Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov receives order to replace Wagner troops at front: ‘Revenge for trying to blackmail Kremlin’ | War Ukraine and Russia

Kadyrov himself stated yesterday that the Chechens had received new orders. They had to “engage actively in battle” and “liberate a number of settlements”. For this they were sent to the front in Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, among others, the think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports.

It is the first time in a year that the Kadyrovites show themselves in the line of fire. In the past year they were mainly active in the rear, having previously fought in Mariupol, Shevyerodonetsk and Lysychansk. According to ISW, Kadyrov appears to have deliberately spared his troops rather than sending them to the front, suggesting that he would rather not throw his men into the ‘meat grinder’ of a place like Bachmut, although he uses ultra-nationalist rhetoric.

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The ISW suspects that the Kremlin wants to use Kadyrov’s troops as new shock troops, as Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner forces retreat after the fall of Bachmut. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been pushing for this since he met Kadyrov on March 13.

The extra shock troops at the front would allow the Russians to launch attacks in several places at the same time. However, the impact of the Kadyrovites may be more limited than hoped, as just a week ago Kadyrov said he only had 7,000 troops in Ukraine. That is a lot less than the tens of thousands of Wagner fighters that Prigozhin managed to mobilize.

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It also appears, according to ISW, that the Kremlin is trying to break the bond between Kadyrov and Prigozhin. Kadyrov jumped on Prigozhin’s bandwagon when he pressured the Russian Defense Ministry in early May to supply additional ammunition for the siege of Bachmut. Otherwise he would withdraw his troops. Kadyrov then said that his men would relieve the Wagner troops and asked Putin’s permission to do so.

“Putin may have seen Kadyrov’s behavior as a threat,” ISW said. “Kadyrov and Prigozhin also launched a successful information campaign together at the beginning of October last year to facilitate military command changes. Putin or the Russian military command may have ordered Kadyrov to become more active on the battlefield in revenge for trying to blackmail the Kremlin.”

In the meantime, things are thick between the Chechens of Kadyrov and the Wagner troops. Adam Delimkhanov, an ally of the former, called Wagner boss Prigozhin in a video message “a blogger who shouts and screams about all the problems”.

Delimkhanov called for this to stop, using the equivalent of “you” in Russian, much to the dismay of a top Wagner figure. “Some civilians should be put up against the wall because of the SHAME we have,” said Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian special forces officer with military intelligence experience. “We can always speak man to man,” he added.