I first met Kazbek last spring on a Ukrainian military base on the frontline in the Donbas. With his well-tended beard, he looked like a typical Chechen. I was surprised to see him. Chechens in Ukraine were, I thought, all fighting for Russia under orders from their leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin’s psychopathic puppet leader of Chechnya. I was wrong.

Russia’s victory in the Second Chechen War, which ended in April 2000, cemented Putin’s position as President. It also resulted in the levelling of Chechnya’s capital, Grozny. Many of those who had fought the Russians fled abroad, fanning out across Europe and the Middle East. But some were not done, and they eventually ended up in Ukraine, determined to keep battling Moscow wherever they could. Today, there are four dedicated Chechen battalions, at least two of which, the Dzhokhar Dudayev and Sheikh Mansur Battalions, have been fighting since the war began in 2014.

Kazbek is one of around 200 Chechens here. After leaving his home country in the 2000s, he married a Ukrainian woman and had a son, Deni. He considers himself a Chechen-Ukrainian. In the Donbas, the soldiers treat him like a cooler older brother. “He’s a great fighter,” my friend Dima told me. “Really good at tactics.”

That in itself isn’t surprising: Kazbek has been fighting Russians since the first Chechen War broke out in 1994. “Everyone rose up — women, children went to the mountains and the men went to war — every man,” he tells me now. He pauses. “We had no fear of the Russians,” he tells me. “Only rage.”

***

We drive out of Dnipro toward the base. Kazbek’s immaculate beard has grown, in eight months, into a bushy mass with an upturned moustache. His head remains a perfectly shaved, symmetrical dome. Now he is accompanied by his friend Yevgeny (half-Chechen, half-Ukrainian), who puts on some Chechen music. “Bro, first we go to the cemetery, is that ok?”

We pull off the motorway onto a side road and a sea of blue and yellow flags comes into view, surrounding the many rows of headstones. Lines of Ukrainian soldiers stand by the graves, many with their heads bowed in mourning. We drive through the cemetery until we arrive at a gate with a crescent moon on it: the Muslim section.

The favoured style of gravestone is black marble — with a portrait of the deceased. The graves are in rows, with the first line made up of mounds of earth: the latest arrivals have not yet had enough time to get headstones. We walk to one side where Kazbek and Yevgeny pause by a grave marked by a simple headstone with “Amina” written across it.

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Amina, Kazbek explains, was the wife of his comrade, Adam, and a famous fighter in Ukraine. She was shot by a gunman: a Kadyrovite not a Chechen, he is keen to stress. (In Ukraine, people only ever refer to Russia’s Chechen units like this, to demarcate them from those fighting for Kyiv.) Kadyrov and the Russian FSB are determined to hunt down all Chechens fighting for Ukraine and have deployed assassins across the country. The gunman was caught and sent to prison, but was then traded in a prisoner swap for Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker and activist from Crimea.

Kazbek and Yevgeny pose for a photo by the grave. Kazbek raises his finger skywards to show there is only one God, Allah. Religion is on his mind as we leave the graveyard. “Muslims, Jews, Christians, we all have one God. It’s the same school, just different classrooms.” This is Islam, Chechen-style. Religion is central to Kazbek’s life. “But I became a man in war. Before I never prayed to God,” he later told me. “My first weapon was a training rifle. We made Molotov cocktails — we had nothing else. When the sun rose on the second day of war, I had already seen many of my friends and neighbours die; I saw Russian planes in the sky. That was the day I learned how to pray.”

But his Islam is one that eschews fanaticism and a hatred of other religions. On his uniform he has, among other things, an Israeli flag. “The Israelis have helped Ukraine a lot in this war,” he explains.

Kazbek loves Ukraine but his time here has not always been straightforward. When he arrived, he had to convince many people that, as a Chechen, he was neither a terrorist nor a “barbarian”. Even today, like so many other Chechens fighting for Ukraine, he has not been granted citizenship. They have been promised it, but there are always more bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. It never ends.

“Getting a passport is a big problem because I have a shit Russian passport,” he tells me. “It’s wrong that a soldier cannot get a passport after all these years. I can get documents to fight in the war but not to live here as a citizen. It’s not about the Ukrainian people, who are great, but about bureaucracy.” In that sense, his situation reminds me of the many difficulties that those other fierce and effective soldiers, the Gurkhas, had in obtaining British citizenship.

