Moscow regards IS successes as a proof that US and Western policies in the Middle East are mistaken: by refusing to support authoritarian regimes they enabled radical Islamists. "I think," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "that our Western colleagues, including the US, are somewhat at a loss. They sowed the wind, and are reaping the storm. We are doing our best to stop this storm."7 Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Chechen Republic, goes even further by noting that the IS are "thugs trained and armed by the US and the West."8