Former Wagner Group mercenaries are joining Chechnya’s Akhmat battalion and heading to the war in Ukraine, Akhmat Battalion Commander Apti Alaudinov told RIA Novosti, calling it a “mass influx.”
Alaudinov said he believes Wagner Group fighters choose the Akhmat battalion due to a “similar ethos between the commanders and fighters in the unit, a high level of training, and Akhmat’s provision of everything necessary for combat operations.”
In June, Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry of launching an attack on a Wagner camp. He subsequently led a short-lived rebellion. Prigozhin’s life came to an abrupt end in a plane crash in August. In late September, a Ukrainian soldier reported that Wagner mercenaries had returned to the Ukrainian battlefield.