In der Ukraine kämpfen viele nicht-russische Nationalisten mit, auch solche, die noch aus der Russischen Föderation stammen, vor allem aus Tschetschenien. Am bekanntesten auf russischer Seite ist Rasman Kadyrow, der inzwischen für sich in Anspruch nimmt nicht nur für Russland, sondern für den Islam und gegen den gottlosen Westen zu kämpfen, bis nach Deutschland oder Europa vorzustossen und dort zu kämpfen, sowie auch den Einsatz von Atomwaffen fordert, zum Jihad aufruft und den Westen als „Satan“bezeichnet. Kurz zu seiner Biographie:

„Wer ist Ramsan Kadyrow?

Innerhalb weniger Monate hat der Ukraine-Krieg die Gruppe der Günstlinge Wladimir Putins verändert. Nicht mehr Professionalismus, sondern bedingungslose Loyalität sind gefragt. Dies gilt vor allem für den tschetschenischen Machthaber Ramsan Kadyrow. Wer aber ist der Mann, der Atomschläge gegen die Ukraine fordert und Moskaus Feldzug als Heiligen Krieg bezeichnet?  

Es war der 9. Mai 2004, als in Tschetschenien ein Sprengsatz explodierte, der die Zukunft der krisengeschüttelten Kaukasusrepublik entscheidend prägen sollte. Anlässlich der Feierlichkeiten zum Tag des Sieges hatte sich die tschetschenische Führung im Fußballstadion von Grozny versammelt, um des Sieges über Hitler im Großen Vaterländischen Krieg zu gedenken.

Zu den prominenten Gästen gehörte damals Achmat Hadschi Kadyrow, der seit dem 5. Oktober 2003 das Amt des Präsidenten versah. Als vormaliges religiöses Oberhaupt (Mufti) Tschetscheniens war Kadyrow ursprünglich ein erbitterter Gegner Moskaus gewesen. Nach dem Beginn des ersten Tschetschenienkrieges (1994–1996) hatte er seine Landsleute sogar zum Dschihad gegen Russland aufgerufen und verlangt, jeder Tschetschene solle so viele Russen töten, wie er nur könne. Später war Kadyrow an der Seite des späteren Terroristen Schamil Bassajews aufgetreten, als dieser die Eroberung von Wladiwostok und Moskaus ankündigte.

In der Zwischenkriegszeit (1996–1999) focht Kadyrow dann Konflikte mit dem 1997 zum Präsidenten gewählten Aslan Maschadow und dem damals vor allem noch als Freischärler bekannten Schamil Bassajew aus. Beiden warf er vor, Tschetschenien an die aus dem Ausland stammenden Wahhabiten auszuliefern. Aus diesem Grund veranstaltete er 1998 in Inguschetien einen Kongress der tschetschenischen Traditionalisten, auf dem festgestellt wurde, dass der Wahhabismus und der bei den Tschetschenen traditionell verbreitete Sufismus nicht miteinander vereinbar seien. Seitdem trat Kadyrow den Wahhabiten entschlossen entgegen, weil er die von ihnen ausgehende Gefahr als akut ansah. Als Gründe für den regen Zulauf der Wahhabiten identifizierte Kadyrow in erster Linie Armut, soziale Ungerechtigkeit und mangelnde Bildung.

Vision von Frieden und Wohlstand

Nach dem Überfall tschetschenischer Wahhabiten auf Dagestan, die im August 1999 unter der Führung Schamil Bassajews einen Gottesstaat in den Bergen der westlichen Nachbarrepublik errichten wollten, wechselte Kadyrow endgültig auf die Seite Moskaus und konnte sich in der Folgezeit als dessen prominentester Wortführer profilieren. Für seine Loyalität wurde er schließlich mit der Macht im Staate belohnt. Als Statthalter des Kremls bestand seine Aufgabe darin, den virulent gewordenen Terrorismus und die ausufernde Kriminalität in Tschetschenien zu ersticken, die wirtschaftliche Lage zu konsolidieren und das ramponierte Image des Landes zu verbessern.

Achmat Kadyrow war kein Traumtänzer, sondern ein gebildeter Mann, der über den nötigen Weitblick verfügte, um zu erkennen, dass sich der Gewalt in Tschetschenien nur durch eine enge Bindung an Russland ein Ende setzen ließ. In diesem Zusammenhang ist vor allem folgender Satz in Erinnerung geblieben: „Ich würde selbst mit dem Teufel Frieden schließen, um diesem Krieg ein Ende zu setzen, um auch nur ein menschliches Leben zu retten.“ Um seine Vision von Frieden und Wohlstand zu realisieren, war Kadyrow bereit, die religiösen Eiferer in den eigenen Reihen kompromisslos zu bekämpfen, was ihm in Teilen der Bevölkerung den Ruf eines Abweichlers einbrachte und ihn zur Zielscheibe der wahhabitischen Kommandeure machte.

Als Achmat Kadyrow am 9. Mai 2004 den Feierlichkeiten zum Tag des Sieges bewohnte, wurde er von seiner persönlichen Leibgarde beschützt. Ihm war bewusst, dass öffentliche Auftritte immer mit einer akuten Lebensgefahr verbunden waren. Was Kadyrow jedoch nicht wusste, war, dass direkt unter seinem Sitzplatz auf der Tribüne eine Landmine platziert war, die kurz nach Beginn der Veranstaltung detonierte und ihn tötete. Der Anschlag erfolgte vor laufender Kamera und ist bis heute im Netz verfügbar. Kurze Zeit später übernahm Schamil Bassajew die Verantwortung für die Tat und drohte seinen Landsleuten mit dem Tod, sollten sie mit Russland zusammenarbeiten. Tschetschenien müsse in einen islamischen Gottesstaat transformiert werden, in dem nur die Scharia gelte.

„Ihm ist keine Äußerung peinlich“

Mit Achmat Kadyrow schied ein Mann an der Spitze Tschetscheniens aus dem Leben, der das Format hatte, sein Land in eine blühende Zukunft zu führen. Kadyrow hatte zwei Söhne: Selimchan (*1974) und Ramsan (*1976). Da Ersterer bereits am 18. Mai 2004 an Herzversagen in seinem Heimatdorf Zentoroj starb, kam als potenzieller Nachfolger nur Ramsan infrage. Diese Regelung brachte jedoch einige Probleme mit sich. Dazu gehörte etwa die mangelnde Erfahrung und das geringe Alter Kadyrows. Am 15. Februar 2007 wurde er zunächst zum kommissarischen Präsidenten Tschetscheniens berufen, bis er am 5. April desselben Jahres schließlich als regulärer Präsident vereidigt wurde.

Mit Ramsan Kadyrow war ein Mann an die Spitze des Staates geraten, der im Vorfeld keinerlei Rolle im Machtgefüge der tschetschenischen Eliten gespielt hatte. Er verfügte weder über ein konturiertes politisches Profil, noch hatte er auch nur annähernd das intellektuelle Format seines Vaters, bei dem es sich um einen gebildeten und lebensklugen Mann gehandelt hatte. Die 2006 ermordete Journalistin Anna Politkowskaja beschrieb Kadyrow einst mit folgenden Worten:

„Kadyrow hatte die Reputation eines Jungen, der in der Ecke steht. Bestenfalls wurde ihm gestattet, den Älteren Tee einzugießen, während diese miteinander sprachen. Eigentlich ist Ramsan Kadyrow ein äußerst verlogener Mensch. Ich glaube mittlerweile nichts mehr. Mal schwört er Russland die Treue, mal flirtet er mit seinen eigenen Leuten. Das passiert gewöhnlich im tschetschenischen Fernsehen. Ihm ist keine Äußerung peinlich und er sagt dort, dass die Tschetschenen die Russen zerquetschen und ihnen ihren Platz zeigen werden. Wo bitte lügt dieser Kadyrow nicht? […] Er versteht es, die Hand des großen weißen Zaren zu lecken und kann dabei ohne jede Scham noch am selben Tag im tschetschenischen Fernsehen sagen, dass man ihn auf seinen Platz verweisen werde.“

Zwei Tage nach diesem Interview war Anna Politkowskaja tot. Erschossen im Eingangsbereich ihres Moskauer Wohnhauses. Ihre Einschätzung Ramsan Kadyrows mochte aus damaliger Sicht Sinn ergeben. Sie sollte sich jedoch schon bald als falsch herausstellen. Denn als Präsident Tschetscheniens machte jener eine Karriere, die damals wohl niemand für möglich gehalten hätte. Schnell zeigte sich, dass Kadyrows Profillosigkeit und sein mangelnder Bekanntheitsgrad kein Einstellungshemmnis, sondern vielmehr eine entscheidende Voraussetzung für seine Wahl zum Nachfolger seines Vaters gewesen waren.

Unter dubiosen Umständen ermordet

Mit 31 Jahren war Kadyrow zum Zeitpunkt seiner Vereidigung ein junger und unerfahrener Politiker, der maßgeblich auf den Rat und die Unterstützung Moskaus angewiesen war. Dies bot Wladimir Putin die Möglichkeit, das Oberhaupt der vormals instabilsten Region Russlands eng an sich zu binden. Indem Putin Kadyrow alle Ressourcen zur Verfügung stellte, die dieser zur Ausübung seiner Pflichten als Präsident benötigte, und ihn noch dazu zu einem der reichsten Männer Russlands machte, erzeugte er eine Bindung, die sich später nicht mehr auflöste. Unter diesen Vorzeichen entwickelte sich Kadyrow in der Folgezeit zum treusten Zerberus, den Wladimir Putin überhaupt hat.

Immer wieder haben russische Oppositionspolitiker Kadyrow vorgeworfen, die Drecksarbeit für den Kreml zu erledigen. Dazu zählt beispielsweise die Anschuldigung, unliebsame Kritiker zu beseitigen, zu deren prominentesten Vertretern neben Anna Politkowskaja und der Menschenrechtlerin Natalija Estemirowa vor allem der Politiker Boris Nemzow gehörte. Sie alle wurden unter dubiosen Umständen ermordet. Und immer schien die mutmaßliche Spur direkt nach Tschetschenien zu führen. Auch wenn sich nie ein ultimativer Beweis für die Beteiligung Ramsan Kadyrows finden ließ, ist der Verdacht nie von ihm abgefallen.

Für seine bedingungslose Loyalität gegenüber Wladimir Putin, die Kadyrow in den letzten Jahren immer wieder ostentativ verkündet hat, gewährt ihm der Kreml nahezu uneingeschränkte Befugnisse im Inneren. Mit der Billigung Moskaus hat Kadyrow sein Land in einen Polizei- und Führerstaat verwandelt, in dem jegliche Kritik an der bestehenden Ordnung drastische Konsequenzen zur Folge haben kann. Damit verbunden ist die konsequente Ächtung von allem und jedem, der sich auf die Tradition des tschetschenischen Staates unter dessen erstem Präsidenten Dschochar Dudajew beruft.

„Ich würde sterben für Wladimir Putin“

Die Helden von einst sind unter Kadyrow Verbrecher und Kriminelle geworden. Und die schicksalhafte Geschichte der Tschetschenen, die für mehr als 250 Jahre von militärischem Widerstand gegen den russländischen Zentralstaat geprägt war, wurde kurzerhand umgeschrieben. Die schwerwiegenden Verbrechen, die die Zaren, Stalin und später auch Putin in Tschetschenien begangen hatten, durften plötzlich nicht mehr thematisiert werden. Gemäß dieser Lesart war die Sowjetunion schon immer bloß ein Freund der Tschetschenen gewesen. Dass Stalin das gesamte tschetschenische Volk am 24. Februar 1944 nach Zentralasien hatte deportieren lassen, wo 1951 auch Achmat Kadyrow in Kasachstan das Licht der Welt erblickte, spielte keine Rolle mehr.

Entscheidend war nur noch, den Willen des Kremls zu exekutieren. Dabei kam ausschließlich eine Auftragstaktik zum Tragen, wonach Kadyrow die Mittel zur Umsetzung selbst wählen konnte. Dies führte in zahlreichen Fällen zu eklatanten Verstößen gegen die russländische Verfassung – etwa, wenn politische Dissidenten oder die Angehörigen sexueller Minderheiten willkürlich verhaftet und brutal gefoltert wurden. Immer wieder kritisierten Beobachter Moskau dafür, dass es diese rechtlosen Zustände bereitwillig tolerierte.

Ramsan Kadyrow ist Wladimir Putins wichtigster Statthalter im Nordkaukasus. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Stellung, die sich seit Beginn des Ukraine-Krieges weiter verfestigt hat. Als im März 2022 Videos im Netz kursierten, die Tausende bis an die Zähne bewaffnete Soldaten in Grozny zeigten, die von Ramsan Kadyrow auf den Kampf gegen die Nazis in Kiew eingeschworen wurden, trat die Festigkeit des Bündnisses beider Männer klar zutage. „Ich würde sterben für Wladimir Putin“ ist ein Satz, den Kadyrow in den letzten Jahren immer wieder öffentlich geäußert hat.

Um diesem Bekenntnis den nötigen Nachdruck zu verleihen, hat Kadyrow bis heute tausende Kämpfer in die Ukraine gesandt und ist sogar selbst dorthin gereist, um sich persönlich ein Bild von der Lage zu machen. Darüber hinaus hat er sogar drei seiner minderjährigen Söhne in den Donbass geschickt, um dort ihre Pflicht als Patrioten zu erfüllen. Ende Oktober präsentierten sie dann ukrainische Gefangene in Grozny. Dass die Jugendlichen tatsächlich an den Kampfhandlungen teilgenommen haben, darf bezweifelt werden. Feststeht lediglich, dass Kadyrow nach wirkmächtigen Gesten und starken Symbolen sucht, um seine Loyalität gegenüber Wladimir Putin zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Den Waffendienst seiner Söhne sieht Kadyrow dabei als Geschenk an.

