BY NICHOLAS BUTLER –
At first glance, Chechnya — the small Russian republic in the Northern Caucasus region — appears an unlikely candidate for substantial involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The republic is barely 0.1% of Russia’s total area, and contains less than 1% of Russia’s population. Perhaps even less likely is a scenario in which Chechens fight in Ukraine on both sides. Yet both situations are now playing out. To understand why, we must understand how Chechnya’s current religious and geopolitical circumstances developed.
Most Chechens converted to Islam between the 1500s and 1800s following the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into the Caucasus. In 1859, the Russian Empire conquered the territory, paving the way for it to become part of the eventual Soviet Union. While part of the Soviet Union, bitterly hostile relations formed between Chechnya and Russia, in no small part due to Joseph Stalin’s forced deportations of Chechens to Kazakhstan in 1944, which caused up to 200,000 Chechen deaths. Yet two events in 1991 caused a split in Chechen society that extensively influences Chechen involvement in Ukraine today: 1), the landslide election of former Soviet Air Force general Dzhokhar Dudayev as Chechen leader in October; and 2), the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December.
In 1992, Russia faced demands for independence or autonomy from many of its ethnic minorities. To prevent itself disintegrating as the Soviet Union had done, it proposed the “Federation Treaty”, which established the rights and powers of Russia’s (then) 89 federal subjects. Yet Dudayev supported complete Chechen independence from Russia, and rejected the treaty. Dudayev and his stance initially enjoyed overwhelming support from Chechens, but much of his popularity quickly evaporated. He severely mismanaged Chechnya, and resorted to dissolving Parliament to stay in power.
Consequently, an opposition to Dudayev began to form. As Russia opposed Chechen independence — partly for nationalist reasons, and partly to control oil pipelines running through Chechnya — it armed and financed this opposition, known as the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic. In November 1994, the PCCR attempted to overthrow Dudayev by force; their efforts were crushed. At this point, Russia released it could not oust Dudayev and crush the Chechen independence movement by proxy; it could only do so directly. Thus, Russia invaded Chechnya on December 11, 1994, starting the First Chechen War.
The war saw the rise of another key figure in the split in Chechen society. Akhmad Kadyrov, a supporter of Dudayev and a militia commander in the war, was appointed by Dudayev as Chechnya’s Chief Mufti in 1995. In 1996, separatist fighters won the war and forced Russia’s withdrawal. But this victory came at a price; during the war, a large number of Islamist foreign fighters had joined the separatists. (Furthermore, Dudayev had been assassinated.)
Though he had supported Dudayev and independence, Kadyrov, a Sufi Muslim, was deeply uncomfortable with the jihadism infecting the independence movement. Then, in 1999, the Second Chechen War began when Chechen jihadists invaded the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan, hoping to create a pan-Caucasian Islamic state. With this, Kadyrov could support the independence movement no more. He (and, crucially, his family) defected, supporting Russia and opposing independence. This was just as well for them, too; following the separatists’ invasion of Dagestan, Russian forces went back into Chechnya, and this time, successfully crushed the independence movement.
Following Russia’s victory in the second war, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Kadyrov as Chechnya’s leader, and he was elected Chechen President in 2003. He was assassinated by separatist forces the following year, after which Putin appointed his son, Ramzan Kadyrov, as his replacement. (Ramzan remains Chechen President today.)
Chechen society is thus divided by the issue of independence from Russia, which correlates with the leader that Chechens support. Those who support independence tend to follow Dudayev’s legacy; those who oppose it tend to support Kadyrov. And this divide dictates the side that a Chechen fighter in Ukraine takes: pro-independence fighters side with Ukraine, while anti-independence fighters side with Russia. (A 2003 poll found that 78% of Chechens oppose independence.)
But it is one thing to merely prefer that one side defeats the other. It is quite another to actually put one’s life on the line, trying to make that outcome a reality. So which factors drive Chechen fighters to take life-and-death risks for a country other than their own?
For pro-Ukraine fighters, two factors are important. Some of these fighters view war against Russia in Ukraine as a proxy war for Chechen independence; in their view, defeating Russia in Ukraine would make Chechen independence possible. As one fighter told journalists in 2015 (when the war was confined to eastern Ukraine): “If we defeat Russia here, we are closer to freeing our homeland.”
Some Chechen fighters on Ukraine’s side also feel solidarity with Ukraine, viewing it as a friend and ally, united by a common enemy which has oppressed both nations. Marat Iliyasov, a researcher of Chechen and Russian politics at Lithuania’s Vytautas Magnus University, says that “a kind of moral obligation to help people who are in such situations, and showing solidarity with them” motivates some fighters. And Chechen journalist Lana Estemirova has written that she is “tied to the Ukrainian people through a bloody bond.”
Understanding the reasons that pro-Russian Chechens are fighting in Ukraine appears somewhat more straightforward: many of them are blindly loyal to Kadyrov. As if to demonstrate this point, the paramilitary organisation responsible for the Chechen leader’s security is known as the Kadyrovtsy — which translates into English as “Kadyrov’s followers”.
For his part, Kadyrov ordered his men into Ukraine out of his intense loyalty to Putin. Some reasons for his loyalty may be complicated, but one is simple: money. In January this year, Kadyrov said that Chechnya “won’t be able to last three months, not even a month” without Russian money. So when Putin needed Chechen help in Ukraine, Kadyrov — eager to preserve both his positive relationship with Putin and Chechnya’s economy — was only too happy to oblige.
It is also worth noting the somewhat counterintuitive religious dynamics of both sides: even though Islamism and jihadism infected the Chechen independence movement during the 1990s wars, pro-Ukraine Chechen fighters have eschewed this religious bent. Marta Ter, an expert on Russian politics with the European Council on Foreign Relations, says that the fight of pro-Ukraine Chechens is “not being focused on the religious element.” Furthermore, the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, a pro-Ukraine Chechen militia founded in 2014, is “not strictly Muslim”.
Meanwhile, though pro-Russia Chechens fiercely oppose the jihadism that infects part of the independence movement, and practice a form of Sufi Islam unique to Russia, they are perfectly capable of religious fanaticism themselves. By way of example, Ramzan Kadyrov enforces sharia law in Chechnya, and in 2017, planned to have the republic’s gay community purged by the beginning of Ramadan.
Though the major separatist violence in the North Caucasus ended in December 2017, Chechen society is still riveted by the fissures that opened up in the 1990s. Following the end of the Second Chechen War, former Chechen politician Akhmed Zakayev expressed his hope that “starting with this day Chechens will never shoot at each other”. Unfortunately for the Chechens, as the war in Ukraine demonstrates, that day has not yet arrived.