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I ask Kazbek if there is anything the Chechens could teach the Ukrainians. “Most of all,” he says, “we show Ukraine that Russia can be defeated.” He never wants to be seen as boasting, so he adds quickly, “today, Ukraine is teaching the Chechens. Now I am studying how best to fight the Russians here. My unit are my brothers. Brothers in war, brothers in religion. Brothers in heart.”

This is unsurprising. He has been fighting in Ukraine for a long time; he was, he tells me, the first Chechen to do so. Soon after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, he volunteered to join the army. He knew war was coming. He knew from Chechnya what the Russians would do. “I joined the 34th battalion,” he tells me. “And I went to fight in the East, I fought in Donetsk and Gorlovka. We got up close and saw fear in their eyes. And God helped us to win because truth is on our side.”

Kazbek adores Ukrainian rap and turns up the sound system. “Don’t fuck with Ukraine!” belts out in what has become an official anthem here. “I got ice in my veins/Loaded guns I’m insane/fight for peace in my land.” As we drive, Kazbek downs cans of Red Bull. “Russian Warship, go fuck yourself,” concludes the song. The music is fitting. Kazbek is a stormtrooper; his job is to attack Russian positions and kill as many of them as possible. “David, we take the fight to the Russians and only God knows who will win.”

We drive deep into the Donbas and once more Kazbek is in a thoughtful mood. “The problem is the Russians — they are imperialists in their hearts. Britain and France both had empires, but they passed into history. There is not one day Russia has not had an empire, or tried to have one.” He continues: “The industrial Revolution came, and the French and English realised that they needed to invest in the economy, in diplomacy. But the Russians are exactly like they were 300 years ago — just with gadgets.”

Kazbek’s words hint at something often overlooked in Western Europe and the United States. For Chechens and Ukrainians, as well as Georgians and Kyrgyz and Kazakhs and all the peoples of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), this war is about many things — but at heart it is an anti-colonialist struggle. That is why few here were surprised when, last year, Putin compared himself to Peter the Great; he openly admits to sharing the Tsar’s goal of returning “Russian lands” to a greater empire. When I speak to people from across the FSU, opinions on Ukraine are often mixed, but they all admire Ukrainians for standing up to Moscow. They know it could be them next.

As we close in on the base, Kazbek slows down and looks over at me. “Look, David, we want to live, not die. And we don’t have to die for Ukraine. All we have to do is kill for it.”

But despite this bleak picture, one man has stood firm in his support for the invasion, both financially and with man-power: Ramzan Kadyrov.

Kadyrov is the governor of Chechnya, the small region in the North Caucasus that has repeatedly fought for its independence against Russian rule. Putin reintegrated the region in the early 2000s with the help of Kadyrov’s father, Akhmad. Following the assassination of Akhmad in 2004 by Chechen Islamists, Kadyrov developed a close relationship with Putin, frequently likened to that of father and son. He eventually took over as the head of Chechnya in 2007, receiving the Russian president’s full backing.

The personalist nature of this relationship is crucial: Kadyrov’s loyalty does not extend to the government or Russia, it is only to Putin himself. This has meant that Kadyrov has grown bolder throughout his rule, clashing with security services and even flouting federal policies. Suffice it to say, support for Kadyrov in the Kremlin does not reach much further than the president’s office. This history is important for evaluating the size of the gamble Kadyrov is taking in his support for the invasion, and what he has already gained.

In Chechnya itself, Kadyrov’s rule is characterised by brutal, indiscriminate violence. His campaign to purge the republic of its LGBTQ community, part of a policy of extrajudicial executions, is well-documented. At the start of this year, he embarked on his anti-dissident war with renewed vigour, conducting mass kidnappings of critics’ relatives. This included violently abducting Zarema Musaeva, the mother of a Chechen human rights lawyer, from Nizhny Novgorod in January; she is still held by police.

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This violence has been carried out by the Chechen security services, known as the kadyrovtsy, which operate as Kadyrov’s personal army. These units rarely leave Chechnya, and even then, only for training exercises. Kadyrov mobilised his top commanders and units at the beginning of February, sending them to the staging areas near the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. Moving as one large group, the units known to be involved in the invasion are the “Sever” and “Yug” Battalions (“North” and “South,” respectively), the “Akhmat-Grozny” riot (OMON) police unit, and the “Akhmat” rapid-response (SOBR) police unit.