In allem, was er tut, von Wladimir Putin abhängig

In den letzten Monaten ist Kadyrow immer wieder durch verstörende Aussagen in Erscheinung getreten, die den Eindruck von Fanatismus erwecken. Dazu zählt etwa die Forderung eines Atomschlags gegen ukrainische Städte, die er vom Angesicht der Erde austilgen will. Die politische Führung in Kiew bezeichnet Kadyrow als Satan, den zu töten die heilige Pflicht der Muslime sei. Und den kollektiven Westen hält er für einen Feind, dem nur durch den Einsatz größtmöglicher militärischer Gewalt beizukommen sei. Rückschläge und Niederlagen des russischen Militärs kritisiert Kadyrow regelmäßig in immer schrilleren Tönen. Hätte er selbst das Oberkommando inne, würde er den Krieg innerhalb weniger Wochen gewinnen.

Warum aber tut Kadyrow all das? Warum mischt er sich derart stark ins Kriegsgeschehen ein, obwohl er als Präsident einer autonomen Teilrepublik der Russischen Föderation doch eigentlich gar nichts mit Außen- oder Verteidigungspolitik zu tun hat?

Die Antwort lautet, dass Ramsan Kadyrow in allem, was er tut, von Wladimir Putin abhängig ist. Dieser ist für Kadyrow weit mehr als nur ein Vorgesetzter oder Proteger – er ist sein politischer Ziehvater, Mentor und engster Vertrauter; er ist die verkörperte Garantie von Kadyrows Macht in Tschetschenien, ist der lebendige Geist, der seiner Herrschaft innewohnt. Aus diesem Grunde besteht kein Zweifel, dass Kadyrows Schicksal untrennbar mit dem Wladimir Putins verknüpft ist. Stürzt Putin, dürfte sich auch Kadyrow nicht mehr lange im Amt halten können.

Zu groß ist die Anzahl der Opfer, die Kadyrow auf seinem bisherigen Weg als tschetschenischer Präsident bereits verursacht hat. Und zu gravierend sind die Verstöße gegen die ureigenen Gesetze des tschetschenischen Volkes, die dabei zugunsten Moskaus verletzt wurden. Um Putin und damit auch sich selbst vor dem Untergang zu retten, scheint Ramsan Kadyrow zu allem bereit. Wie weit er letztlich gehen wird, hängt einzig vom weiteren Kriegsverlauf ab.

https://www.achgut.com/artikel/Wer_ist_Ramsan_Kadyrow

Doch auch auf ukrainischer Seite Seite kämpfen Tschetschenen und andere nichtrussische Nationalisten mit, die bei Putin Befürchtungen auslösen seine russische Welt könnte sich noch vor deren Realisierung und Expansion auflösen und selbst die Russische Föderation in Einzelteile zerfallen, vielleicht auch ein Emirat Kaukasus entstehen. Hierüber berichtet ein Beitrag der Jamestown Foundation, die auch schon gleich den Chef einer Exilregierung eines abtrünnigen Staates in den USA als Foto zeigt:

“Moscow Alarmed by Growing Non-Russian Nationalism and Ukraine’s Role in It

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 19 Issue: 160

By: Paul Goble

October 27, 2022

Moscow has long been upset by Kyiv’s efforts to reach out to non-Russian nations inside the Russian Federation and enlist them as allies in its fight against the Kremlin. But steps taken by Ukrainian leaders in the past few weeks, a time of heightened concern in Moscow due to the setbacks suffered by the Russian military in Ukraine, as well as the response of the non-Russians to these failures, have clearly alarmed the Russian leadership. As a result, these events appear to be prompting the Russian government to take extreme measures against both the non-Russian nations and those Ukrainians supporting them.

Ukrainian military intelligence is reporting this week that “the special services of the Russian Federation are preparing a campaign to discredit the national movements of the peoples of Russia” (T.me/DIUkraine, October 25). Moscow is planning this effort because it views “national liberation” movements as major threats to the unity and even existence of Russia. According to Kyiv, this campaign will be launched in the near future and is intended to discredit the leaders of the national movements, break their ties with Ukraine and other outside powers, as well as convince the non-Russians that they have no chance of achieving independence and must submit to Russian rule. As part of this effort, Kyiv says, the Russian special services will seek to convince Ukrainians that they should not place any hopes in the non-Russian nations inside Russian borders. Furthermore, the Kremlin will demonstrate to the Ukrainians and the West more generally that they should stop trying to support these people in “protecting their rights, language and culture” and defending the principle of national self-determination.

Those inclined to dismiss Kyiv’s report as self-serving propaganda—and they will likely be numerous—should keep in mind three important factors. First, Ukraine has been reaching out to the non-Russians within the Russian Federation for quite some time. Second, Kyiv’s efforts have increased in the past two months and have generated an impressive response among non-Russians, feeding into their anger regarding the actions of the Russian state. And third, Moscow has expressed growing alarm about this long-term Ukrainian policy and its recent impact. Each deserves closer attention than they have typically received and together they lend real credibility to what Kyiv is now reporting.

After gaining independence in 1991, Ukrainians in Ukraine have devoted attention to the large ethnic Ukrainian communities in Russia itself, most prominently in the Russian Far East and in the Kuban. Government officials only rarely became involved in talks about the need to defend what Ukrainians call “wedges” in Ukraine, and Russians only rarely reacted to what was said as complete nonsense. (On the “wedge” issue, see Window on Eurasia, August 26, 2016; for a typical Russian reaction, see Topcor.ru, August 26, 2016.)

But after the Russian Anschluss of Crimea in 1914, and especially after relations between Kyiv and Moscow further soured at the end of that decade, Ukrainian activists and politicians pressed Kyiv to take up the cause of all non-Russians in the Russian Federation, including, in particular, those in the North Caucasus and Middle Volga. In 1919, that effort led to the adoption of a resolution by the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) ordering the government to take steps in that direction (Facebook.com/hanna.hopko, May 30, 2019). But until Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this effort was much more muted, and Russian reactions to it were more dismissive than anything else, seeing it as a failed effort to revive Poland’s pre–World War II Prometheanism (Fondsk.ru, May 11, 2021).

All that has now changed. Ukraine has increased the level of its activities and the publicity it has given to these non-Russian national movements. The non-Russian reaction has not only been positive but is also growing, and Moscow’s reaction has been increasingly vocal and alarmist, with some analysts even expressing fears that Ukraine will be successful unless Moscow achieves an overwhelming victory in Ukraine or takes harsh measures against the nationalists in Ukraine and the West more generally (Vz.ru, July 21). Among the most prominent of these Ukrainian actions was a video appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling on all non-Russians of the Russian Federation to refuse to serve in the Russian army now fighting in Ukraine and to fight instead against Russian imperialism and for the rights of their own peoples. (For the original Ukrainian, see President.gov.ua, September 29; for an informal English translation, see Window on Eurasia, October 9).

Even more dramatically and perhaps of even greater concern to the Kremlin, various non-Russians have now made their way to Ukraine to fight against Russian forces, and the Ukrainian government has now recognized the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria as under temporary Russian occupation. Anti-Kadyrov Chechens view this move as a step toward official recognition of their republics’ independence and one they hope others will soon follow (Kavkaz-uzel.eu, October 21). Moreover, the Tatarstan government-in-exile has called on Kyiv to take a similar step with regard to their republic and government (Tatar Government in Exile, October 20). Additionally, some Circassians hope Ukraine will follow up these moves by recognizing the Russian “genocide” committed against them in the 19th century (Newcaucasus.com, October 19).

Russian commentators close to the Kremlin have condemned all these matters, although more independent observers have pointed out that Moscow only has itself to blame, as all its talk about defending Russian language and cultural rights in Ukraine has only sparked more discussion about the lack of such defense for non-Russian languages and cultures in the Russian Federation itself (Kasparov.ru, April 25). Lingering fears of the memories of the Soviet Union’s collapse simmer below the surface of these condemnations and official actions against non-Russian activism regarding the war and subsequent mobilization.

After all, as many will recall, the Soviet Union died when the rhetoric of its communist leaders failed and ever more non-Russians asserted that “we are not Soviets” but rather members of this or that nationality. Now something analogous is happening in Putin’s Russia; the rhetoric of the Russian world is no longer effective, and people there are proclaiming: “We are not Russians” (Meduza, October 7). The Ukrainians, who have long insisted that “we are not Russians” are helping this process—in the case of Zelenskyy, reviving talk of “captive nations” and “the evil empire.” It thus should come as no surprise that the empire is preparing to strike back, although whether it will succeed or further exacerbate its situation remains to be seen.

https://jamestown.org/program/moscow-alarmed-by-growing-non-russian-nationalism-and-ukraines-role-in-it/

Nachdem Putin nun Truppen aus Syrien  in die Ukraine verlegt, zieht es nun auch ausländische Kämpfer gegen Assad  , vor allem islamistische Tschetschenen, die teils auch beim Islamischen Staat mitgekämpft haben in die Ukraine:

„

Sonntag, 23.10.2022 / 18:51 Uhr

„Russische Truppen: Aus Syrien in die Ukraine

Von

Thomas von der Osten-Sacken

Voller Sorge dürfte der syrische Präsident verfolgen, dass zunehmend russische Militärs aus seinem Land abgezogen und in die Ukraine verlegt werden:

According to two senior Western diplomats and a senior Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely, Moscow recently transferred some troops and a Russian air-defense system out of Syria, removing one of the main restrictions on Israeli military actions in Syria.

The officials had varying estimates about how many troops were withdrawn — two of them said two battalions, or between 1,200 and 1,600 soldiers, while the other said it was far more. But they all agreed that the number of combat troops had been reduced.

The Israeli official also said that several Russian commanders had been redeployed from Syria to Ukraine, while Russia’s military leadership in Moscow has become less involved in day-to-day management of operations in Syria, including with military coordination with Israel.

Während noch, wie es scheint, Kadyrows Milizen bleiben, machen sich andere Tschetschenen ebenfalls auf den Weg:

Al-Monitor has learned that the commander and members of Ajnad al-Kavkaz, a Chechen-led Islamic rebel group active in northern Syria, headed to Ukraine to fight against the Russian forces there. 

Sources from within jihadist groups in Syria told Al-Monitor that Chechen fighters from Ajnad al-Kavkaz fighting Syrian government forces in the countryside of Latakia recently arrived in Ukraine from Idlib, where they fought the Syrian government alongside the opposition. 

The same sources said that more commanders are expected to leave Idlib for Ukraine to escape the crackdown led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and to seek revenge against Russia and the forces of President Vladimir Putin’s ally, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

https://jungle.world/blog/von-tunis-nach-teheran/2022/10/russische-truppen-aus-syrien-die-ukraine

“Chechen fighters leave Syria to battle Russians in Ukraine

Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, a veteran of the Chechen-Russian war in the 1990s and commander of the Ajnad al-Kavkaz group fighting Syrian government forces in Latakia, arrived in Ukraine with a group of Chechen fighters to battle Russian forces.

October 22, 2022

Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, commander of the Ajnad al-Kavkaz group (circled in red) with a Chechen fighting unit, Oct. 15, 2022. – Twitter

Al-Monitor has learned that the commander and members of Ajnad al-Kavkaz, a Chechen-led Islamic rebel group active in northern Syria, headed to Ukraine to fight against the Russian forces there. 

Sources from within jihadist groups in Syria told Al-Monitor that Chechen fighters from Ajnad al-Kavkaz fighting Syrian government forces in the countryside of Latakia recently arrived in Ukraine from Idlib, where they fought the Syrian government alongside the opposition. 

The same sources said that more commanders are expected to leave Idlib for Ukraine to escape the crackdown led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and to seek revenge against Russia and the forces of President Vladimir Putin’s ally, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Humam Issa, an Idlib-based journalist, told Al-Monitor, “The Ajnad al-Kavkaz is a moderate, albeit jihadist group that did not interfere with the internal Syrian fighting and did not interfere in the affairs of the Syrian local community. Its main focus was on fighting the Syrian regime forces in the mountains and forests of the countryside of Latakia based on its fighting experience in rugged geographical areas.”

He added, “The group practices no advocacy activity within Syrian society as it does not speak the Arabic language. The group’s forces did, however, play a role in revealing the codes shared among the Russian forces in Syria given their knowledge of this language. These forces have experience in martial arts, in dealing with Russian planes, in digging trenches and in working to prevent Russian airstrikes.”

He continued, “HTS has tightened the noose around this group, especially between 2020 and 2021, as it arrested some leaders close to it. This group included Syrian members and commanders who left the group following the clampdown by HTS. Most of its leaders are now getting ready to go to Ukraine and leave Idlib to escape HTS’ crackdown and to fight the Russian forces in Ukraine.”

Issa said that Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, commander of Ajnad al-Kavkaz, has left Idlib for Ukraine following coordination with military groups from the Chechen Sheikh Mansur Battalion, which is fighting against the Russians alongside Ukrainian forces in Ukraine.

In this regard, a commander in the Ajnad al-Kavkaz group known as Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Shishani told Al-Monitor, “Many of us, especially people who have a track record of problems with HTS leaders, left Syria for Ukraine, as these have recently been subjected to severe harassment on the part of HTS’ leadership. The Russian-Ukrainian war created an opportunity for us to leave Idlib and an opportunity for HTS to get rid of us. The number of Chechens who arrived in Ukraine from Idlib is about 25, most of whom are of Russian and Chechen nationalities.”

