A native of Chechnya and former member of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), Noah Krieger — whose real name is Murad Dadayev — traveled to the war zone in Ukraine to fight on Russia’s side, a conclusion the German television channel n-tv drew from a series of videos he posted to his Instagram account.
Krieger began posting videos six days ago, apparently from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, the Telegram channel Astra reported.
Published photographs appear to place him in the Donetsk region. The independent Russian investigative outlet iStories reported that Krieger visited Avdiivka — in one image he stands near the ruins of the Avdiivka Coke Plant; in another he poses by the sign at the town’s entrance. Footage shows him surrounded by fighters from the Chechen Akhmat battalion.
In the caption to one of the videos, Krieger wrote: “I came here myself, in person, and saw with my own eyes what they show on television and what the news keeps silent about. I am here to verify everything firsthand. This is no joke, brothers. This is a brutal reality in which the fate of our Mother Russia is being decided.”
Whether Krieger is taking part in the fighting is unknown.
Dadayev had presented himself as “the first Chechen in German politics,” Deutsche Welle noted. He claimed to have obtained German citizenship through naturalization in 2024 and to have taken his German wife’s surname. That same year he joined the AfD. He has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram.
In its report, iStories noted that he wears German camouflage, uses a motto from Wehrmacht belt buckles in his posts, and quotes the first stanza of the German national anthem — the one Germany itself abandoned after the collapse of National Socialism.
In the spring of 2026, the AfD announced it had begun proceedings to expel Krieger from the party following his trip to Chechnya, where he met with government and security officials.
Murad Dadayev is the younger brother of Suleyman Dadayev, who Vienna police alleged took part in the 2009 murder of Ramzan Kadyrov’s opponent Umar Israilov.
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