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The Chechen Republic, commonly known as Chechnya, is a federal republic of Russia that has been noted in several roles during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kadyrovite forces have fought alongside the Russian forces, while several Chechen armed volunteer formations are fighting on the Ukrainian side. International observers have noted a number of comparisons between the invasion and the First and Second Chechen Wars.
Many Chechen groups have formed or moved to Ukraine throughout the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Several hundred fighters have joined the war, most joining one of many such groups. Today, there are several Chechen armed volunteer formations fighting on the side of Ukraine. Some of these groups started operations during the Donbas war in 2014. Most fighters see fighting in Ukraine as a way of continuing the fight against Russia, getting them closer to their ultimate goal of Chechen Independence. [1] Chechen groups in Ukraine have in the past been criticized for having Islamist elements. [2]
One of these groups is the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, named after Dzhokhar Dudayev, which consists of several hundred fighters and started operations during the Donbas war. [3] Another group that has been fighting since 2014 is the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, a group criticized for recruiting Islamist members and having ties with Islamist groups. The Sheikh Mansur Battalion is headed by Muslim Cheberloevsky . [4] The Sheikh Mansur Battalion helped 25 members of the Chechen-led Syrian Islamist group Ajnad al-Kavkaz, including its commander Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, join the fight in Ukraine. [5] The Sheikh Mansur Battalion announced in July 2022 that they would be spreading their operations to Chechnya proper. [6]
Another two armed battalions fighting for Ukraine are the Khamzat Gelayev Joint Task Detachment and the Separate Special Purpose Battalion, both formed recently. The Separate Special Purpose Battalion, which is part of the Foreign Legion of Ukraine, was formed in July 2022 and claims to be the armed force of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s government in exile. The Separate Special Purpose Battalion is headed by Zumso Hadji-Murad and fought in the 2022 Ukrainian southern counteroffensive. [7]
On 26 February, 2022, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Head of the Chechen Republic, announced that Chechen military forces had been deployed to Ukraine, saying that Vladimir Putin "took the right decision and we will carry out his orders under any circumstances." [8] The same day, the Russian state media outlet RT published a video of what it described as 12,000 Chechen soldiers gathered in the main square of Grozny, the Chechen capital, preparing to go to war in Ukraine.
On 27 February, the Ukrainian military announced that it had destroyed a large convoy of Chechen special forces gathered near Hostomel, a town in the northwest region of Kyiv Oblast. [9] Soon after, the Ukrainian military claimed that General Magomed Tushayev, leader of the 141st Motorized Regiment of the Kadyrov Guard, had been killed in action in Ukraine. [10] [11]
On 28 February, Kadyrov released a Telegram post saying that "the chosen tactics in Ukraine are too slow," calling for Russian forces to take more aggressive action. [12] On 1 March, Kadyrov released a further Telegram post saying that two Chechen soldiers had been killed and six injured and saying that the invasion needed "to move on to large-scale measures." [13]
On 3 March, The Times reported that a group of Chechen soldiers had been sent to infiltrate Kyiv with the goal of assassinating Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but that the group had been neutralised following leaks from anti-war elements of the Russian Federal Security Service. [14]
On 14 March, Kadyrov posted a video of himself on social media claiming that he was in Hostomel as part of the Russian offensive on Kyiv. [15] There was no independent verification of his claim. [16] Online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda claimed that on 16 March they tricked Kadyrov into accessing a link under the guise of the Russian media RIA Novosti to obtain Kadyrov's IP address, which revealed the geolocation of Kadyrov's phone to be Grozny, Chechnya, instead of Ukraine. [17] Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, later stated that Kadyrov "did not directly claim that he was in Ukraine." [18]
On 5 April, Kadyrov posted a video on Telegram which shows a group of militants apparently being held captive. He claimed that 267 soldiers from the Ukrainian Navy 503rd Battalion surrendered to Russia. Former US Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer believed the claim to be spotty, explaining that the captives appeared to be nearly unscathed and wore outfits which did not match the official Ukrainian marines uniform. [19]
In late June 2022, Kadyrov announced the creation of four new battalions consisting only of ethnic Chechens. These battalions would be named "North-Akhmat", "South-Akhmat", "West-Akhmat," and "East-Akhmat", according to Kadyrov, and that they would be sent to fight in Ukraine. [20]
In early September 2022, Kadyrov announced the dispatch of a further two Chechen battalions to Ukraine and published a video on telegram showing their departure. This announcement was made amid the Russian retreat from Kharkiv Oblast. [21]
On 31 May 2023, the Institute for the Study of War reported that Kadyrov's forces were likely replacing the role of Wagner PMC as Russia's main shock troops in the Donbas after Wagner disengaged from the front line after the capture of Bakhmut earlier in the month. Kadyrov stated that his forces, including "Akhmat" Special Forces and the "Sever-Akhmat" Special Purpose Regiment had been given a directive to "active combat activities" in Donetsk Oblast. [22]
