Kremlin Gave Belgorod Region To Kadyrov

The regular army of the Russian Federation is not able to hold positions in the region.

The Zapad-Akhmat Battalion of Chechen militants was sent to counter Russian volunteers in the Belgorod region, will fight against ‘satanism’," the State Duma deputy Adam Delimkhanov said, The Moscow Times reports.

“Whoever crosses the border, we will destroy them. <...> We will soon cross and destroy them [Russian volunteers - Ed.] in the same place,” Delimkhanov said speaking before the militants.

An agreement to send the Akhmat Detachment to the Belgorod region was concluded on June 12 between Delimkhanov and the governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov. According to the latter, he held a "meeting to discuss the current situation in the region" with the Chechnya’s representative.

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, stressed that his detachment would operate jointly with other law enforcement agencies, including the National Guard, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and border troops. Their efforts will be aimed at counteracting Ukrainian volunteer detachments.

Kadyrov suggested sending Chechen units to the Belgorod region last week. According to him, they have experienced clashes with armed formations at home "in a wooded and mountainous area".

Kadyrov's initiative may have been linked to an attempt to avoid the participation of his fighters in the fighting in Ukraine itself, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a military analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also did not rule out that his mercenaries could go to the Belgorod region since the Ministry of Defence is not able to protect the region. At the same time, a conflict arose between Prigozhin and Kadyrov because of the statements of the head of the PMC about sending Kadyrov's people to the occupied territories of Ukraine. In particular, Prigozhin questioned whether they would be able to capture the entire Donetsk region.

The Kadyrovites earned the fame of "tiktok-troops" in Ukraine. As military experts noted, the militants filmed videos on the territories already occupied by the Russian army and simulated battles. According to ISW, Chechen detachments do not really participate in hostilities and are mainly deployed in the rear.

Since the end of May, groups of the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Free Russia Legion have invaded the territory of the Belgorod Region several times with raids. On May 22, they entered the Graivoron district, and on June 4 they took control of the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka. Also, the border town of Shebekino and Belgorod itself are subjected to regular shelling.

“Such a story is a very dangerous signal For Russia,” says Russian blogger Anatoly Nesmiyan (El Murid).

The fact that Moscow is forced to resort to the services of private armies to protect its borders points to the weakness of Moscow and its army.

The next step may be the loss of control over the territories of the Russian Federation.

“Manual approach: they started to distribute lands to their associates and fellows. Who will be presented with the Kursk and Bryansk regions? Well, then - according to the circumstances," Murid wrote in Telegram.