President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit Tuesday to the Chechen capital of Grozny, two days after its Moscow-backed leader was killed in a bombing

President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit Tuesday to the Chechen capital of Grozny, two days after its Moscow-backed leader was killed in a bombing that dealt a blow to Russia's efforts to control the republic. Putin, speaking at the start of a government meeting after arriving back in Moscow, said he had posthumously awarded a medal to Akhmad Kadyrov and given it to his relatives, Russian news agencies reported. He also ordered the Chechen police force to be increased by an additional 1,125 officers by the end of the year, the agencies said. Kadyrov was buried Monday, one day after his assassination in an bomb blast at a stadium in Grozny that killed five others and injured 57. He was attending celebrations marking Victory Day, a national holiday in Russia marking the 59th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis in World War II. Kadyrov was a rebel commander during the 1994-96 war in Chechnya that ended with Russian forces withdrawing. However, he became disenchanted during the period of Chechnya's de facto independence, complaining of the growing influence of the Wahhabi sect of Islam in the republic. He broke with Aslan Maskhadov, who had been elected Chechen president in 1997, and in 2000, the Kremlin appointed him the republic's top civilian administrator. He was elected president in an October vote widely criticized as fraudulent.