Chechnya's more than one million people have been among the most oppressed, and the most warlike, in both tsarist and Soviet times. The province declared independence in late 1991, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating. Russia's opposition to the nationalist uprising sparked the first Chechen war (1994-96), which left it a semi-autonomous, semi-dependent state. When war flared again in late 1999, Putin was prime minister and made most decisions in place of an ailing President Boris Yeltsin.
A better prepared Russian army, fighting a war brutal on both sides, reduced much of the capital, Grozny, to rubble. By 2000, Moscow had ended most organized resistance, though guerrilla activities continued until 2007, when Ramzan Kadyrov, son of a former Chechen president and strongly backed by Putin, imposed an often corrupt and savage dictatorship. Separatism was suppressed, Grozny rebuilt and Chechnya remained loyal to Moscow.
Chechnya is the model for war in Syria, Grozny the model for the assault on Aleppo.
Perhaps the plan is to make Kadyrov the new "King" of Syria?
Putin Is Playing by Grozny Rules in Aleppo
The playbook for Moscow’’s brutal bombardment of Aleppo was written during the Russian president’s first take-no-prisoners war.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/29/putin-is-playing-by-chechen-rules-in-aleppo-syria-russia/
“Is Kadyrov trying to create a state-sanctioned Muslim sect Kremlin can control?”
Seems your answer to this is a yes. Is that a bad thing?
Not exactly the same, but I see similarities with GWB’s vision of Iraq. For example, the constitution still Islamic, yet envisioned to be pro-USA; new gov’t elected but in a controlled fashion, though give the Iraqis a sense of participation thru voting.
Problem is was that one needs to tightly & militarily control that approach & situation for decades in a ‘democratic model’ (such as in Iraq) too. The Islamists still fought what they viewed as ‘invaders’, and once American troops pulled out, all hell broke loose.
What’s the alternative?