped mountain.
Видео опубликовано Аллах Велик!!! (@kadyrov_95) Май 25 2015 в 6:31 PDT
He also uses the space to show off his power and try to intimidate opponents. Recently, a lawmaker in Siberia was forced to apologize on camera after calling Kadyrov a "disgrace" to Russia.
Видео опубликовано Аллах Велик!!! (@kadyrov_95) Янв 15 2016 в 5:37 PST
Sometimes Kadyrov's henchmen, many of whom also have Instagram accounts, do the work for him. Such was the case last month when Chechen parliament speaker Magomed Daudov posted a photo of Kadyrov with his snarling dog, Tarzan. A message accompanying the image said the canine's "fangs are itching" to take a bite out of traitorous Putin critics.
"Tarzan just hates dogs of foreign stripes ... Especially American ones," Daudov wrote.
Фото опубликовано М.Х.Даудов "ЛОРД" (@lord_095) Янв 17 2016 в 11:37 PST
Kadyrov's crosshairs post was removed later on Monday. An Instagram representative told Russia's Vedomosti newspaper that it did so for violating its community guidelines, which state that content that "contains credible threats or hate speech" and "targets private individuals to degrade or shame them" shall be taken down. Instagram wouldn't elaborate, telling Mashable that it does not comment on individual accounts.
Kadyrov responded to the removal in a separate post, in which he accused the U.S. of censorship.
"You can write anything you want, but don't touch America's dogs!" he wrote.
On Monday, Kasyonov and Kara-Murza found at least some humor in the otherwise threatening post, even responding with one of their own.
"Photographed for a change without the crosshairs of Kadyrov's rifle. But against the backdrop of the Caucasus Mountains," Kasyanov wrote in a tweet a joined by a photograph of the two opposition figures standing in front of an image of Kadyrov's back yard.
Решили с @MKasyanov сфотографироваться для разнообразия без прицела кадыровской винтовки. Но на фоне Кавказских гор. pic.twitter.com/yZ3sxhkZVp— Vladimir Kara-Murza (@vkaramurza) February 1, 2016