He said, “We go to Ukraine to fight the Russians who killed and committed the most heinous crimes against our people in the 1990s. Through Kadyrov, the Russian agent, they (Russian forces) continue to practice violence against every Muslim who shows hostility to Russia, which killed the Syrian people that we came to support.”

He added, “We had hoped to clash with the Russian forces in Syria, but that, unfortunately, did not happen. Russia is fighting in Syria through planes, but in Ukraine, we can confront the Russian army [on the ground]. Every enemy of Russia is a friend of ours. Also, the Ukrainian people are oppressed, and Islam commanded us to support the oppressed, let alone if the oppressor is a common enemy to us.”

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/10/chechen-fighters-leave-syria-battle-russians-ukraine#ixzz7iYoD1AZ9

Jedenfalls gibt es auf ukrinaischer Seite zwei tschetschische Freiwilligenbatallione, das scheinbar mehr säkulare Dudajewbattalion und das islamistische Scheich Mansourbatallion, bennannt nach dem damaligen ersten tschetschenischen Präsidenten Dudajew, der einst sowjetischer Luftwaffengeneral war und als mehr säkular galt, auch wenn etwa der ehemalige deutsche Botschafter in Afghanistan Dr. Hans- Ulrich Seidt von angeblichen Kontakten Dudajews zu den Muslimbruderschaften des Nahen Ostens berichten hatte.

Dzhokhar Dudayev Chechen Peacekeeping Battalion (Ukrainian: Чеченський миротворчий батальйон імені Джохара Дудаєва) is a Chechen volunteer battalion named after the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev. The battalion is made up mostly of Chechen volunteers, many of whom fought in the First Chechen War and Second Chechen War on the side of the Republic of Ichkeria. The battalion has been under the command of Adam Osmayev since 1 February 2015, after Isa Munayev was killed in action at the Battle of Debaltseve in Eastern Ukraine.^[2][3] The Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion is one of the two Chechen volunteer battalions in Ukraine, the other being the Sheikh Mansur Battalion.

Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion

Battalion sleeve insignia.

History

The creation of the battalion began in early March 2014 in Denmark. This is where a large number of Chechens, opposed to Russia and forced to emigrate after the Second Russian-Chechen War, are located. It was initiated by the Free Caucasus Organization, which was created in 2006 in Denmark by political emigrants from Caucasus countries in Europe.^[4] The battalion’s founder and first leader Isa Munayev was appointed a military commander in charge of the defense of the Chechen capital by Ichkeria’s President Aslan Maskhadov during the Battle of Grozny (1999–2000) where he used various urban warfare tactics including ambushes, car bombs, and mines during the defense of the city.^[3][5]

Battalion composition

Desire to participate in the fight against Russian aggression in Ukraine was immediately revealed by more than 300 volunteers. The battalion includes Chechens, Georgians, Ingush, Azerbaijanis, Ukrainians, Circassians and volunteers from European countries.

Participation in warfare

The flag of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is used by the battalion.

Chechen specialists take part in battles in Eastern Ukraine and work as instructors, training young commanders.^[2]

The brigade is reportedly taking part in the defense of Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, fighting in the Kyiv area against Russian forces and its Chechen militia, the Kadyrovites.^[7]

Notable members

• İsa Sadıqov [az], Chief of Staff of the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion. Colonel of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, former Deputy Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan (1993–1995), former head of the Union of Officers of Azerbaijan.^[8] Wanted by his homeland.^[9]
• Sergey Melnikoff, a photographer with US citizenship. Holder of the Order of the Hero of Ichkeria.^[8]
• Nureddin Ismailov, he commanded the Boz Qurd (lit. „Grey Wolves“) detachment during the Karabakh war^[8]
• Shamil Tsuneoka Tanaka, a Japanese journalist, converted to Islam in 2001 while being a member of Gelayev’s detachment that took part in the conflict in the Kodori Gorge^[8][10]
• Amina Okueva, aka Natalia Kaminskaya or Amina Mustafinova, wife of Adam Osmayev [ru], press secretary of the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion^[11]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzhokhar_Dudayev_Battalion

Dies ist auch der Voice of America einen Bericht wert:

“Rival Chechen Fighters Take War to Battlefields of Ukraine

https://www.voanews.com/a/rival-chechen-fighters-take-war-to-battlefields-of-ukraine-/6719518.html

Und Le Monde:

“The Chechen battalion fighting ‚against Russian imperialism‘ in Ukraine

By Emmanuel Grynszpan Published on October 31, 2022 at 20h30, updated at 20h38 on October 31, 2022

Ukrainian command, the Dzhokhar-Dudayev battalion is confronting the Russian army in the Donbas, with the aim of weakening Moscow and the hope of reviving Ichkeria, the independent Chechnya.

Mixed emotions are stirring up the hundreds of Chechen volunteers of the Dzhokhar-Dudayev battalion, who are fighting the Russian invasion alongside the Ukrainian army. October 18 was an important victory when the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament) recognized the independence of the Chechen republic of Ichkeria, „temporarily occupied by Russia.“ Ukraine is the first country to take this diplomatic step in response to the illegal annexation of several of its own regions by Moscow.

The members of the Dzhokhar-Dudayev battalion are all opponents of the regime of Ramzan Kadyrov, the ruthless Chechen leader appointed by Vladimir Putin in 2007 in the small Muslim minority territory, some of whose troops are fighting in Ukraine, alongside the Russians. In the days following the Ukrainian recognition of Ichkeria – the name given to pro-independence Chechnya between 1991 and 2000 – those men had to face the harsh reality of war. Their battalion bears the name of the first pro-independence president, a former Soviet general killed by a Russian missile in 1996.”

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/10/31/in-ukraine-a-chechen-battalion-is-fighting-against-russian-imperialism_6002451_4.html

Das zweite tschetschenische Batallion ist das Scheich Mansour- Batallion, das seinen Namen von einem tschetschenischen „Freiheitskämpfer“ gegen Russland aus dem 18. Jahrhundert trägt und vor allem aus bärtigen Islamisten zu bestehen scheint:

“Sheikh Mansur Battalion

Sheikh Mansur Battalion
Insignia of the Battalion

Sheikh Mansur Chechen Peacekeeping Battalion (Ukrainian: Чеченський миротворчий батальйон імені шейха Мансура) or simply the Sheikh Mansur Battalion is one of the two Chechen volunteer battalions (the other one being the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion) that fights against Russia and Russian-backed separatists in the Russo-Ukrainian war. It is named after Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen military commander and an Islamic leader who fought against Russian imperialist expansion into the Caucasus during the late 18th century. The battalion is made up of mostly Chechen volunteers, many of whom are veterans of the First Chechen War and Second Chechen War.^[4]

History

Creation

The battalion was founded in 2014, in Denmark. It was created by the Free Caucasus Organization, which was created in 2006 in Denmark by political emigrants from countries/regions in the Caucasus and in Europe.^[5] In October 2014, the Free Caucasus GPA Presidium announced the creation of a battalion named after Sheikh Mansur in order to participate in the war in eastern Ukraine commanded by Muslim Cheberloyevsky (a veteran of the two Chechen-Russian wars).^[6] The battalion was formed upon the splitting off of a faction from the Dudayev battalion, due to leaders deciding the need to act at two important fronts which at the time were Kramatorsk and Mariupol. It was the second Chechen battalion, after the previously formed Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, which was proven itself well and received approval and support from the Ukrainian authorities.^[7]

For a time, the Battalion operated under the command of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, an independent volunteer battalion of the far-right party Right Sector.^[1]

Participation in the Russo-Ukrainian war

The battalion participated in the War in Donbas. In the Shyrokyne standoff, Sheikh Mansur battalion together with other Ukrainian forces fought against Russian-backed separatists in the village of Shyrokyne, east of Mariupol in 2015. The battalion was disbanded in September 2019; as one of the last units composed purely of volunteer soldiers.^[8] However, the battalion was reported to be active again during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Sheikh Mansur Battalion as well as the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion had been holding the defense near Kyiv and participating in partisan operations during the Battle of Kyiv.^[9][10][11] They had previously fought in the Battle of Mariupol, but they left for Kyiv as they deemed it was more important to defend the capital city.^[3]

In July 2022, they declared an insurgency in Chechnya.^[12]

SanctionsEdit

The Ukrainian Government and President Zelensky have extradited fighters from the battalion and put sanctions against them in 2021 despite its staunch pro-Ukraine stance.^[13] In 2018 Timur Tumgoev, a veteran of the Donbas war and member of the battalion was extradited to Russia. According to several reports he was tortured and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Several fighters are still threatened with extradition such as Akhmed Ilaev and Ali Bakaev.^[14] These extraditions and sanctions have been criticized by several Ukrainian commanders such as Dmytro Yarosh who blamed the Russian FSB and elements within the Ukrainian government.^[15]

„I believe that the Kremlin agents, which are infiltrated into Ukrainian power structures and authorities, are conducting a special operation to destabilize the situation within the state, with the aim of further expanding aggression and a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That is why the Kremlin agents put thieves, bandits, anti-Ukrainian elements. People who, side by side with us, have walked the military path since 2014, defending our freedom and independence. I warn the authorities: we, our Chechen Brothers, will not be betrayed by the enemy. If it is necessary to use force to protect them, we will do it.“

— Dmytro Yarosh, Censor.net

Commanders

Battalion Commander – Muslim Cheberloyevsky

Chief of Staff of the battalion – Muslim Idrisov

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Mansur_Battalion

Die Kyiv Post widmet dem Kommandeur des Scheich Mansour- Batallions auch ein Interview, das man hier auch als Video ansehen kann:

“Tetiana Popova’s interview with commander of Chechen volunteer battalion Sheikh Al Mansur – Muslim Chemverlievskim, fighting in support of Ukraine

See the full version here:

– POPOVA: How similar is the attack on Ukraine over the past 8 years to the attack on Chechnya that took place in the 90s?

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: We were also attacked in such a stupid, rude way. They also attacked here. But it was much tougher back then. All of Chechnya was bombed day and night, its entire territory. The whole territory of Ukraine is not being bombed here. Some places are bombed.

– POPOVA: Probably, because it’s big. Today, Kharkiv is being simply attacked with carpet bombing tactics wherever they can reach.

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: Due to the fact that Chechnya is really not as big as Ukraine, it felt much tougher. It is because the whole city, the capital of Chechnya, was razed to the ground. We see what is happening in Mariupol today. In Mariupol, at least some buildings are still standing, and Azovstal is still standing, it hasn’t been captured yet. The city of Grozny was razed to the ground. Therefore, throughout the entire territory in the forests and mountains, they also bombed day and night using carpet bombing and some kind of depth charges. Everything they had they used in Chechnya. And even some kind of poisonous weapon…

– POPOVA: Chemical weapon.

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: I don’t know whether those were chemical weapons or something else. There were some poisons there. They didn’t have a large range, were used sparingly and they had an effect for several hours, up to a day and then evaporated. They [the russians] were not far away themselves, so that was, probably, the reason. The whole of Chechnya was completely surrounded. Therefore, the russians do not have these different kinds of special operations; they did the same thing in Chechnya, in Ukraine, and in Georgia as well. Stupidly, rudely, they push their soldiers forward without a care, and bury the enemy in their corpses. Those are their entire tactics.

– POPOVA: And bombs. How many Chechens died at that time?

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: In two wars, out of a million people, 300,000 people were killed,  42,000 of them were children. These are the losses we have suffered at the hands of russia.

– POPOVA: Is it true that 4 of your presidents were murdered by russians? And one after negotiations. Tell our viewers, if possible.

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: In the first war, officially, all russia did was sabotage, some attacks, and supplying the opposition. It was like this in 1991. In 1994, they realized that they would not succeed with such help, and on December 11, 1994, russia violated the official border from three sides and attacked Chechnya. We thought that the main target was Dzhokhar Dudayev, our first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

They hunted him doggedly. On April 21, 1996, there were talks held through some intermediaries. So they made sure to lull our vigilance, and preformed an airstrike when he used a satellite phone to contact some russian intermediaries. There was some businessman named Borovoy from the russian side. When they talked, during this conversation [the russians] detected this signal and carried out a missile strike. This is how they killed Dzhokhar Dudayev. And they thought that with his death the war would be over, that our side would relax, as it were, and we, according to their plans, would have surrendered or scattered. With the help of Almighty God we have stood firm. It wasn’t that we didn’t give up or retreat, on the contrary, we won that war. The Russians were forced to leave Chechnya. This was how we stood firm and won the first war.

– POPOVA: And what happened then?

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev took over as an acting president after the murder. When the russians understood, on 6 August 1996, [we] developed a special operation to liberate the city of Grozny, which was led by Aslan Maskhadov. We captured the city, encircled the troops. This is such a story; you can find out more on the Internet if you are interested. The russian side realized that they are trapped. General Lebed flew in for the talks. The Khasavyurt Accord, ceasefire, the talks. This resulted in the withdrawal of forces and recognition of Chechnya. The troops were completely withdrawn by the end of the year. In 1997, at the start of the year, new elections were held. Aslan Maskhadov won the elections and became the president. After his election, I think in May, there were more talks with the russian president at the time, Yeltsin, they met and signed an agreement on mutual recognition. Russia recognized the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria as a state. Agreements were signed by the two presidents. And we were building our own state. Russia, naturally, could not accept its defeat. They were preparing for those three years. And in 1999, on Putin’s orders, blew up their own apartment buildings in russia, FSB, Ryazan.

