Ruslan (Khalid or Halid)[1] Bekmirzayevich Yamadayev (Russian: Руслан (Халид) Бекмирзаевич Ямадаев) (10 December 1961 – 24 September 2008) was a Chechen military leader and politician.

[4] For his struggle against the separatists in the Second Chechen War, Yamadayev was promoted to the rank of colonel and granted the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.

[6] On 24 September 2008, Ruslan Yamadayev was assassinated on Smolenskaya Embankment in central Moscow near the Russian White House[7] when returning from a meeting in the Kremlin.

[9] The other victim of the shooting, the former military commandant of Chechnya and retired Colonel General Sergei Kizyun, was hospitalized in grave condition.

[citation needed] The pro-Moscow president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov who had, in the months prior to the assassination, engaged in a bitter rivalry with the Yamadayevs[11] denied accusations of being behind the killing,[12] and suggested that he fell victim of a blood feud.