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How important is religion in the Chechen “paradiplomacy” being conducted in the Middle East? This diplomacy sprang out of the Russian government’s program of “Chechenization”. Moscow designed this paradiplomacy with the goals of: dividing international support for rebels after the second Chechen war, presenting the situation in Chechenya as having been normalized, and doing away with the image of Russia as a colonial, anti-Muslim power. Ramzan Kadyrov has managed to use this paradiplomacy to promote his personality cult and his political, religious ideology, which juxtaposes the concepts of Russian patriotism with Chechen and Sufi traditions, and with a conservative form of Islam from the Middle East. The Chechen leader has played the role of informal ambassador to the Arabic world and Middle East in order to strengthen his political and religious positions in the northern Caucasus and Russia.