‘Akhmat’ Amidst Scandals

Things are not going well for Kadyrov.

Even before the invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the “Akhmat” unit, which was supposed to guard the border, found itself at the center of a scandal due to war correspondents' words that Kadyrov's men were hiding behind conscripts.

Then, when the invasion took place, it turned out that “Akhmat” either could not, or did not even try to stop the Ukrainian Armed Forces invading Russian territory. Kadyrov's protégé, commander of the “Akhmat” unit Apti Alaudinov, has misled the audience many times, stating that the situation in the Kursk region is not critical and nothing terrible is happening. Then he denied that “Akhmat” fighters were captured (according to him, it was another “Akhmat”; there are indeed several such units, which causes great confusion).

Finally, the icing on the cake appeared over the weekend: a video of two Chechens robbing a mobile phone store abandoned by its owners in the Kursk region went viral on Telegram channels. Russian military bloggers confirmed that they were representatives of the Russian Armed Forces, and journalists managed to confirm that one of them belonged to the Chechen security forces.

It is not surprising that against such an information background, Kadyrov's PR people are launching fake sensations, such as the fact that Elon Musk almost personally sent Kadyrov a Cybertruck (it was initially clear that this was Kadyrov's trolling, but Musk himself later clarified that this was not true; I think the Cybertruck was simply bought for Kadyrov under a gray scheme in an Arab country).

However, it should be taken into account that, as Novaya Gazeta Evropa wrote, 80 percent of “Akhmat” under the command of Alaudinov is made not of Chechens, but of volunteers from other regions. It is believed that Kadyrov is sparing his own guard and not wasting it on the Ukrainian war; this guard may still be useful to him. So Kadyrov's losses so far are mainly reputational.

Dmitry Kolezev, Telegram

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