1/8/23
Moscow has deployed approximately 300 Chechen fighters to the Ukrainian front lines as the Kremlin’s invasion effort drags on.
The fighters from the southern Russian republic’s National Guard departed from the airport in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny, the Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov posted on his Telegram channel, which was publicized by Russian state news agency, TASS.
The republic has a complicated and bloody history with Moscow. Previously part of the Soviet Union, Chechnya asserted its independence from Moscow as the bloc disintegrated. During the second Chechen war in the 1990s, Russia, now under Vladimir Putin‘s control, reasserted its dominance over the separatist republic.
Chechnya has been run by Kadyrov since he was backed by Putin in 2007 after Kadyrov’s father, the then-leader, was killed by Chechen guerrillas in 2004.
Within weeks of the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Kadyrov announced he had travelled to the country to assist Russia’s forces.
The leader of the Caucasus republic told Ukrainian fighters in a Telegram video early in the war to surrender “or you will be finished.”
The former anti-Russian rebel added that Chechen troops would “show you that Russian practice teaches warfare better than foreign theory and the recommendations of military advisers,” according to the Guardian.
In October, Kadyrov argued Moscow should consider deploying a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine, after Russia pulled its forces from the eastern city of Lyman.
He said he believed “more drastic measures should be taken” by the Kremlin, ranging from martial law to a nuclear detonation, he posted on his Telegram page.
But Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, distanced Moscow from the comments, telling a media conference that although the “heads of regions have a right to express their point of view,” emotion should be removed from “any kind of assessment” on Ukraine.
Peskov continued on to stress the “very big contribution” Chechen fighters were making to the Russian invasion effort, and Kadyrov had personally invested “a great deal” in the war, according to Russian state media.
Kadyrov heads up an infamous paramilitary group known as the Kadyrovtsy, or the Kadyrovites, and has been accused of a score of human rights abuses, which he has denied.
The Chechen leader is propped up by the Kremlin, and Putin’s “support and money turned Kadyrov from a zero to a hero,” Yekaterina Sokirianskaya of the International Crisis Group previously told The Wall Street Journal.
But the same backing has made the Chechen strongman “vulnerable and fully dependent” on the Kremlin, she added.
Kadyrov has publicly labelled himself “Putin’s foot soldier,” and was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in September for his role in facilitating Moscow’s invasion effort.
The press release from the Treasury noted Kadyrov had accumulated “extreme wealth” as a result of his relationship with Putin, including a “private zoo” and a “lavish slush fund.”
However, pro-Ukrainian Chechen fighters are also present within the country’s borders, working in opposition to Kadyrov’s forces.
Well, whoop-de-doo! Three hundred Tiktoks are worth as much as 150 raw recruits which are worth as much as a platoon of Ukrainians.