– POPOVA: Yes, we even have a programme about it. If you haven’t seen it – watch “Rada Natsbezpeky” with Yevgeny Kiselyov.

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: They accused us of doing that and launched the second campaign in 1999. Again, the entire territory was bombed, and troops entered the territory, destroying everything in their path. They learned the lessons of the first war and decided not to enter Grozny with [armoured] columns. They started to surround it and shoot everything that moved, everything that stood, and everything they could see. They destroyed and burned everything. This way, they captured the city of Grozny. At times there were talks, some ceasefires, to collect bodies, to exchange all the captives, but the russians never cared for that. They had no need to recover their captives, and neither did they care for the bodies. This way they, once more, they launched a negotiation and discovered Aslan Maskhadov’s location, and killed him, just like they had killed others earlier. He was surrounded and killed in this shootout, and this wasn’t the first time that this kind of thing had happened.

– POPOVA: Excuse me, were you the one who said that it was dangerous for Zelensky to engage in negotiations even with Putin?

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: We said this to make sure that [you are] ready, so that [you] wouldn’t believe [them], so you’d stay safe and pick a secure location. We have always said this and are saying this now. Because you can’t believe a single word they say, and we are witnesses [of that]. At one time, the second former president, [who took the post] after Dzhokhar and before the election of Maskhadov, Yandarbiyev, left Chechnya. He was in Qatar, from where he helped our fighters. Russian special services detected him there. And, on Friday, after visiting a mosque, [he] went to pray in a mosque, [and they] trapped his car, blew it up. And killed him there. These saboteurs were caught, and they admitted to their crimes. Nevertheless, russia still somehow pulled them out of there and welcomed them as heroes at home. They awarded them the hero of russia, of the Soviet Union. This was how this story unfolded. And the fourth president, after Maskhadov’s murder, was Abdul‑Halim Sadulayev. He was also spotted while traveling in the city of Argun. The fourth president was also killed in a shootout. This is why they thought that with the murders of the president and some other leaders our resistance would wane or, perhaps, we’d make some concessions. We fought to the end, and no-one in the world helped us. We have exhausted everything we had. And, as of today, 95% of Chechnya is under enemy occupation.

– POPOVA: Say, it turns out that Kadyrov collaborated with the russian authorities. But what should Ukraine do to prevent such Kadyrovs from appearing on its occupied territories?

– CHEBERLOEVSKY: You just have to keep working. You shouldn’t agree to any concessions, any ceasefires, any negotiations. This is useless. Russia only negotiates when it stands to benefit, and never engages in negotiations that would help us or create some sort of mutual benefit. They do exactly what benefits them, and exactly when they need it. They never had and never would consider accommodating us. We have an example to ensure this never comes to pass. [You] must defend your territory and fight to liberate it, all of it.

The interview was broadcast on Islnd.TV on 25 April, 2022.

Laut Wikipedia haben die Exiltschetschen nun 2022 ihren Aufstand auch in Tschetschenien wieder aufgenommen, hoffen Kadyrow und Putin zu stürzen und eine unabhängige Republik Ichkeria zu gründen, die die Ukraine interessanterweise schon einmal vorauseilend anerkannt hat- als einziger Staat weltweit. Unbekannt ist, niwieweit sich dabei auch Islamisten befinden, denen es nicht nur um eine Republik in Tschetschnien , sondern um ein Kalifat Kauakasus kämpfen wollen, zumal inwieweit sie von Mulsimbrüdern aus der MENAregion und der AKP in der Erdogantürkei oder von Saudiatabien und slafistisch- wahhabistischen Kräften unterstützt werden. Ein älterer Bericht von 2017 im The Guardian widmete beiden Batallionen ein Portrait:

‚We like partisan warfare.‘ Chechens fighting in Ukraine – on both sides

Pro-Russian fighters begin their assault on Donetsk airport last year. The 300-strong Chechen ‘Death battalion’ was involved in the bloody offensive during its five months in and around Donetsk. Photograph: Vadim Ghirda/AP

On one side, fighters eager to exact revenge for Russia’s plunder of their country fight for Kiev. On the other, forces loyal to Kadyrov’s Kremlin-backed regime support the pro-Russian rebels

Shaun Walker in east Ukraine and Grozny

Fri 24 Jul 2015 05.00 BSTLast modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017 14.05 GMT

In the long-drawn-out struggle for Ukraine, it may be surprising to know that Chechen fighters in their hundreds have joined the battle.

It’s even more surprising to learn that they have been fighting on both sides.

The legacy of the two wars with Russia in the 1990s means there is no shortage of people from the Caucasus republic eager to take up arms against the enemy again.

But Chechen forces loyal to strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov are also fighting alongside pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

“I can’t be angry with Russia for my whole life,” said Apti Bolotkhanov, 36, the commander of the “Death Battalion”, which is mainly made up of Chechens. “There were Russians who helped us also [during the Chechen wars]. It was like Donetsk now – there was just a chaotic bunch of people and groups, fighting.”

He told the Guardian in an interview in Grozny that at the peak of the fighting earlier this year there were around 300 Chechens fighting in Donetsk on the side of the rebels.

Bolotkhanov said the fighters were volunteers and that they coordinated their actions with the Donetsk rebel leadership. The Chechens took part in the long and bloody battle for Donetsk airport, spending five months in and around Donetsk before returning to Chechnya. He said they are prepared to return to Donetsk “whenever required”.

Chechens fighting on the side of the pro-Russian rebels, taken in Donetsk. Apti Bolotkhanov is in the back row, third from left. Photograph: Provided to the Guardian

Chechens fighting on the side of the pro-Russian rebels, taken in Donetsk. Apti Bolotkhanov is in the back row, third from left. Photograph: Provided to the Guardian

There are also around 100 Chechens fighting on the side of Ukraine, in two volunteer battalions, one named after the 1990s independence leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, and one named after Sheikh Mansur, an 18th-century Chechen leader who fought the Russians.

The eventual solution to Russia’s Chechnya problem – placing Kadyrov in charge, showering him with cash to renovate the republic, and letting him rule with impunity – is seen by the Kremlin as a success and even as a blueprint for a potential solution for east Ukraine.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has told his Ukrainian counterpart, Pavlo Klimkin, several times that Kiev should take Chechnya as a model, Klimkin told the Guardian.

But for now, the legacy of Chechnya is being played out on battlefields, not in statecraft.

While Chechens on both sides have been integrated into the bigger fight, there is also an element of intra-Chechen conflict on the battlefields of east Ukraine. While they were in Donetsk, Bolotkhanov and his men released a video saying they had come to Donetsk to find Isa Munayev, a 1990s Chechen commander who had since lived as a refugee in Denmark and then arrived in Ukraine to found the Dudayev battalion.

Bolotkhanov and his men wanted to liquidate him for using derogatory language about Kadyrov, they said in the video. Munayev was indeed killed during the battle for Debaltseve in February, by a shell during a retreat from a forward position.

When asked if the Chechen battalion was responsible for Munayev’s death, Bolotkhanov smiled, and said: “Allah took him.“

Amina Okuyeva and Adam Osmayev of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, in Kiev. Photograph: Shaun Walker/The Guardian

The new commander of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion since Munayev’s death is Adam Osmayev, a British-educated Chechen who spent two years in jail in Odessa, charged with hatching a plot to assassinate Vladimir Putin. He said the charges were trumped up. He was released from prison late last year and said he was on the frontline “within a day or two”. He is hoping that Ukraine’s government will officially allow foreigners to fight in its army in order to entice Chechens away from fighting in Syria.

“People are going from Chechnya to the Middle East out of a sense of hopelessness; if the Ukrainians made the right conditions they would come here instead. Many people go there not from ideology but are brainwashed when they get there,” he said.

Another Chechen man who did not want to be named said he was trying to persuade other Chechens, via online forums, not to travel to the Middle East but to come to Ukraine instead.

“Why are Chechens fighting for Isis, why are they fighting against Kurds who have never done us any wrong? For Kobane, which they had never heard of before? That is not a Chechen war. This, here in Ukraine, is a war for Chechens. If we defeat Russia here, we are closer to freeing our homeland.”

Based on a different section of the frontline, the Sheikh Mansur battalion has a more overtly Islamist bent. Its commander, who would give his name only as “Muslim”, said he spent two decades fighting the Russians in Chechnya, first as part of the popular mobilisation which fought Russia’s troops in two wars for independence, and later as part of the terrorist underground movement which carried out a number of horrific terror attacks such as the Nord-Ost theatre siege, the Beslan school massacre, and a number of suicide bomb attacks on Moscow.

Muslim said he disagreed with the targeting of civilians and had nothing to do with the planning or implementation of such acts, but added that the attacks were “understandable” and “the only way we could get them to listen to us”.

‘Muslim’, commander of the Sheikh Mansur volunteer battalion, fighting with Ukrainian forces outside Mariupol. Photograph: Shaun Walker /The Guardian

“You ask us why we killed peaceful people? Thirty per cent of our whole nation was lost; 300,000 people. We wanted them to feel the same pain that we did when our relatives died.”

Muslim said there are two fighters in his battalion who fought in Syria and left because they felt the methods of the fighters in Syria were “too cruel”. Now they are fighting for Ukraine.

The Chechen battalion shares a base with the Right Sector, a far-right Ukrainian volunteer battalion. One Ukrainian at the base has converted to Islam since the Chechens arrived, and been renamed Shamil.

Although there is an informal system whereby the volunteer battalions coordinate fighting duties, Muslim and the other fighters in the Sheikh Mansur battalion are not officially integrated into the command structure of the Ukrainian army. Indeed, Muslim claimed he has not had a valid passport since the fall of the Soviet Union and is not even in Ukraine legally.

Fighters from the Sheikh Mansur battalion, some with their identity hidden, near the frontline at Shirokyne on 30 June. Photograph: The Sheikh Mansur Battalion Facebook page

Fighters from the Sheikh Mansur battalion, some with their identity hidden, near the frontline at Shirokyne on 30 June. Photograph: The Sheikh Mansur Battalion Facebook page

He says he left the Chechen mountains in 2007 and came to Ukraine, where he has been in hiding ever since. When he went to meet Munayev last summer to discuss fighting for Ukraine, he crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland illegally, on foot, and then was driven “by our Chechen brothers” to Denmark, he said. He returned the same way, spending two days traversing the Carpathian mountains by foot to avoid border guards.

If you capture one, it’s too risky to bring them back across the lines, so you just give them time to say their prayers

“The conditions in this war are fantastic, there are lots of weapons and lots of food. In the mountains in Chechnya you could go for days without anything, and a lot of people died because the food would be poisoned by the FSB,” he said.

“We like partisan warfare. With tanks you are visible and audible, and on foot you can sneak up quietly,” said Muslim.

These tactics, of low-visibility, close-quarters combat were honed while fighting the Russians.

“We often work deep behind enemy lines. It sometimes involves dressing up in enemy fatigues,” claimed Kazbek, a Ukrainian-speaking Chechen who moved to Ukraine in 1999 when Russia launched its second war in Chechnya, and is fighting with the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion. “If you capture one of them, it’s too risky to bring them back across the lines, so you just give them time to say their prayers, and the last words they will hear on this earth are ‘Glory to Ukraine!’”

Apti Bolotkhanov, commander of the ‘Death Battalion’ of Chechens who fought on the side of the pro-Russian rebels. Taken in Grozny, Chechnya, in June. Photograph: Shaun Walker/The Guardian

Bolotkhanov was dismissive of the Chechens fighting on the other side, accusing them of “sitting in cafes in Europe” instead of rebuilding the republic. He, too, has a personal history of fighting the Russians, and of personal tragedies. Two of his cousins were captured, tortured and executed in 2001 by Russian troops, Bolotkhanov said, despite the fact they were “completely peaceful people”.

But when Kadyrov’s father, Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov, first took over the reins of the republic, men like Bolotkhanov who had fought against the Russians were given the chance to be amnestied and join the new battalions loyal to Kadyrov and Russia.

“In 2002 I signed up for the battalions and served until 2012, ending with the rank of major. I performed the hajj six times. If I had stayed with the rebels, or if the war had continued, I would never have had that opportunity. It’s all thanks to Kadyrov.”

He said there is nothing strange about Chechens fighting alongside their long-standing enemy, Russia.

For those on the other side, however, there is no pardoning Moscow for its wars in Chechnya.

“Russia is a mad dog, trying to bite as many people as possible before it dies itself. We need to kill the dog as soon as possible,” said Kazbek, of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/24/chechens-fighting-in-ukraine-on-both-sides

Dass es innerhalb der Tschetschenen da unterschiedliche Positionen und Gruppen gib, verdeutlicht auch folgender Beitrag aus Österreich:

„Austro-Dschihadisten im Ukraine-Krieg? „So einfach ist das alles nicht“

03. März 2022

Im Krieg in der Ukraine werben beide Seiten um Kämpfer aus dem Ausland. Oft handelt es sich dabei um reine Propaganda – einige wenige könnten sich davon aber angesprochen fühlen. Der österreichische Verfassungsschutz beobachtet „die Szene“, wie PULS 24 mitgeteilt wurde.

„Tausende Tschetschenen sind in den letzten Jahren unter dem Deckmantel des Asyls nach Wien gekommen. Dieselben Tschetschenen ziehen nun von Wien aus in den Krieg gegen die Ukraine“, schreibt Wiens FPÖ-Chef Dominik Nepp auf Facebook. Er bezieht sich dabei auf einen Artikel der „Kronen Zeitung„, die allerdings von zwei Austro-Tschetschenen berichtet, die sich angeblich gegen die Russen – also auf ukrainische Seite – stellen wollen. 