On 3 July 2023, Chechen leader Apta Alaudinov announced that the commander of the Chechen Akhmat Unit, Yevgeny Pisarenko, had been killed whilst fighting on the Donbas frontline. [23]
On 28 February, the National Guard of Ukraine published a video showing members of the far-right Azov Battalion greasing bullets with pig fat, with the speaker in the video saying "Dear Muslim brothers. In our country, you will not go to heaven. You will not be allowed into heaven. Go home, please." [24]
A number of analysts have stated that the presence of Kadyrovite forces in Ukraine is more focused on creating a psychological effect than on participating in fighting. [25] Writing for Foreign Policy , Justin Ling stated that Russian media was "leveraging the very presence of Chechen soldiers in Ukraine as a psychological weapon against Ukrainians," while University of Ottawa professor Jean-François Ratelle that it was "about making people believe that what happened in Chechnya will happen in Ukraine—that they'll rampage the city, loot, rape, and kill." [26] Aleksandre Kvakhadze of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies has stated that "the footage and metadata show most Chechen forces are at least 20km away from the frontline, the only things they do is record videos to motivate people inside Chechnya and promote the warrior image of Kadyrov and his forces." [27]
According to the Russian human rights activist Elena Milashina the Chechen volunteer formation “Akhmat” is 96 percent non-Chechen and mostly consists of ethnic Russians. [28] Former volunteers in the battalion such as Andrei Panchenko also claimed that people of Chechen and Ingush ethnicity were exempt from performing duties on the front-lines and were separately marked on the military papers. [29]
A number of commentators have made comparisons between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Chechen wars of the 1990s, notably the Battle of Grozny. [30] [31] [32] [33] Russian human rights group Memorial director Aleksandr Cherkasov stated that "Putin started the same way in Chechnya as he has in Ukraine and continues as we move to a new stage of the conflict. It also began with a war that was originally called a 'counterterrorist operation' and was not described as an armed conflict." [34] Tracey German of King's College London wrote that:
Putin appears to have anticipated a repeat of Russia's decisive seizure of Crimea in 2014 or its invasion of Georgia in 2008 – but what we have seen is more similar to its intervention in Chechnya in December 1994 when the Russian armed forces were initially unable to convert their military superiority (certainly in terms of numbers) into military and strategic success, and thousands of Russian troops proved unable to secure the North Caucasian republic...
There are echoes of the Russian intervention into Chechnya in late December 1994 here, when the Russian leadership planned a massive armoured offensive against the Chechen capital, Grozny, intending to stage a decisive strike with air support, relying on speed to take the Chechen leadership by surprise and ensure Russia held the initiative. But the Chechen forces had been long prepared for a strike against the city and the attack was a dismal failure. [35]
Scottish journalist Neal Ascherson wrote that "Putin's plan seems to have two stages. First, military victory, achieved mainly by isolating resistance in a few cities and then shelling them to blackened husks, as the Russians did to Grozny in Chechnya." [36]
Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, close to the Caspian Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; with the Russian republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia-Alania to its east, north, and west; and with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.
Akhmed Halidovich Zakayev is a Chechen statesman, political and military figure of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI). Having previously been a Deputy Prime Minister, he now serves as Prime Minister of the ChRI government-in-exile. He was also the Foreign Minister of the Ichkerian government, appointed by Aslan Maskhadov shortly after his 1997 election, and again in 2006 by Abdul Halim Sadulayev. An active participant in the Russian-Chechen wars, Zakayev took part in the battles for Grozny and the defense of Goyskoye, along with other military operations, as well as in high-level negotiations with the Russian side.
Akhmad-Khadzhi Abdulkhamidovich Kadyrov was a Russian politician and revolutionary who served as Chief Mufti of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the 1990s during and after the First Chechen War. At the outbreak of the Second Chechen War he switched sides, offering his service to the Russian government, and later became the President of the Chechen Republic from 5 October 2003, acting as head of administration since July 2000.
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is a Russian politician and current Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist-appointed mufti of Chechnya. He is a colonel general in the Russian military.
Said-Magomed Shamaevich Kakiyev is a colonel in the Russian Army, who was the leader of the GRU Spetsnaz Special Battalion Zapad ("West"), a Chechen military force, from 2003 to 2007. Inside Chechnya his men were sometimes referred to as the Kakievtsy. Unlike the other Chechen pro-Moscow forces in Chechnya, Kakiyev and his men are not former rebels and during the First Chechen War were some of the few Chechen militants who fought on the Russian side.
