A bomb attack killed the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya and dozens of other people during holiday celebrations yesterday, dealing a huge blow to President Vladimir Putin's claims to be bringing peace and stability to a region shattered by almost a decade of war.
An explosion tore though the VIP section of Dinamo Stadium in the centre of Grozny, the Chechen capital, moments after Mr Akhmad Kadyrov congratulated assembled veterans on Victory Day, when Russia marks the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Mr Putin pledged to avenge the attack. "Justice will triumph and retribution is inevitable," he said after a Victory Day parade on Moscow's Red Square.
Within five hours the Kremlin had announced Mr Kadyrov's temporary successor, Mr Sergei Abramov (32), a former financial minister to Mr Kadyrov who was appointed Prime Minister earlier this year. He will take over the job of running the republic until elections can be held.
Television pictures showed Mr Kadyrov's stunned aides surrounding his inert form and wiping his blood-covered face as confused bodyguards unleashed gunfire around the stadium.
Men in suits and dress uniform staggered away from the grandstand, some brushing dust and debris from their bodies, others clutching wounds.
Jeeps and ambulances sped away from the smoke-shrouded scene, where Mr Eli Isayev, the head of Chechnya's State Council, was also killed.
After conflicting reports of the death toll, Russian news agencies said seven people, including an eight-year-old girl, had been killed and more than 50 people injured.
Surgeons were fighting last night to save Russia's top general in the region, Valery Baranov, who was badly hurt when the bomb went off at 10.35 a.m. at an event attended by thousands of people and where security was believed to be watertight.
Chechen officials said the bomb exploded beneath Mr Kadyrov, and was probably built into a concrete pillar in the stadium, where reconstruction work finished only on Saturday.
Repeated sniffer-dog searches failed to find the device, or a second one that police said failed to go off.
"Over the last four years [Mr Kadyrov] fulfilled his duty before his people with bravery and dignity," Mr Putin said on national television, standing alongside the dead man's son, Ramzan, whose henchmen in Chechnya are blamed for numerous murders and disappearances. "He was truly a heroic person."
The burly, gruff-voiced Mr Kadyrov (52) abandoned the rebels and allied with Moscow when its troops returned to the region in 1999 after losing a 1993-96 war. Mr Putin made him Chechnya's acting leader in June 2000, and he was elected President in a blatantly rigged vote last October.
The former cleric survived several assassination attempts, including one last May that saw a woman blow up herself and 14 other people at a festival attended by top Chechen officials.
Critics accused Mr Kadyrov of running Chechnya like a fiefdom, and he had long urged Moscow to give him full control over its economy and security operations.
The pro-Moscow government in Chechnya said in a statement that his death would "unite the Chechen people in their fight against terrorism.
"Once again we saw that the so-called separatists of Chechnya are nothing more than criminal terrorists."
Mr Putin, a former KGB agent, came to power in 2000 on a vow to crush the rebels and was inaugurated for a second term on Friday.
The guerrillas, whose separatist movement now overlaps with an element of radical Islam, rejoiced at Mr Kadyrov's demise.
"Kadyrov and Baranov blown up on live TV," proclaimed rebel website kavkazcenter.com
Mr Kadyrov's death was as humiliating for the Kremlin as it was terrifying for its allies in Chechnya.
It will be hard to find a permanent successor with Mr Kadyrov's perceived selling points - a former Chechen rebel who supposedly saw the error of his ways and chose Moscow's path to peace - and all but impossible to convince candidates for the job that they will be protected.
It may also prove difficult to rein in Mr Kadyrov's son, Ramzan, and his personal army.