Informationen darüber, welche Milizen und Söldner im Krieg in der Ukraine derzeit auf welcher Seite kämpfen, sind schwer zu verifizieren. Klar ist, dass beide Seiten um ausländische Kämpfer werben bzw. der jeweils anderen Seite unterstellen, zusammen mit Dschihadisten, Neonazis oder anderen zwielichtigen Gruppen zu kämpfen. 

Das österreichische Innenministerium jedenfalls teilt auf PULS 24 Anfrage mit, dass derzeit keine konkreten Erkenntnisse vorliegen würden, „dass Personen bereits auf der einen oder anderen Seite an Kämpfen teilnehmen“. Es sei aber bekannt, dass „innerhalb gewisser Communities darüber diskutiert wird, sich ukrainischen oder russischen Truppen anzuschließen“. Der Verfassungsschutz würde „die Szene“ „sehr genau“ beobachten. 

„Hass gegen Tschetschenen“

Husein Iskhanov kämpfte selbst in den beiden Tschetschenien-Kriegen gegen Russland. Nun lebt er in Wien, betreibt einen tschetschenischen Kulturverein und ist Kritiker von Wladimir Putin und dem tschetschenischen Machthaber Ramsan Kadyrow. Hinter den Aussagen von Dominik Nepp vermutet er „eine Lüge“ und „Hass gegen Tschetschenen“, wie er zu PULS 24 sagt. In der Ukraine würden spätestens seit 2014 tschetschenische Milizen mitmischen – sie würden sich aber gegen Russland stellen. 

In der Ukraine schon länger tätig sind etwa das „Dzhokhar Dudayev Bataillon“ und das „Sheikh Mansour Battalion“, die zum Großteil aus tschetschenischen Kämpfern bestehen und sich gegen die prorussischen Separatisten stellen. Inwiefern diese in den aktuellen Kampfhandlungen beteiligt sind, lässt sich derzeit nur schwer nachvollziehen. 

Dschihadisten in der Ukraine?

Der „Kurier“ berichtete darüber, dass vor allem in der österreichischen Dschihadisten-Szene dazu aufgerufen werde, sich den Kämpfen in der Ukraine anzuschließen. Dabei soll es sich ebenfalls vor allem um Tschetschenen handeln, die Anhänger des „Kaukasus Emirats“ seien und sich deshalb gegen Russland stellen wollen. Andere aus der Dschihadisten-Szene würden Kampfbeteiligung aber ablehnen, weil es ein Konflikt zwischen nicht mehrheitlich muslimischen Ländern sei.

Verfassungsschutz beobachtet Dschihadisten

Ishkhanov sieht allerdings keinen religiösen Kampf sondern einen Kampf gegen Russland und Kadyrow – schließlich handle es sich bei den Kämpfern um Anhänger der „Tschetschenischen Republik Itschkerien“, die Tschetschenien nicht als Teil der Russischen Föderation sehen möchten. Iskhanov weiß, dass sich 2015 mehrere Austro-Tschetschenen diesen Milizen angeschlossen haben – es handle sich um maximal 20 Personen, sagt er. Dass sich auch derzeit welche auf den Weg machen, sei ihm nicht bekannt. Er würde es aber nicht ausschließen.

Tschetschenen sind gespalten

Politologe und Extremismusforscher Thomas Schmidinger kann ebenfalls nicht ausschließen, dass sich „Einzelpersonen“ auf den Weg in die Ukraine machen würden. Darunter könnten auch einzelne Dschihadisten sein, ihm seien aber keine Fälle bekannt. Er betont, dass Dschihadisten immer noch „eher nach Syrien“ gehen würden – wo sich auch Teile der gespaltenen tschetschenischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung dem IS angeschlossen hätten. Andere Teile der Unabhängigkeitsbewegung würde aber säkular sein.

„So einfach ist das eben alles nicht“, sagt Schmidinger zu PULS 24: Die offiziellen Truppen des tschetschenischen Machthabers Kadyrow seien Putin treu. Daher würden sich manche Exil-Tschetschenen, die vor Kadyrow geflüchtet sind, gegen ihn und Russland stellen. „Das gemeinsame Moment“ sei also „eher nicht die Religion“ sondern das Vorgehen gegen Russland. 

Fakt ist aber jedenfalls, dass die Teilnahme von österreichischen Staatsbürgern an Kampfhandlungen in anderen Ländern zum Verlust der Staatsbürgerschaft und bei schutzberechtigten Personen zur Aberkennung des Asylstatus führen kann, teilt das Innenministerium mit.

https://www.puls24.at/news/politik/austro-dschihadisten-im-ukraine-krieg-so-einfach-ist-das-alles-nicht/258264

Kadyrow hat jedenfalls auf die Führer der Exilbatallione ein Kopfgeld ausgesetzt:

“Kadyrov promised $1 million for coordinates of battalions of Sheikh Mansur and Dzhokhar Dudayev

veröffentlicht am 04 May 2022

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, announced a $1 million reward for the coordinates of the „battalions of Sheikh Mansur and Dzhokhar Dudayev,“ whose members threatened to kill Chechen fighters in Ukraine. According to Kadyrov, there are sponsors who are ready to give money for accurate information.

“I am announcing a $1 million incentive to anyone who gives the whereabouts of the so-called battalions… [of] Sheikh Mansur and Dzhokhar Dudayev. We must destroy them: either they will kneel down and ask for forgiveness from the Chechen people and all Muslims, or their heads on the compartment,” Kadyrov said in his Telegram channel.

In the end of March, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, was awarded the rank of lieutenant general by decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Magomed Daudov, chairman of the republic’s parliament, said this on his VKontakte page, specifying that Kadyrov’s contribution „to the victory over international terrorism in the Chechen Republic and the preservation of Russia’s integrity cannot be overestimated.“ The information message was also published on the website of the Chechnya Today news agency. The corresponding decree has not been published on the President’s website at the time of this writing.

In January, the Minister of Press and Information of Chechnya Akhmed Dudayev published on his Instagram page a video message to the „provocateurs,“ implying critics of the Chechen regime and the head of the federal republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

According to Dudayev, Kadyrov’s critics are trying to pin up comrades who are working on Akhmat’s path. They say that they can do nothing but run on Ramzan’s orders. If at some event they shake off a speck from Ramzan, or remove dirt from their shoes, two or three people are pinned at once.

In addition, Dudayev called Kadyrov’s opponents „enemies of Allah,“ „not Chechens,“ „not men,“ and „the party of shaitans.“

https://caucasuswatch.de/news/5315.html

Wie sein Herr Putin hat Kadyrow zudem weitergehende Ziele als die Ukraine, drohen seine Satrapen vorerst verbal damit den Krieg bis nach Deutschland und nach Europa auszuweiten, insofern es Putin befiehlt:

„Wenn Putin uns nicht stoppt“: Kadyrow-Verbündeter droht mit Aufmarsch bis Berlin

Erstellt: 12.07.2022,

Im Ukraine-Krieg nutzt Putin auch Söldner aus Tschetschenien. Ein enger Vertrauter von Kadyrow drohte nun mit einem Aufmarsch bis nach Berlin.

München — Nach monatelangen schweren Kämpfen im Ukraine-Konflikt hat Russland die gesamte Luhansk-Region eingenommen, nachdem dort auch die Städte Sjewjerodonezk und Lyssytschansk von Wladimir Putins Truppen besetzt wurden. Nun greift das russische Militär mit aller Kraft die Region Donezk an. Diese Karte zeigt, wo der Ukraine-Krieg wütet.

Bei den russischen Bodenangriffen kommen dabei nicht nur russische Soldaten zum Einsatz. Truppen aus Tschetschenien unter der Leitung des Putin-Verbündeten Ramsan Kadyrow sind schon seit Beginn der Invasion ganz vorne mit dabei. Offenbar beschränken sich ihre Ziele nicht nur auf die Ukraine. Ein enger Vertrauter von Kadyrow äußerte den Wunsch, über die ukrainischen Grenzen hinaus bis nach Berlin vorzurücken.

Ukraine-Krieg: Tschetschenen-Kommandeure wollen bis nach Warschau und Berlin vorstoßen

Die als „Kadyrowiten“ bezeichneten tschetschenischen Söldner präsentieren immer wieder Stolz ihre Eroberungen in der Ukraine und veröffentlichen Aufnahmen zu den Kämpfen. Der Tschetschenenführer Magomed Daudov äußerte sich nun zu den Gefechten in der Ukraine und nahm dabei Deutschland ins Visier. Daudov, der als Sprecher des tschetschenischen Parlaments und enger Verbündeter von Kadyrow gilt, drohte mit einem Vormarsch bis nach Berlin und behauptete zudem, man verteidige die „Werte des Islam“. Die US-Journalistin Julia Davis veröffentlichte die Aufnahmen samt englischem Untertitel auf Twitter.

Chechen parliament speaker Magomed Daudov says that first and foremost, Chechen battalions in Ukraine are fighting a jihad to defend Islam.

Daudov says that unless Putin stops them, they will keep going until they reach Berlin. pic.twitter.com/OnybnLJzbL

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 5, 2022

„Es sollte kein Zweifel geben. Die Volksrepublik Donezk, Mikolajiw, Cherson, Odessa – bis Wladimir Putin uns stoppt, so Gott will, werden wir nach Berlin vorrücken“, sagte Daudov demnach gegenüber Reportern – in voller Kampfmontur und umgeben von seinen schwer bewaffneten Söldnern. Er zeigte sich zudem sicher über einen Sieg im Ukraine-Krieg: „Wir werden gewinnen, kein Zweifel.“

Apti Alaudinov, der Kommandeur der berüchtigten tschetschenischen Einheit „Akhmat“ auf russischer Seite, schloss sich den Äußerungen von Daudov an. In der Sendung „60 Minuten“ des russischen Staatsfernsehens Rossija-1, wo es zuvor eine Atomwaffen-Drohung gegen Deutschland gab, erklärte er zuerst Kiew und schließlich auch die polnische Hauptstadt Warschau als die nächsten Ziele der russischen Angriffe, „solange Putin uns nicht befiehlt aufzuhören“. Nur mit einer kleinen Truppenstärke könne man „Europa in die Knie zwingen“, so Alaudinov. Die Nato und die USA seien bereits „festgenagelt“.

Ukraine-Krieg: Kadyrowiten wollen „Werte des Islam“ verteidigen – Tschetschenen auf ukrainischer Seite widersprechen

Nach der Darstellung von Daudov geht es in der Ukraine außerdem um die „Verteidigung des Islam“. Kadyrow und die tschetschenischen Einheiten würden „in erster Linie den Islam, die islamischen Werte und die Größe des Allmächtigen“ verteidigen. Daudov sprach in Verbindung damit von einem „Jihad“, in dem Kadyrow eine große Rolle spiele. „Es geht um unsere geistlichen Werte und unsere Sprache“, so der Tschetschenenführer Daudov.

https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-news-russland-putin-kadyrow-bluthund-daudow-berlin-aufmarsch-invasion-news-91654518.html

Zuletzt noch eine sehr ausführliche und detailierte Studie des Autorenkollektiv Antifascist Europe bei der Rosa- Luxenburg- Stiftung über ausländische Kämpfer auf beiden Seiten des Ukrainekriegs, zumal auch unter dem Aspekt rechtsradikaler Beteiligung. Erstaunlich sachlich für die Linkspartei. Jedenfalls kommt die Studie zum Schluss, dass es den Islamisten und Rechtsradikalen nicht nur um die Ukraine geht, sondern, dass sie danach den Krieg in die westlichen, zumal demokratsichen Staaten und  in ihre Ursprungsländer und dann auch weltweit bringen wollen, der Ukrainekrieg also eine Brutstätte und Übungsraum von Extremisten und Terroristen wie schon Afghanistan für Islamisten werden kann:    

“How Foreign Far-Right Volunteers Are Arriving to Fight in Ukraine

A new report from Antifascist Europe

Information

Author Antifascist Europe

Antifascist Europe presents a report on the activities of foreign far-right volunteer fighters who have flocked to Ukraine since the invasion of Russian troops. It includes the results of monitoring public sources during the first 50 days of the war as well as an analysis of existing publications on the nature of the phenomenon of right-wing volunteerism in Ukraine.

Antifascist Europe is an antifascist research project initiated by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation that spans activist initiatives, journalists, and researchers from around Europe who monitor the development and transnational networks of far-right and right-wing populist parties as well as white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and fascist groups.

The report is an attempt to construct a chronological sequence of far-right militant involvement in combat operations, a brief overview of the 2014 conflict, and the identification of new trends, as well as a look at the structure of the International Legion of Ukraine.

Overview of the International Legion of Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the creation of the International Legion of Ukraine three days after the war began. According to a 2016 presidential decree, foreigners can serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) and Territorial Defence Forces. “Anyone who wants to join the defence of security in Europe and the world can come and stand side by side with Ukrainians against the invaders of the 21st century”, the Ukrainian president said. The International Legion of Territorial Defence has been formed for foreign volunteers.

The official website of the Legion presents flags of eight states — Denmark, Poland, Israel, Latvia, Croatia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Canada but there are more than that. In early March it became known that more than 20,000 people from 52 countries had expressed their desire to join the legion, according to Brigadier General Kyrylo Budanov, commander of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence. Corporal Damien Magrou, 33, a Norwegian corporate attorney in Kyiv, was appointed as a spokesperson of the Legion.