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, known simply as Ichkeria, and also known as Chechnya, is a former de facto state that controlled most of the former Checheno-Ingush ASSR.
The 141st Special Motorized Regiment, also known as the Kadyrovites, Kadyrovtsy and the Akhmat special forces unit, is a paramilitary organization in Chechnya, Russia, that serves as the protection of the Head of the Chechen Republic. The term Kadyrovtsy is commonly used in Chechnya to refer to any armed, ethnically-Chechen men under the control of Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, although nominally they are under the umbrella of the National Guard of Russia. As of 2023, the regiment's official commander was Adam Delimkhanov, a close ally of Kadyrov.
The Republic of Chechnya is a constituent republic and federal subject of the Russian Federation. It is located in the Caucasus region in southwest Russia. It is the political successor of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. From a centralized form of government during the existence of the Soviet Union, the republic's political system went upheavals during the 1990s with the establishment of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, leading to the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War which left the republic in total devastation. In 2000, following Russia's renewed rule, a local, republican form of government was established in the republic under the control of the Russian federal government.
Adam Sultanovich Delimkhanov is a Russian politician who has been a member of the State Duma since 2007. He is a member of the ruling United Russia party. He is the head of the Chechen branch of Rosgvardia. Conflicting reports have emerged regarding Delimkhanov's fate, suggesting that he may have died during the Ukraine conflict.
The Chechen–Russian conflict was the centuries-long conflict, often armed, between the Russian, Soviet and Imperial Russian governments and various Chechen forces. The recent phase of the conflict started after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and lasted until 2017.
On 4 December 2014, a group of armed militants of the jihadist organization Caucasus Emirate attacked a traffic police checkpoint outside the city of Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. The militants then entered the city and occupied the "Press House" building in the city center and a nearby school.
Ukrainian volunteer battalions were militias and paramilitary groups mobilized as a response to the perceived state of weakness and unwillingness of the regular Armed Forces to counter rising separatism in spring 2014. They trace their origins to the "Maidan Self-Defense" militias formed during the Euromaidan in 2013. The earliest of these volunteer units were later formalized into military, special police and paramilitary formations in a response to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Most of the formations were formed or placed under command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs — as "Special Tasks Patrol Police" — and Ministry of Defence — as "Territorial defence battalions". A minority of battalions were independent of state control.
The combatants of the war in Donbas included foreign and domestic forces.
Fight Club Akhmat(FCA) is a professional sports club from the Chechen Republic and has training bases in the regions of Russia. It was founded in 2014 and named after the first president of the Chechen Republic in Russia — Akhmat Kadyrov.
According to Ukrainian government officials and news sources, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has survived a number of assassination and kidnapping attempts by Russian or pro-Russian agents during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Magomed Salaudinovich Tushayev is a Russian Lieutenant Colonel and advisor to the Head of the Chechen Republic. He is a commander of the 141st Special Motorized Regiment (Kadyrovites).
The Sheikh Mansur Chechen Peacekeeping Battalion or simply the Sheikh Mansur Battalion is one of several Chechen volunteer Armed Formations participating in the Russian-Ukrainian war on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The battalion is named in honour of Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen military commander and an Islamic leader who fought against the expansion of the Russian Empire into the Caucasus during the late 18th century.
Rustam Magomedovich Azhiev, also known by his nom-de-guerre (kunya) Abdul Hakim Shishani, is deputy commander-in-chief of the Chechen battalion OBON fighting on the Ukrainian side in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Azhiev is a veteran of the Second Russo-Chechen war and fought on the side of the opposition in the Syrian civil war. In the latter he was the leader of the rebel group Ajnad al-Kavkaz.
Chechen volunteers on the side of Ukraine are armed Chechen volunteers and other formations fighting on the side of Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war. These formations have been fighting on the side of Ukraine since the start of the conflict in 2014. The Chechen forces position themselves as the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
Over the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in early 2022, the Russian Armed Forces have gradually been supplanted by irregular units. In the face of waning recruitment levels for the regular military as the war drags on and casualties mount, the Russian government has increasingly turned to rely on a variety of mercenaries, militias, paramilitaries, and mobilized convicts. In a similar fashion to the Russian people's militias in Ukraine, these irregular combatants have a widespread range of combat effectiveness, ranging from the poorly equipped and virtually untrained prisoners serving under Storm-Z to the professional mercenaries serving with PMC Wagner, with the latter organization garnering much notoriety as it took up a leading role in the later stages of the conflict.
