Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Monday he was proud of his teenage son Adam, who beat a prisoner accused of burning a copy of the Koran, Reuters reported.

Kadyrov posted the comments on Telegram, accompanied by a video of a young man in khakis punching and kicking another man sitting on a chair, trying to parry the blows before being dragged to the floor.

The Chechen leader, who describes himself as a staunch ally of President Vladimir Putin, said he released the video to remove any doubt that the incident, first reported last month, actually took place.

“He beat him and he did the right thing,” Kadyrov said.

“Without exaggeration, yes, I’m proud of what Adam did,” he said, adding that he respected the boy for acquiring “adult ideals of honor, dignity and protection of his religion.”

Prisoner Nikita Zhuravel complained about the beating to a Russian human rights lawyer, who said he took the matter to his Chechen colleague last month.

Is Ramzan Kadyrov preparing a successor?

Kadyrov, 46, has ruled Chechnya with an iron fist since becoming president in 2007, following in the footsteps of his father Akhmat, who was killed in a 2004 bomb blast. He used Putin’s generous funding to rebuild the devastated, predominantly Muslim region. two wars after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it tried to break free from Moscow’s control.

Kadyrov is increasingly promoting his three teenage sons, whom he said last year he was sending to fight on Russia’s side in the war in Ukraine. The degree of their actual participation in any hostilities is unknown.

The elder, Akhmat, was photographed with Putin in the Kremlin in March, fueling rumors that he was being tapped to succeed Kadyrov.

Kadyrov’s health has been the subject of intense speculation that he may be dead or in a coma.

Last week, he posted on Telegram that he was fine and that he had gone to a hospital in Moscow to visit a sick uncle at his bedside.

• VIDEO Kadyrov published photos of him walking in the rain to refute rumors about his ill health