The Ukrainian military conceals details about the composition of the Legion. They declined to specify the size of the unit or the number of volunteers by country. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Kyiv has recruited over 6,800 “foreign mercenaries”[1] from 63 countries since the start of the war. The majority of these volunteer fighters came from Poland — 1,717 people. Additionally, about 1,500 fighters came from the United States, Canada, Romania, the UK, and Georgia — about 300 from each. Russia claims that 1,035 foreign fighters have been killed. There are currently 4,877 “foreign mercenaries” on Ukrainian territory, according to the Russian military. 

The International Legion website published a questionnaire and detailed instructions on what to do to be able to join the war. Officials check candidates’ backgrounds through the embassy to judge whether they are truthful in their qualifications. Then it was announced that only those with combat experience and fluent Ukrainian or English would be accepted. It now takes four to seven days to process the application. Two Ukrainian military sources familiar with the admission process told the Washington Post that the Legion’s admission rate has dropped below 50 percent since the requirements were tightened. 

Russia claims that foreigners coming to fight on Ukrainian side must sign an open-ended contract and some of them already had contracts with a US-based Private Military Companies (PMC). However, according to Ukrainian anti-fascists, foreigners are often simply given contracts to sign and are then sent to a military base to stay idle. It has also become known that the legionnaires will receive a salary. International law requires foreign legionnaires to be paid no more than regular soldiers. However, everyone understands that legionnaires do not go to Ukraine for money. If someone starts asking for money or bonuses for confirmed kills, they are refused.

Foreign volunteers go to war for other reasons, which recruiters try to find out during the obligatory interview. Although many of the volunteers will come to Ukraine for humanitarian reasons, “it does not forbid the entry of individuals with more extremist views and their own agenda”. Rita Katz, Director of SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremists, told the New York Times that “numerous far-right white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups throughout Europe and North America had expressed an outpouring of support for Ukraine, including by seeking to join paramilitary units in battling Russia … with the primary motivation to gain combat training and also being ideologically-driven”.

However, Ukraine officially denied famous Portuguese neo-Nazi Mário Machado admission to the Legion. One of the criteria is “no criminal record”, explained Sergei Malik, military attaché of the Ukrainian Embassy in France. In the past, Machado was sentenced to more than ten years in prison for a number of crimes, including grievous bodily harm, racial discrimination, and possession of prohibited weapons. Machado returned to Portugal after spending nearly a week in Ukraine distributing food and sanitary materials.

While the war is ongoing, volunteer fighters from all over the world are flocking to Ukraine, many of them affiliated with far-right organizations.

A Crucial Turning Point: The Yavoriv Base Bombing

This attack was a serious blow to the volunteer enlistment movement in Ukraine, which received heavy coverage in the Western media.

On 13 March, the Russian army launched a cruise missile at the Yavoriv military base in the Lviv region of Ukraine, which is several dozen kilometres from the Ukrainian-Polish border. The Yavoriv base is also known as NATO’s International Peacekeeping and Security Centre, where foreign volunteer fighters have flocked. As a result, up to 180 foreign volunteer fighters were killed, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, and a shipment of foreign weapons was also destroyed.

Ukrainian Defence Ministry spokesperson Markiyan Lubkivsky told CNN that those numbers were false, further stating that there were still no foreigners confirmed among the dead. The Lviv regional military administration reported 35 dead and 134 wounded. A German legionnaire told Austrian newspaper Heute that there were “800 to 1,000 foreign soldiers” at the shooting range and he doubted that 35 had died, because the “number could refer to fallen civilian Ukrainian soldiers and servicemen, but the foreign fighters were many more”, as there was a direct hit in the nearby building and he was sure “that there were at least 100 soldiers, and none of them got out”.

Anyway, the strike on Yavoriv base caused panic among foreign volunteer fighters. According to the Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure, more than half of the 18 Belgian volunteers who went to fight in Ukraine returned home. For some, the reason was an underestimation of the local situation, combined with such a deadly attack, while others returned because of health problems. For example Jacques Martin, a 51-year-old from Flémalle, fought in the Legion and was at Yavoriv, where he managed to stay alive after the airstrike, but became deaf and returned to Belgium for two weeks of treatment before returning back to Ukraine. He noted that the Legion had problems in discipline and hierarchy because of the language barrier, and lacked weapons, equipment, and protective gear, adding that “many decided to leave so they would not die for nothing” because “they initially underestimated the situation, but then did not want to become cannon fodder”.

Although Jacques Martin called himself an anarchist, the media quickly found out that he is a well-known far-right activist in Belgium and, thanks to a TV report from his apartment, his true political views were easily identified.

One of the most famous examples of a foreign volunteer fighter fleeing Ukraine was the story of 28-year-old Henry Hoeft from Central Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch local newspaper published a front-page interview with him before he was sent to Ukraine, portraying him as a hero. Hoeft revealed that he was a “former infantryman in the U.S. Army and half-Ukrainian on his father’s side”. He said he was going to “contain Putin and stop a world war”. Publication of the article allowed him to raise more than $5,000 through crowdfunding. Hoeft went to Ukraine with his comrade Mike Dunn.

Аfter the attack on Yavoriv, a video appeared on social media, in which a frightened Hoeft reported that the Ukrainians the foreigners, did not give them ammunition or equipment, that there were a number of dead fellow soldiers at the base, and that he had to cross a border with a British and a US citizen in an emergency van. He also added that foreign soldiers’ passports were taken away with threats to tear them up, and that soldiers would then be sent back to the battlefield, so he had to disguise himself and use fake documents to cross the border. Visibly distressed, he implored: “people need to stop coming here. It’s a trap and they aren’t letting you leave”.

Journalists quickly revealed that Henry Hoeft’s real last name was Locke, and that he, along with Mike Dunn, is an activist with the far-right militant group Boogaloo Bois. After that, Hoeft/Locke deleted all his social media accounts and disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown. His comrade Dunn stayed in Ukraine. He recorded a video and stated that they both joined the Georgian National Legion and then left. After that he fell ill and joined another military unit. However, he denied that Ukrainians were taking away the passports of foreign volunteer fighters and he had no problems with crossing a border back and forth. SITE Intelligence Group Director and co-founder Rita Katz claimed that these videos could be disinformation and added that Hoeft’s video had been widely promoted on pro-Russian social media groups, “mocking western foreign fighters arriving in Ukraine”.

National Foreign Volunteer Battalions List

The aforementioned Georgian National Legion is one of the most famous units, counting US citizens among its ranks, but there are also other units. At least half of them were incorporated into the Ukrainian International Legion.

• The Georgian National Legion, consisting of Georgians and US citizens; 
• The Kastus Kalinovsky Battalion, consisting of Belarusians; 
• The Polish detachment of the Revanche Battalion, consisting of Poles;
• The Canadian-Ukrainian Brigade, consisting of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada; 
• The Norman Brigade, consisting of Canadian military veterans;
• The Freedom of Russia Legion, which includes Russian defectors;
• The Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, consisting of Chechens;
• The Sheikh Mansur Battalion, also consisting of Chechens;
• The Crimea Battalion, consisting of Crimean Tatars;
• Far-right volunteer units, which cannot be identified.

The Georgian National Legion

The Georgian National Legion was founded in 2014 by mostly ethnic-Georgian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine (Georgians see participating in war as revenge for the Russo-Georgian War in 2008.). The Georgian National Legion was officially integrated into the Kyiv Rus 25th mechanized infantry battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2016. The unit now has up to 700 fighters, 20 percent of whom are foreigners not from Georgia. The Georgian National Legion has “a special affinity for U.S. recruits”. In addition at least one British citizen — ex-Army medic Jason Haigh, 34 who was later beaten by Ukrainian soldiers — had enlisted in this unit.

Henry Hoeft/Locke and Mike Dunn, both members of the Boogaloo Bois, enlisted to this unit. On 24 March, commander of the Georgian National Legion Mamuka Mamulashvili made assurances that he was trying to screen candidates so as not to allow in far-right extremists: “I don’t want bloodthirsty guys who want to come and just shoot somebody … We are avoiding extremists — we don’t want them here”.

Russia also opened a criminal case against Mamulashvili, accusing him of killing Russian POWs and violating the rules of warfare after a related video started circulating on social networks. In the video, members of the Georgian National Legion allegedly kill captive Russian soldiers lying on the road with their hands tied. This is alleged to have taken place on 30 March near Kyiv. These Russian soldiers were ambushed during the withdrawal of their troops from the area surrounding the Ukrainian capital. Mamulashvili denied the accusations. Certain publications in Russian asserted that Mamulashvili and his unit were receiving support from the small Georgian neo-Nazi group Qartuli Dzala (Georgian Power).

The Kastus Kalinovsky Battalion

Konstanty (Kastus) Kalinovsky was one of the leaders of the Polish, Lithuanian, and Belarusian national revival in the second half of the 19th century. Kalinovsky is especially revered in Belarus where he is seen as an icon of Belarusian nationalism who fought against the Russian Empire.

The Kastus Kalinovsky Battalion was formed in March 2022 from members of the so-called “Belarus” tactical group, members of the Belarusian neo-Nazi organization White Legion, representatives of the Young Front movement, as well as Belarusian citizens who emigrated to Ukraine after the protests in the summer and autumn of 2020. As of mid-March, the Battalion included about 200 people. 

The Battalion’s official video clearly shows the neo-Nazi tattoos of its members — the Black Sun tattoo on the elbow. The man on the right is the Belarussian neo-Nazi Denis “Kit”. The man with the beard on the left is the well-known neo-Nazi Rodion Batulin, a Latvian with Belarusian citizenship who came to Ukraine to implement his ideas. In the summer of 2019, he was noted for his participation in the attack on former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Batulin is a close friend of another famous neo-Nazi who was originally from Russia, but who lived in Belarus for a long time: Sergei “Boatsman” Korotkikh. 

So far, three people from the Battalion are known to have been killed. All three were connected to far-right groups and all three were killed in action near Kyiv. 

On 3 March, 27-year-old Ilya Khrenov (whose military call sign was Litvin) was killed in the battle for Bucha. He came to Ukraine in 2014, fought in the Donbas in the ranks of the far-right Azov Battalion for more than a year, then settled in Kyiv and worked in IT. Litvin was a member of White Legion and was also an outspoken neo-Nazi with far-right tattoos on his body, including a Valknut tattoo on his left arm.

On 13 March, 31-year-old Oleksiy Skoblya (call sign: Tur) was killed near Kyiv. Tur had also been fighting for Ukraine since 2015. He joined the far-right paramilitary group Right Sector. For the last year he had been serving in Ukraine’s special operations forces on a contract basis. His relatives say he became interested in Viking culture at the True Varing Reenactors Club. He also wore Thor’s Hammer pendants, which are popular with neo-Nazis.

On 24 March, 32-year-old Dmitry Apanosovich (call sign: Terror) was killed by a mine near Irpen. It is not entirely known whether Terror was a neo-Nazi, as the Russian media claim, but his relatives say that he “went to Valhalla since he was a pagan”.
The number of troops in the Battalion is unknown. More than 100 people were seen at Ilya Khrenov’s funeral.

The Polish Detachment of the Revanche Battalion

The Revanche (reconnaissance) Battalion, commanded by Serhiy Brigadir, was formed at the beginning of the Russian invasion, made up of Ukrainian nationalist volunteers from Kyiv and Kharkiv, many of whom, including the commander, are members of the Conservative Party of Ukraine. This is actually a faction of the former far-right organization Tradition and Order, which was formed by followers of Italian fascism from the Revanche group.

According to a 20-year-old Polish volunteer fighter, the Battalion included “nationalists from the Czech Republic and Poland”, and the commander offered to organize a separate detachment for Poles. 

This anonymous Polish volunteer published anti-Semitic texts and neo-Nazi symbols, and gave an interview to the Polish far-right organization Socjalna Alternatywa.

The number of troops in the Battalion is unknown, as is the troop count in the Polish detachment.

The Canadian-Ukrainian Brigade

Canada has the largest Ukrainian diaspora outside Russia. That is why the Canadian-Ukrainian Brigade was formed in early March 2022, and it already has 550 members. The unit will be stationed in Kyiv. According to the article in Canada’s National Post, the Brigade “has its own arm patch, featuring a maple leaf with a trident”, the latter of which being Ukraine’s national symbol.

Canada is preventing its military from participating in the war, so volunteer fighters travel independently, raising money for flight tickets to Poland through crowdfunding. The first Canadians to reach Ukraine have complained of poor organization.

There is no data on the participation of the far-right in this unit.

The Norman Brigade

This is the most secretive unit, made up of Canadian ex-servicemen. The number of troops within the Brigade is also unknown. The Norman Brigade received attention in connection with the news surrounding the sniper known as Wali. He served in Afghanistan as part of the Royal Canadian Infantry’s 22nd Regiment in Kandahar. His real name is unknown. In early March he gave an interview, after which reports of his death in besieged Mariupol began to appear on Russian social media. After that he got in touch with journalists. Such public attention did not please his fellow brigade members, who were trying to be “quiet professionals”.

There is no data on the participation of the far-right in this unit.

The Freedom of Russia Legion 

On 5 April, the formation of the Freedom of Russia Legion, formed from Russian POWs who defected to the Ukrainian side, was announced. On that day, three servicemen in the Legion briefed foreign correspondents. They were wearing masks, so their identities could not be established. “We, the Legion fighters, are not fighting against Russian soldiers, we are fighting for a free Russia. Our goal is to destroy Putin and his regime”, the defectors said on video.

