Ramzan Kadyrov Is Not Going To War
- Vadim Dubnov, The Moscow Times
- 25.08.2026, 10:41
The Chechen Chapter of the Ukrainian War is a roguish novel from the very first page.
Putin (as well as Medvedev, Mishustin, Kirienko, Volodin, and many lower-ranking officials) issued a statement marking the 75th anniversary of Ahmad Kadyrov. Nearly half of the video is devoted to his son, Ramzan.
“Any mention in the press, except for an obituary, is advertising”—if Mark Twain had known about Ramzan Kadyrov, he would have had every reason to dedicate that thought to him. Whether it’s rumors of an incurable illness, an inevitable resignation, or falling out of favor with the Kremlin—which the Chechen leader is on the verge of facing due to a shortfall in troop deployments to the Ukrainian front — Kadyrov emerges from any such media campaign as if he’d been sprinkled with holy water.
60,000 students alone
The Chechen angle of the Ukrainian war is a swindling novel from the very first page, and the issue here isn’t just the widespread labeling of Kadyrov’s forces as “TikTok troops”. Statistics, if we are to believe the same author, are the best way to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Take those more than 70,000 armed men from Chechnya who, according to Kadyrov’s assurances, fought in the war in Ukraine. And yet, perhaps they really did…
“Someone must be coming up with these schemes for him!”—an economist I know couldn’t contain his professional admiration as he analyzed the birth of a new Kadyrov-led Chechnya from the ruins and rubble.
Building with its own resources and money—that is, funds collected with an iron fist from all over Chechnya—Grozny presented Moscow with official cost estimates that were orders of magnitude higher than what had actually been spent. The Ministry of Finance, recoiling in horror, would raise its hands in appeal to the Kremlin, but there, with a smirk, they would simply cross out a couple of zeros, and the compromise satisfied everyone. The Kremlin bought the luxury of not knowing how Chechnya’s prosperity was achieved; the budget guardians saved a little here and there; and Kadyrov turned a fairy tale into reality—including when it came to revenue.
By all accounts, the Chechen mobilization follows the same pattern, particularly the idea of a Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes. First of all, no one will ever confirm the figure of 70,000 troops mentioned—but just in case, no one will refute it either. A year ago, Kadyrov said that 62,000 fighters had graduated from the university, 22,000 of whom were volunteers. Apart from the university, very few people remain to be mobilized, but then again, these statistics may include the same 35,000 couriers mentioned by Khlestakov. The university itself reported in 2025 that it had trained 6,715 people, 1,050 of whom were in civilian fields. But the main point isn’t the arithmetic—it’s the people behind it: the university was created precisely to train “students” from all over Russia. People are formally sent to the front from Chechnya, but how many of them are Chechens is a military secret.
No one now knows for sure how many Chechens are in the famous “Akhmat,” whose history is almost the history of the country itself. Formed on the basis of the “Sever” special battalion, which fought militants as far back as 2009, the “Akhmat” Special Operations Unit has evolved into a nationwide umbrella franchise that has given its name to countless “subsidiaries.” Operating under the “Akhmat” brand are Apty Alaudinov’s special forces unit and four other “Akhmat” units—one for each cardinal direction: “south,” “north,” “west,” and “east.” And, finally, the original SOBR itself. All of them have long since ceased to be traditionally Chechen; it was rumored that their ranks were replenished by Wagner Group members after Prigozhin’s death.
The newly formed “Akhmat” units are scattered across a wide variety of federal law enforcement agencies—the Ministry of Defense, the Russian Guard, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself. But while officially under their jurisdiction, they retain their “Chechen” affiliation by default.
The Father of the Nation and His Praetorians
In such a system of dual loyalty, it is tempting to see all sorts of conspiracy theories regarding a possible plot by Kadyrov’s Praetorians, or, conversely, regiments of specially trained mercenaries who will fight to the last for Putin.
Hardly.
There are, of course, people who sincerely oppose the misanthropic attitudes that the West is bringing to Chechnya, but even in Chechnya, they are mostly viewed with the same smile of pity as they are throughout the rest of this vast country. And just as throughout the rest of the vast country, people take up arms for entirely pragmatic and mercenary reasons—especially since the ideological convictions that determine one’s stance on any given front line have been irrelevant for more than twenty years—most of those with whom Kadyrov began gained their first combat experience in the ranks of Chechen militants.
So it’s unlikely that anyone will fight for anyone—neither for Putin nor for the mythical leaders of the Ichkerian underground— and any hypothetical historical upheavals, if they change the map of current loyalties at all, will most likely do so only by making it more dispersed and chaotic.
And in general, given the peculiar nature of the Chechen social order, it’s customary to dramatize its key elements somewhat. Meanwhile, in many respects, it remains prosaically federal in nature. As everywhere else, it is harder for those who are less protected to evade the military commissar—not because of their opposition, but simply because there is a lack of people who would allow themselves to be suspected of such things. Another matter is that in Chechnya, this system of protection isn’t limited to the ability to pay one’s way out. Here, among other things, the factor of extremely close social ties comes into play. In a society where everyone is a neighbor, a brother, or the brother of a classmate—and these ties permeate it from top to bottom (and the current elite, especially in the security forces, has itself risen from the lower ranks)—the twists and turns of mobilization become somewhat more complex.
The same is true of casualties, which—for the same reasons—are perceived in a much more neighborly or familial way.
And even a regime like Kadyrov’s has to take this into account. And to a considerable extent, precisely because of this. The “mothers’ revolt” that took place in Chechnya after the first mobilization was suppressed more as a show of force than with outright brutality, leading some to suspect that Kadyrov himself had orchestrated the scenario. On the one hand, he is, of course, prone to a certain theatricality in the relationship between the people and the ruler. But the role of a ruthless yet sentimental despot, sensitive to the suffering of his people, is one of his foundational concepts, and even human rights activists—back when they were not yet being killed or expelled from Chechnya—acknowledged that for Kadyrov, this is important not only from a political strategy standpoint.
A Wartime Contract
Presumably, there are enough decision-makers in Moscow who view this with a mutually beneficial understanding.
Of course, they read Kadyrov’s statistics with the same understanding with which they read between the lines of the budget for Chechnya’s reconstruction. But even with 100 percent compliance, Chechnya would hardly solve the federal mobilization problems.
Besides, Moscow knows the whole truth about the combat effectiveness of Chechen units, and the issue here isn’t even about TikTok. The very nature of the combat experience gained in the fight against the guerrilla underground and other police operations does not really correspond to the current state of the war in Ukraine. They are better suited for controlling already captured territories and conducting mop-up operations than the Chechens and the non-Chechens attached to them, and they are making their mark in the Donbas and especially in the northeastern sectors of the front, in the Sumy region, where there is no particular risk from offensive operations.
Incidentally, this also helps Kadyrov report relatively low casualties to his citizens.
In short, we are witnessing a continuation of the joint efforts between the Kremlin and Chechnya, as well as the peculiarities of the tacit contract concluded between Moscow and Kadyrov. The dual loyalty of his military machine is a continuation of the twofold objective embedded in this contract: Kadyrov fulfills the Kremlin’s deep-seated desire to treat Chechnya as a “black box” and secures for himself a monopoly on force in Chechnya, which can be outsourced in his spare time to carry out federal tasks
So the resurfaced topic of political defection seems, for now, more like compensation for the lack of news about an imminent obituary. Probably temporary.
Vadim Dubnov, The Moscow Times