Editor TLN
Anti-Russian sentiment has led pro-independence Chechens to join Ukrainian ranks. Far from the propaganda broadcasts of Vladimir Putin and his Chechen ally, Ramzan Kadyrovthe Dzhojar Dudayev Battalion has seen in the war in Ukraine the opportunity to put an end to the invasion that persists in their land.
This battalion, based in the Lugansk Oblast, with an anti-Russian and pan-Islamist Sufi ideology, was created in 2014 in Denmark and owes its name to the first independentist president of the self-proclaimed republic of Ichkeria, Dzhojar Dudayev. This territory was finally incorporated into Russian territory in the year 2000, after the end of the Second Chechen War. After this act of rebellion, the Kremlin came to consider all those sympathizers of the independence of Chechnya terrorists, with their consequent persecution and Chechen diaspora.
Historical memory encourages independent Chechens to visualize in Ukraine the same imperialist intentions promoted by Russia in his land, which has prompted his desire to join Volodymyr Zelensky’s side and fight against pro-Russian separatists, Putin loyalists and those fighters from Kadyrov’s battalion.
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Behind the fall of the soviet union in 1991 Chechnya, with a majority Muslim population, declared its independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Russia, in order to avoid the loss of this enclave, originated several periods of war that lasted until the year 2000. The same year that Vladimir Putin arrived at the Kremlin, Akhmad Kadyrov He was appointed by this leader of the Chechen Administration and representative of Russian interests. In 2004 he was assassinated by Islamist rebels and his son, a former independentist, was Ramzan Kadyrovwho took command.
The confrontation between Chechens and the persecution of the independentistas motivated their diaspora all over Europe. Among the more than 350,000 Chechens in diaspora were Isa Munayev and Ilyas Musayev, two fighters from the Chechen wars who decided to settle in Copenhagen, the Danish capital. With the aim of mobilizing their compatriots in the diaspora and their pro-Russian allies, in 2006 they created the organization free caucasus.
The group was linked to the position of the president of Ichkeria, the also exiled Akhmed Zakayev, until his diplomatic tendency and his possible rapprochement with Russia became evident. From that moment Munayev and Musayev reformulated their propaganda and adopted a more radical position, against any type of negotiation with Putin or with his partner Kadyrov.
After the disturbances of the pro-European protests of the Euromaidan in 2013 in Ukraine, Isa Munayev created in 2014 the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion to operate in the pro-Russian areas of Donetsk and Lugansk with half a thousand volunteers, mostly Chechens. Munayev died in the Donbas war in 2015 and was replaced by the current leader, Adam Osmayev.
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This is a Chechen, with studies in the United Kingdom and resident in Ukraine, who was accused of several assassination attempts against Vladimir Putin for which he was imprisoned for a couple of years in a Donbas prison. Finally, he was released and together with his wife, Amina Okuyeva, representative of the Free Caucasus in Ukraine, he fought against the pro-Russian Ukrainians in the pro-independence areas. Amina was killed in 2012 in a Russian ambush.
The Dudayev Battalion has established itself as an urban guerrilla focused on sabotage and revives the methodology developed during the Chechen wars. Guided by rancor and hatred towards Russia, they defend their fight as “everyone’s fight”, as Musayev declared during an interview.
The scope of the movement promoted by the Free Caucasus has led to the creation of various groups such as the Sheikh Mansur Battaliona split from Dudayev with a higher religious and Islamist component who has acted under the mandate of the far-right Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. The battalion has participated from the beginning in the Donbas War until its delivery of weapons in 2019.
In March of this year, at the start of the war, they joined the troops of their parent, the Dudayev Battalion, in the defense of Mariupol. Subsequently, they defended the capital of kyiv, in addition to other cities such as Donetsk, Lugansk or Zaporizhia. Volunteers who, far from the accusations of belonging to the jihadist current, continue the fight of their ancestors to achieve the iindependence and liberation of their landin which they consider the “third Chechen war”.