The unit uses a white, blue, and white flag as its chevron, which is used by anti-war activists from Russia as a symbol of protest. It is claimed that there are at least 300 men in the Legion.

There is no data on the participation of the far-right in this unit.

The Dzhokhar Dudayev and Sheikh Mansur Battalions 

These volunteer armed formations have been participating in the armed conflict in Ukraine since 2014 on the side of government forces and are composed mainly of Chechens who emigrated from Russia after the second Chechen war. Most of them are Ukrainian citizens, so they are not formally considered foreign volunteer units. It should be noted that the Chechen diaspora in Europe has expressed a desire to fight against Russia, so these units should be mentioned. However, it is not known how many Chechens from Europe have arrived in Ukraine and whether they arrived at all after the start of the conflict.

It should also be noted that Ukrainian far-right fighters fought against the federal troops during the First Chechen War, one of the most famous among them being Sashko Bilyy. He was killed in 2014.

The Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion is led by Adam Osmayev, while the commander of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion is named Muslim Cheberloevsky. The number of troops in the unit is not known.

There is no data on the participation of the far-right in this unit but radical Islamists may potentially be present.

The Crimea Battalion 

This Islamic unit was formed in 2014, originally consisting of eight Crimean Tatars. It was headed by Isa Akayev, who left for mainland Ukraine immediately after the events of 2014. According to some reports, Ivan Selentsov (also known as Valid Abu Yusuf), who is both a native of Kherson Oblast and a member of the Salafist movement True Religion, which is banned in Germany, also participated in the creation of the Battalion. In his statements Akayev used rhetoric typical of radical Islamists. The fact that he spoke positively about the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and Chechen terrorists Shamil Basayev and Movsar Barayev is evidence of Akayev’s radical views.

Later the Crimea Battalion was assigned to the Dnepr-1 volunteer battalion created by then-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov. In 2014–15, the Crimea Battalion took part in combat operations in the Donbas and, as Isa Akayev admitted, dreamed of “switching to Crimea”. In 2015, the Crimea Battalion officially surrendered its weapons and left the battle zone after an order from the General Staff of the UAF.

On 28 February, a statement from the Crimea Battalion commander Isa Akayev with an appeal “to all Muslims of Russia” appeared on the internet. The video was filmed against the backdrop of five armed fighters. In his statements, Akayev called for Muslims in Russia to defect from the Russian army and threatened to kill murtads (Muslims who are fighting on the side of Russia) by “all means permitted by Sharia”.

The number of troops in the battalion and its participation in combat operations is unknown. It was claimed that the battalion entered the village of Motyzhyn in the Kyiv Region after Russian troops were withdrawn.

There is no data on the participation of the far-right in this unit but radical Islamists may potentially be present.

Other Far-Right Volunteer Units

Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo, writing for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), writes that:

What appears to be different this time, is that the UAF seem to be attempting to take a more direct command-control of the foreign legion than previously, which ultimately could hinder the direct recruiting by far-right battalions. Given that Ukraine is in an active state of conflict, and that the border crossings with other countries have been described as chaotic, it seems unlikely that the government will have the capacity to keep track of all those entering. 

One such out-of-state unit could be neo-Nazi groups that grew up around local leaders. One of the most important links in the neo-Nazi chain is Russian-born Denis “White Rex” Kapustin (also known as Denis Nikitin), who has been stuck in Ukraine since he was banned from entering the EU and faces prosecution in his home country. He has established contact with far-right activists around the world, posting messages on his Telegram channel and calling for help in five languages. On 5 March, Kapustin published a scheme to come to Ukraine to fight the “commies” and “neo-Bolsheviks”.

“Putin opposes nationalism. If you consider yourself a white nationalist, the war in Ukraine is your only chance. There are no other countries in the world where you can take up arms and fight for your values and ideas shoulder-to-shoulder with your fellow soldiers. That’s why I, Denis Nikitin, choose resistance”, he said in a video from 1 April. 

Mikhel, from Poland, became the first foreign legionnaire invited by Kapustin. During a video interview Mikhel showed his patch with the Polish phalanx insignia. He said he had army experience, that his journey to Kyiv took five days, and that he had brought a flag of the far-right National Radical Camp. “Why did you come to Ukraine?”, Kapustin asked. “Because I’m a nationalist. I want to help my brothers in this war”, answered Mikhel.

Another important point of attraction for the neo-Nazi community in Ukraine is Sergei “Boatsman” Korotkikh, a former Russian citizen wanted in his home country for a series of murders, and who formed the Boatsman Boys unit. Little is known about the unit, but certainly it includes the most odious Nazis. According to Korotkikh, the detachment took part in battles in the south of the Chernihiv region and also entered the village of Bucha near Kyiv after the withdrawal of Russian troops, after which the mass murder of civilians by Russian troops was reported.

In addition, the Ukraine chapter of the neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour claimed it has its own combat unit in the UAF but it is impossible to verify this. Blood and Honour Ukraine is a very small group and has to compete with larger neo-Nazi organizations.

At the end of March, Avtonom NS, a group of autonomous national-socialists, announced their return for the armed struggle against the “neo-Bolshevik scum that had invaded the expanses of our state”.

“Our main goal is to recreate the traditional foundation of the original European ethnic group in the spirit of National Socialism. The fundamental element of this upbringing is enlightenment, propaganda for development and self-improvement, the cult of the struggle to preserve the purity of the white race, its future and the future of its children”, noted the group’s Telegram channel. 

The famous neo-Nazi group Misanthropic Division (MD) was revived. Its mostly inactive channel on Telegram started to post pictures with typical far-right content after the Russian invasion in February 2022. It is not known whether they have a separate unit, and if so how many would be in the unit, but judging by the photos, the MD is now no more than ten people in the ranks of different units under the Azov Battalion, such as the far-right group Avangard Kulturna Spilka. In early March, it was reported that the MD’s Nikita “Dobrynia” Yeliseev had been killed in Mariupol.

The Russian Foreign Volunteer Unit

On 11 March Vladimir Putin suggested that foreign volunteers who wanted to help the residents of the Donbas should be enlisted. He recalled that Western countries actively encourage sending fighters to Ukraine. In turn, the head of the Ministry of Defence Sergei Shoigu noted that the department had received more than 16,000 applications from volunteer fighters from the Middle East alone. 

The willingness to fight the “Nazis in Ukraine” is expressed by veterans of the Syrian army, fighters from the Syrian Christian militia, and former opposition fighters. They come to collection points and sign up as volunteers.

One of the volunteers was quoted as saying:

I heard Russian President Vladimir Putin say. He said that if Russia doesn’t stop the U.S. and NATO in Ukraine, they will come to Russian soil and destroy [their] great country. That cannot be allowed to happen. You saved Syria from the US and its allies. Now we are ready to fight against their dogs for you. 

Serbian nationalists also expressed their desire to fight on the side of Russia. It is alleged that some of them are already in the Donbas. In early April, reports surfaced about the death of Stefan Dimitrijevic, a Serbian nationalist who was in the Donbas in 2014, in combat for the pro-Russian Luhansk People’s Republic. He fought in the ranks of the extreme-right detachment Unité Continentale which was part of the Prizrak Brigade. There is also the notable “Serbian divergent” Telegram channel, close to Russian members of the mercenary community, which posted far-right memes — but it is unknown if this is really Serbian or rather a postmodern parody.

There is no word yet on the size of the volunteer corps, its name, or its participation in the fighting. There is no data on the participation of the far-right in this unit. It seems that Russia deliberately limited the participation of the far-right units in combat operations in order to justify the goal of “denazification”.
On 31 March it was reported that Edy “Bozambo” Ongaro, a 46-year-old Italian, had died. He had been fighting on the side of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the ranks of the Prizrak Brigade since 2015, but it should be noted that he was a leftist activist. As his comrades wrote, he was an “internationalist anti-fascist partisan who put the fight to end exploitation above all else”.

Background

War in the Donbas

To better understand why the far-right has been going to fight in Ukraine, we should turn to the history of the conflict, which began in 2014. 

In Ukraine in February 2014, the Revolution of Dignity — also known as the Euromaidan — took place. President Viktor Yanukovych decided not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. А wave of peaceful economic protests turned into a full-fledged armed riot in which Ukrainian far-right groups Svoboda Party and the Right Sector militia were the most organized and ready for violence, which is why they were the most visible. Protesters led torchlight marches, and raided police stations for weapons. These groups were the most radical part of the movement, which thus managed to attract more people to them. Pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country and parliament installed an interim government. 

In response Russia seized the Crimean peninsula and sought to create a separatist sentiment in the eastern parts of Ukraine — which were mostly populated by Russian-speaking people. Separatists proclaimed the creation of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). Ukraine then launched a military counter-offensive operation. On 6 April a war started in the Donbas, and we are witnessing its continuation right now. Foreign fighters have been involved on both sides of this conflict. 

The war in the Donbas saw the largest influx of foreigners out of any conflict in the post-Soviet sphere. Since 2014, it has been estimated that a combined total of over 17,000 fighters from 55 countries have fought there for both sides. If we exclude 15,000 Russians from the list of volunteers, the experts from the Soufan Group name a figure of 879 foreigners on the side of Ukraine and 1,372 foreigners on the side of the pro-Russian Donbas. Most of the volunteers came from Belarus (800 people), Germany (165), Georgia (150), Serbia (106), Moldova (85), France (65), Croatia (65), Italy (55), and Austria (50).

Azov, the Far-Right Hub

The main destinations for far-right militants included several Ukrainian volunteer battalions openly espousing far-right ideologies, such as the Azov Battalion, Right Sector, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. A right-wing network was formed inside the Ukrainian military. As the conflict de-escalated, volunteer battalions were integrated into the UAF, sometimes under pressure. Thus, the far-right gained control or ensured their heavy presence within the security forces in the country: the Ukrainian Army, the country’s police departments, including the municipal police, and the National Guard of which the Azov Battalion is a part.

The Azov movement was formed around the National Corps party, founded by Azov veterans. The Azov Battalion became less politicized. Its role for many on the right became more of a symbolic one, although of course they maintained ties. But its level of radicalism has dropped significantly since 2014. 

The Azov movement remains a central presence in the Ukrainian far-right community and is beloved by the extreme right all over the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the presence of such units within the Ukrainian military as a casus belli, one of the reasons for launching his so-called “special military operation … to de-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine”.

The Azov movement developed extensive recruiting tactics within and outside of Ukraine, establishing “youth camps, recreation centers, lecture halls and indoctrination programs”. Since 2015, the Azov movement has been systematically recruiting far-right extremists to promote its own international agenda. International secretary of the National Corps, Olena Semenyaka articulated this goal as a “global conservative revolution” or “Reconquista” aimed at “protecting the white race”. Semenyaka told Bellingcat that the movement is looking for “all potential sympathizers” and potential “lobbyists” and hopes to “establish contacts with the American military”. 

As of 1 March 2022 the Azov Battalion had an estimated 900 fighters, including both Ukrainians and foreign fighters from Europe and the US. US citizens, including members of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, had joined various units under the Azov umbrella as they saw a possibility to accelerate the collapse of society to create a pure white ethno-state.

In October 2019, US House Democrats requested that the Azov Battalion be classified as a terrorist organization after the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand earlier that year. A possible link between mass shooter Brenton Tarrant and Azov was found. 

Russian Far-Right Units in the Donbas during the 2014 War

It is necessary to highlight the fact that far-right militants also fought on the DNR/LNR side but their composition and motivations are much less well studied. As one of the respondents to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) report brilliantly put it: 

This is a tribal war, not nation against nation. You’ve got nationalists on both sides because their ideology is less important than the side and symbols they identify with … It is a post-modern war and the divide between the sides is shallow as people are nowadays raised on superficial attachments.

The Novorossiya Militia

The war in Ukraine began after Igor Strelkov, a Russian military officer and former FSB agent, crossed the state border of Ukraine near Donetsk Oblast with 52 fighters on the night of 11–12 April 2014 and began seizing administrative buildings in the city of Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast, announcing that the city was under the authority of the DNR. On 13 April, Ukrainian authorities announced the beginning of an “antiterrorist operation” in Sloviansk. On 26 April, Strelkov became head of the Donbas People’s Militia. 

Strelkov’s closest assistants were people who shared his nationalist-monarchist, conservative views, as well as the ideology of the White Movement. Strelkov attempted to create an army based on the traditions of the Russian Imperial Army and “Christian values”. On 14 August 2014, Strelkov resigned as DNR defence minister. Strelkov later told journalists that he had resigned because his “stay was deemed inexpedient” and his consent to resign was obtained “by means of certain blackmail and direct pressure — by cutting off aid supplies from Russian territory”.

Strelkov stated that without his participation, the pro-Russian rebels in the Donbas would not have taken active steps and the protest movements would have been suppressed: “I pulled the trigger of the war after all. Had our unit not crossed the border, it would have ended up like in Kharkiv, like in Odessa. There would have been a few dozen killed, burned, arrested. And that would have been the end of it”.

Since 2014, he has been the head of the Novorossiya movement, which sends humanitarian aid and supplies of ammunition and uniforms to the DNR military, as well as assistance to the victims of the actions of the authorities of the republic. Until 2016, he was a supporter of Vladimir Putin.

Strelkov is not taking part in the war of 2022. He criticizes Putin for the failure of the campaign on his Telegram channel.

