The Chechen fighters in Ukraine are easy to spot: their heads are shaved, their beards are long. Their deployment alongside the Ukrainian military is particularly risky. “If the Russians catch me, I will not be exchanged, but tortured and then shown on TV,” fears Islam, one of the volunteers fighting near Zaporizhzhya.
“Several hundreds” of Chechens are currently fighting against Russian troops in Ukraine, Islam says. He would not say exactly how many there are and where they will be used. Neither does his full name – to protect his relatives in Chechnya from reprisals.
Chechen, 33, fled his homeland for Poland nearly twenty years ago. There he could live in peace. But after the Russian attack on the neighboring country, Islam joined the Sheikh Mansur Battalion. The unit was established in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, and most of its members are veterans of the Chechen wars.
Chechens are also fighting on the other side of the front: Kremlin loyalists who have joined the infamous commandos of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov. There is talk of 8,000 men – a number that cannot be verified. “We want to show that not all Chechens are like them, but that many of us see the Russians as aggressors and occupiers,” Islam says to the sound of sirens announcing another Russian airstrike.
War “as a journey into the past”
For Islam, the war here is déjà vu. “It’s like going back in time, a continuation of what started in the Caucasus,” he says. In two wars, Moscow devastated the Chechen capital of Grozny, and now the Ukrainian port of Mariupol has suffered the same fate. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens have fled and an estimated 250,000 now live in Europe, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
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Mansur, a 40-year-old behemoth with many scars, is deputy commander of the unit of Islam: “Two of us are dead, others are wounded. But it is important that we are there. We must teach the local soldiers about the war .”
The Chechens are not officially part of the Ukrainian army. But they are equipped with captured weapons and the Christian Orthodox population provides the Muslim volunteers with food. “We are not here to impose an Islamic faith on the Ukrainians,” explains Mansur. “But to fight a common enemy and defend freedom.”
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
