Ichkeria dreamin’ A new Chechen separatist army is being formed in Ukraine, but beating Russia in the Donbas is easier than deposing Ramzan Kadyrov
By Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer)
Amid Ukraine’s war for freedom against Russia’s invasion, another nation is also gathering its forces for a fresh attempt to break free of Moscow’s grasp: the Chechens.
Ever since the conquest and destruction of the de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria at the beginning of Vladimir Putin’s tenure, the Chechen people have been steadily ground down under his lackey, warlord-cum-TikToker Ramzan Kadyrov. Over the past two decades, the insurgency that followed in Chechnya was brutally eradicated, as the territory became a place where even a word of criticism could cost one’s life. But while media coverage has highlighted the role of the Kadyrovtsy (as Kadyrov’s forces are known) in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the remnants of the once-formidable Chechen independence movement have coalesced on the other side — and they’ve set their sights on (re-)liberating their homeland.
Anti-Russian Chechen fighters have been a fixture on the Ukrainian battlefield since the initial Russian invasion of the Donbas in 2014. Offered a new front where they could fight Russian troops (as insurgents’ position in Chechnya itself deteriorated), groups like the Sheikh Mansur Battalion and the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion joined Ukrainian soldiers in key battles in the new warzone. These same groups could draw on the same sentiments following Russia’s February 24 assault, and they have become the locus for a rare degree of solidarity from across the oft-infighting Chechen opposition.
In mid-July, Anzor Maskhadov, son of the last president of independent Chechnya, Aslan Maskhadov (and interviewed by this author in Kyiv in May), announced that “a new underground” was being activated in Chechnya itself, with the creation of a “Chechen Liberation Army” to follow soon. Akhmed Zakaev, Ichkeria’s “prime minister in exile,” followed with his own statement that “the Chechen army to de-occupy our country is being reborn in Ukraine.” Then, in October, the field commander Rustam Azhiev — better known as Abdulhakim al-Shishani, and one of the most experienced Chechen militants still alive — arrived in Ukraine from Syria, where he had led the Islamist group Ajnad al-Kavkaz in its fight against the Russian-backed Assad regime for nearly a decade. Almost immediately, Zakaev appointed him as the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ichkerian armed forces-in-exile.
The band was getting back together.
That these three figures, each influential but rarely cooperative, are working in unison is remarkable by itself. Perhaps even more so is the evident support they are receiving from the Ukrainian government: Ukraine’s parliament recognized the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s independence, granted citizenship to Azhiev Ukrainian, and formed a parliamentary committee for “Free Ichkeria.” With Russia’s war effort faltering more each week, the momentum is clearly growing for the exiles’ cause.
But the realization of their dream — the toppling of the Kadyrov regime and re-establishment of Chechen independence — remains a game in which the deck is stacked strongly against them.
One problem for the Ichkerians: numbers. Precise figures are hard to come by, but the three main anti-Russian Chechen groups active in Ukraine — the Mansur and Dudayev Battalions, plus the Separate Special Purpose Battalion — have several hundred fighters each. There are a handful of smaller Chechen groups active as well, plus additional Chechen volunteers spread across other formations, both Ukrainian and international. Taken together, however, it’s difficult to imagine the total number of anti-Russian Chechen fighters active in Ukraine is more than the low thousands — perhaps 2,000 in all. While the motivation of these men is not in doubt, it challenges the imagination to see an army this size marching into Grozny and overthrowing its well-entrenched master.
The second issue is perhaps more obvious: How would these fighters make it to Chechnya in the first place? The territory is landlocked, and its only external border is a stretch of high mountains shared with the South Caucasus republic of Georgia — so remote and difficult as to be virtually impassable for eight months of the year. The other option (an anabasis of more than 700 kilometers (435 miles) over land from Ukraine’s Donetsk to Chechnya itself) does not seem particularly more plausible. Chechen fighters themselves seem to consider this question as one of secondary importance; when asked by the author in Kyiv last month, one suggested the overland odyssey with a casual “why not?”
But it’s hard to overcome the realities of geography.
Even if this band of seasoned veterans does make it to Chechnya, their opponent will not be waiting to lie down for them. Ramzan Kadyrov is a great many things, but he is keenly adept at acquiring and keeping power — something his ruthless rise in Grozny (using methods like welding the doors shut on a Russian FSB unit’s headquarters so they could not interfere with his destruction of a rival pro-Moscow Chechen faction in 2008) aptly demonstrates. His Kadyrovtsy have become much-maligned over the course of this year’s war for their seeming aptitude for macho social-media videos over actual fighting, but there is also a widespread understanding that many of the regime’s praetorian units have been kept at home, in good condition for any domestic challenge that may arise.
There is much discontent and outright anger at Kadyrov just beneath the surface in Chechnya (tension is palpable during even a brief visit to Grozny, where this author has traveled numerous times), but Kadyrov’s 30,000-strong personal army is ruthless, held together by close family ties, and armed to the teeth.
This last characteristic presents a challenge that’s hard to overstate: Any rebels looking to overthrow Chechnya’s ruler will be outgunned. Perhaps the single greatest factor in the stunning Chechen victory in the First Russian-Chechen War was the array of weaponry easily seized as the Soviet army disintegrated in late 1991. Everything from small arms to tanks, artillery and even aircraft was immediately available to the Ichkerian upstarts, many of whom were themselves veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and thus able to make effective use of it.
The present situation could hardly be more different.
The pattern of insurgent attacks in Chechnya over the past half-decade attests to the difficulty today of acquiring even a handful of rifles for would-be rebels. The remaining resistance has relied increasingly on blunt objects or even cars to strike security personnel, whose fallen weapons are then taken by the attackers. Yes, it’s possible that some of Kadyrov’s forces could desert or turn against him, weapons in tow, could desert or defect in the event of a serious insurrection amid further regime weakness, but even this equipment would be a far cry from the troves of tanks, armored vehicles, and other heavy weaponry that the Red Army left in 1991 Chechnya. The next revolution is unlikely to come with its own T-72s.
Taken as a whole, the picture painted above is certainly a depressing one for the reinvigorated Ichkerians hoping to move the fight from Ukraine to Chechnya after the Russian invasion in the former is defeated. But while it’s true that there are a number of difficult hurdles to overcome, the circumstances presently still look better for the possibility of a free Chechnya than at any point in the past two decades. The Russian state apparatus, and the federal funding on which Kadyrov’s entire regime depends, grows steadily weaker. Already, some taboos have been broken in Chechnya itself, with the first open protest of Ramzan’s entire rule taking place just months ago.
In this author’s experience, few Chechens (both inside Chechnya and beyond) doubt that Kadyrov’s fate will differ much from the grisly end of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader who was suddenly ousted in October 2011 after more than four decades in power and later bayoneted and shot in the street. All authoritarian regimes look stable — until they don’t.