Rusich

Most of the Russian far-right joined the pro-Russian and outspoken neo-Nazi reconnaissance group Rusich under the command of Alexey “Serb” Milchakov, himself an outspoken neo-Nazi. His deputy Jan “Great Slav” Petrowski, another Russian neo-Nazi, arrived from Norway. Milchakov became known after his involvement in the torturing of POWs, and also for beheading and eating a puppy. Petrowski was expelled from Norway because he “presents a threat to national security”.

Another well-known member of Rusich is an outspoken neo-Nazi, the Donetsk-native Yevgeny “Topaz” Rasskazov. After 2014 he became a mercenary and joined PMC Wagner. He then started a channel on Telegram where he posted far-right propaganda and promoted mercenary culture. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Topaz joined Rusich and gave an interview to Yevgeny Dolganov, vocalist of the neo-Nazi band Russkiy Styag, where he said of himself: “I am a good husband, hopefully a great father in the future, and I came to kill Ukrainians”.

Rusich included two assault platoons. The unit chose the Slavic Kolovrat swastika as its emblem. 

In 2014, Rusich participated in operations at the Donetsk and Luhansk airports, cleared settlements near Luhansk, and fought positional battles near the settlements of Belokamenka and Novolaspa in Donetsk Oblast. One of the most notable actions of Rusich was the destruction of a column of the Ukrainian far-right Aidar Battalion near the village of Metalist in Luhansk Oblast on 5 September 2014. Rusich members were accused of war crimes. 

Rusich has taken part in the current war from the beginning. A friendly Telegram channel published a post with pictures of the squad’s fighters. The post said that the squad leader, most likely Milchakov himself, had been wounded and required expensive treatment. The photo shows the neo-Nazi symbol Valknut.

The Imperial Legion

Another notorious pro-Russian far-right group is the Imperial Legion, which is the military wing of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). The Imperial Legion trained volunteers and sent them to the Donbas. After the initial conflict it established contacts with the Nordic Resistance Movement and provided training to foreign fighters who have since carried out bomb plots in Scandinavian countries. In 2020 the US State Department designated RIM as a global terrorist organization. 

Despite the fact that the RIM is formally in opposition to Vladimir Putin’s regime, its military wing takes part in the war on the side of Russia. 

PMC Wagner

Some far-right combatants joined Russia’s PMC Wagner. Also known as the Wagner Group, it is owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of Putin’s closest allies, and has since conducted covert operations across Africa and the Middle East. This unit is participating in the ongoing war but details are concealed. 

The Jovan Ševic Battalion

The Serbian Chetnik Jovan Šević Battalion was named after the commander of the Serbian Hussar regiment Jovan (Ivan) Šević, who in 1751 accepted Russian citizenship and became the founder of the autonomous region of Slavo-Serbia, located on part of the territory of the Donbas. In March 2014, a group of five Serb Chetniks, led by Bratislav Živković, arrived in Crimea and then participated in providing security during the referendum on the status of Crimea. The group called itself the Prince Lazar Detachment. On 17 July 2014, the Jovan Šević Battalion grew to 35 volunteers. 

It is not known whether the unit is taking part in the ongoing war.

Terek Wolf Sotnia

The Terek Wolf Sotnia sabotage and reconnaissance group was formed in March–July 2014, particularly in the territory of Crimea and the Donbas. It was headed by ultranationalist Alexander “Babay” Mozhaev. According to Mozhaev, he went to fight in Ukraine because he was wanted by the police in Russia for attempted murder with a knife. However, there was no money to bribe a judge, so he left to become a mercenary. Mozhaev denies that he had served in the Russian GRU. According to Mozhaev, he did serve in the Russian armed forces, but he retired in the mid-1990s. Since then he has been a member of the Terek Wolf Sotnia.

It is not known whether the unit is taking part in the ongoing war.

Cossack Units

Cossacks are representatives of the Russian minority ethnic group and the military class that guards Russia’s borders. They took part in the combat operations of 2014 in the Donbas in the ranks of the All Great Army of the Don, and the Cossack National Guard. The territory of today’s DNR and LNR has historically formed part of the region of the Don Army, so the Don Cossacks consider themselves involved in the events in this region. Cossacks usually hold ultra-nationalist beliefs.

Cossacks are taking part in the ongoing war but their general presence is limited to policing the breakaway republics.

A Psychological Portrait of a Foreign Volunteer Fighter

Foreign fighters on each side of this conflict bear a striking resemblance — young, male, politically charged, and with previous experience in the armed services. Meanwhile, their motivations for joining the fight differ greatly, as reported by Sara Meger of the University of Melbourne in her research around the 2014 War in Donbas. 

Anotherstudy conducted in 2020 by senior researcher Egle E. Murauskaite for the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis analysed four basic types of foreign fighters coming from Western countries to fight in Ukraine:

1. “Experienced veterans” coming to “resettle old scores with either Ukraine or Russia” appeared to be the most common category.
2. “Disillusioned ideologues”, men who are “generally disappointed with the state of the Western world”.
3. “Armed opposition” is mostly represented by Belarusians and Russian citizens, who “turn their political opposition to Putin … into an armed struggle”.
4. “Battle chasers” are men who are looking for “battle itself”.

A report conducted by Kacper Rekawek of the CEP in 2020 was based on interviews with 18 foreign fighters of seven nationalities: Brazilian, British, French, Georgian, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish, who took part in the war in Ukraine on either side of the conflict. The report allocates three types of foreign fighters in Ukraine:

• The “resetters” i.e. “those seeking a new career in a new country”, either fighting for Ukraine or the so-called separatist republics.
• The “ghosts”: those travelling back and forth between their home country and the frontline in Ukraine, using the time at home to recuperate and fundraise.
• The “adventurers”: those who are restless, often considered “war junkies”, and are open about their intention to fight in future wars.

The last two types pose the highest risk as they remain ready and able to join other conflicts, Rekawek notes.

His respondents saw the war in Ukraine as an expression of a global conflict between the West and the East, the United States vs. Russia, Europe vs. Asia, and during the course of which a fighter cannot be uninvolved. Rekawek gives examples of typical responses from pro-Russian volunteers which reflect the ideological diversity of reasons for participating in the war: 

• “Assuming I want regime change in the West”, and because “Russia is actually the designated enemy of these regimes, being on the side of Russia is quite the obvious choice”. 
• “I am defending the Russian people and their right to live as they wish to. I am a nationalist”.
• “It is fascist Ukrainian aggression, supported by the likes of the U.S. and NATO, and directed at the inhabitants of Donetsk/Luhansk/Novorossiya/etc. I am doing this because of solidarity”. 

And these are typical responses from pro-Ukrainian volunteers:

• “We are concerned about protecting our European heritage and we are proud to be here as representatives of our own countries who are fighting Russia”. 
• “I am a nationalist and this is a nationalist uprising against corrupt oligarchs”. 
• “It is Russian aggression directed at Ukraine, and my country is next. I am doing this because of solidarity”.

It is noteworthy that the author puts humanitarian (helping a “weaker side”), geopolitical, and ideological motivations for participating in the war in last place in terms of order of importance. There is something bigger than the global struggle for these people. 

Rekawek concludes the CEP report by saying: 

As was demonstrated, these fighters did not emerge inexplicably with the war’s opening shots. They had been active and involved in radical scenes before the onset of the conflict. For them, Ukraine was a stage on which they could act or project their socio-political or geopolitical beliefs, but these had been formed long before their trip to Kyiv or Donetsk and Luhansk. In short, the problem is not (just) Ukrainian. It is a problem within Western, primarily European and American societies with scores of young individuals in internal exile deeply upset about the current socio-political arrangements in their home countries.

Conclusion: War as the Main Trophy

Although at the time of writing, a month and a half have passed since the start of the war in Ukraine, it is still too early to say how many volunteer fighters have come to the war and how many of them are from the far-right. But there are already concerning patterns emerging. According to SITE, many far-right groups from the US and Europe express support for Ukraine, donating to Azov and looking for ways to join the fight against the Russians, whom they call “orcs”, “commie scum”, or “neo-Bolsheviks”.

There is a wide range of outspoken neo-Nazi groups such as Atomwaffen Division, Boogaloo Bois, Neue Stärke Partei, the Thule Society, Jungeuropa Verlag, Det fria Sverige, Europa Terra Nostra, and Blood and Honour, among others, which have expressed strong political excitement about the conflict and intend to use it to their advantage.[2] Most alarming are right-wing accelerationist groups, for whom increasing entropy in the world means the destruction of the old globalist order and the creation of white ethnostates.

The multiplicity of psychotypes as well as the differing ideological reasons for engaging in war hides something terrible underneath: the need for violence and its export beyond the conflict zone. This is why Rekawek of the CEP report asserts that the first reason to participate is “a view of forming what neo-Nazi theoretician Jean Thiriart called the “European Brigades”, i.e., forces of “European patriots” who would return from a conflict in a nearby country to fight a nationalistic war in Europe”.

The Soufan Group expands on this in its study:

Just as Afghanistan served as a sanctuary for jihadist organizations … in the 1980s, so too are parts of Ukraine becoming a safe haven for an array of white supremacy extremist groups to congregate, train, and radicalize. And just like the path of jihadist groups, the goal of many of these members is to return to their countries of origin (or third-party countries) to wreak havoc and use acts of violence as a means of recruiting new members to their cause. Unlike jihadis who are attempting to strike Western targets, though, radicalized white supremacists have the added advantage of being able to blend in seamlessly in the West, just as Brenton Tarrant was able to do.

In other words, far-right volunteers who return from Ukraine pose a threat to their own society and state. In 2021, the US was shocked by the story of army veteran and neo-Nazi Craig Lang fighting in Ukraine in the ranks of the notorious Azov Battalion. He was accused of multiple war crimes, torture carried out upon Donbas citizens, as well as the murder of a Florida couple. His unit — consisting of foreign neo-Nazis — was disbanded and expelled, while he remained in Ukraine since a local court denied him permission to leave.

The security services are well aware of this and have been monitoring the activity of volunteer soldiers crossing borders. US State Department counterterrorism coordinator Nathan Sales stated that US authorities are keeping a close eye on the threat from far-right extremists fighting in eastern Ukraine. According to the German Interior Ministry, only 27 far-right militants have crossed the border or expressed a desire to travel to Ukraine. “My biggest concern is that these extremists get combat training with weapons and explosives and, because of the war experience, have a very low threshold for using weapons and lethal force”, said Stephan J. Kramer, the head of the domestic intelligence agency in the German state of Thuringia.

Egle E. Murauskaite echoes this concern in her research: “The most common concern is that the battle hardened fighters will come back radicalized by the combat and ideas they fought for, and put their skills to use locally — establishing domestic chapters of international extremist organizations or founding new extremist groups”. 

Similarly, Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo in her research for the ISPI, notes that:

The danger is that through the creation of the Legion, Ukraine could once again be opening the door for extremists or radicalized individuals to travel to the country, get trained, become battle-hardened, and extend their networks. Subsequently, this becomes a two-fold problem. On the one hand, for Ukraine, as it will likely become difficult to control these individuals following the eventual end of the fighting, leading to a potential increase in extremist activity within the country. On the other hand, the fighters who do return home, will have greater influence not only in recruiting and radicalizing others, but also with greater capabilities to deploy violence itself.

One cannot deny the existence of the Nazi problem in Ukraine by arguing that it is Putin’s propaganda, who justified his imperialism under the pretext of “denazification”. One example of this trend is former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul repeatedly using the line that there are no Nazis in Ukraine, citing in support of this assertion that Ukrainian President Zelensky has a Jewish background. However, one of the most violent protests around the mistreatment of — and police violence towards — the Black community in the US happened in Ferguson in 2014, when Barack Obama was president. The problem of systemic racism and police brutality did not disappear with the election of a Black leader; indeed, since then, it might look to some observers as if the issue has become even more entrenched.

While Russian propaganda exaggerates the neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine, the West tries to pretend that these Nazis do not exist. When the war is over, nationalism will be further normalized in Ukraine, and far-right units will acquire veteran status and try to convert it into political capital as much as possible. Extreme right-wing fighters have already gained great popularity on social networks, and after the war they will also be able to become opinion leaders and gain a firm foothold in the civilian sector. 

After 2014, only Azov managed to grow significantly. Entering the political arena forced its leaders to soften their rhetoric. Most likely, even after this war, the rhetoric of the right will be nationalist and militarist, but it will hardly be neo-Nazi. Besides, this time all factions of the political spectrum, including the leftists, liberals, LGBT community, and feminists will have their own fighters; all political parties will drag them into their lists, so the extreme right will have no monopoly.

It is too early to tell what will happen, because the end result depends on what will be written in the peace agreement. If it is a victory for Ukraine (peremoga in Ukrainian), the main hero will be Zelensky and there will be very little chance for the others, because the political field has already been cleared. But if there is a “betrayal of Ukraine” (zrada) and serious compromises with Russia, then criticism from so-called “true patriots” will pour in from all sides. This will give ex-president Petro Poroshenko a chance to return to politics, as well as giving all the far-right groups the opportunity to gain a foothold there.

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[1] The Russian Ministry of Defence calls foreign volunteers “mercenaries” and threatens that the Geneva Convention will not be applied to them. However, a mercenary is usually defined as fighting primarily for financial reasons (rather than ideological), and so this term will mostly be avoided in this essay.

[2] It should be noted that not all far-right groups have taken a determined position. For example the Base in the US and the Nordic Resistance Movement in Europe urged their activists not to take sides.

https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/46588/how-foreign-far-right-volunteers-are-arriving-to-fight-in-ukraine