Allegedly deployed on March 22nd is the Akhmat Kadyrov Police Regiment, the most notorious in Chechnya, and possibly in Russia. This is the unit largely responsible for the extrajudicial executions and the anti-LGBTQ purges. While Kadyrov claims they are now in Ukraine, he has faked their deployment before, and they just returned from a SWAT competition in the UAE.

The most important leader within these units is Magomed Tushaev, commander of “Sever” Battalion. While his counterpart in the “Yug” Battalion, Khusein Mezhidov, has appeared more prominently in propaganda clips, Tushaev played a more significant role in the psychological warfare during the military buildup and the initial days of the invasion, stemming from the brutal reputation developed by Tushaev’s unit during counterterrorism operations in Chechnya.

Tushaev was rumoured to have been killed on February 26th, the kadyrovtsy’s worst day of casualties. It soon transpired that he was, in fact, alive, yet many of Kadyrov’s opponents abroad keep repeating it, allowing Tushaev’s presence to continuously make them look foolish.

In addition to these units’ leaders, Kadyrov sent in his cousins: brothers Sharip Delimkhanov, commander of Rosgvardia in Chechnya, and Alibek Delimkhanov, deputy commander of Rosgvardia’s North Caucasus forces. Their final brother, Adam, is a Duma parliamentarian from Chechnya who is now overseeing the kadyrovtsy’s operations in Mariupol. These units were engaged near Kyiv but could not take sufficient ground to carry out their objective: assassinating President Zelenskyy. Accordingly, Kadyrov pulled them back to Chechnya, deploying new, unidentified units near Mariupol under the leadership of Adam Delimkhanov. These reinforcements also failed the crucial task of taking the Azovstal metallurgy plant, which instead had to be bombed.

Kadyrov’s financial backing for the invasion has come from the Akhmat Kadyrov Fund (AKF), his family’s private slush fund. It was primarily created by embezzling federal subsidies to the republic and racketeering businesses and state employees. As part of the war effort, the AKF has supplied food and equipment to his troops on the frontlines, as well as military vehicles to the authorities of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. He has also used his corrupt slush-fund to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Melitopol, which is under Russian occupation.

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The invasion may still be in its infancy, but a number of consequences of Kadyrov’s gamble are already visible. Most obviously, his information war has proved a success. He continuously makes his critics look foolish about the fact that Tushaev is alive, and he has been able to stage rallies in support of the invasion far beyond Chechnya. Kadyrov’s simultaneous campaign to court the Arabic-speaking world has also helped keep Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from siding against Russia in the pitched economic battle. For Putin, at least, this is enough to justify his decision to make Kadyrov Russia’s chief diplomatic emissary to the Muslim world — even if it does backfire when he prioritises Muslim issues over Kremlin policy, such as with his support for the Ronhingya.

In elite politics, Kadyrov is also coming out ahead. His strong support for Putin, when others were more hesitant, is a clear win. The domestic turmoil in both the FSB and Rosgvardia — exacerbated by American and Ukrainian intelligence disclosures pointing to leaks from the security services — plays to his advantage. Kadyrov’s long-running feud with federal security service leadership means that, the more endangered their futures become, the more secured his is.

Yet not everything is going to plan. For all his propaganda victories, Kadyrov’s biggest loss is that the kadyrovtsy’s reputational bubble has burst. Almost everyone, except the Chechen propaganda circus, has noted that his army has not engaged in fighting, but has still sustained significant casualties. This is likely to embolden his opponents among the Russian political elite, who may fear him a little less, making increased confrontation possible.

In Chechnya, too, his position will be weakened. There currently are and will be fewer kadyrovtsy, as many are engaged, while others have been killed, in Ukraine. It is also important to remember that not all of the kadyrovtsy are devout members of the Kadyrov cult of personality. Forced recruitment into their ranks has long been used as a tactic for containing societal discontent, but failure will only exacerbate it.

For the time being, however, Kadyrov is performing adequately. He is not doing as well as he would hope, but he is certainly not faring poorly, and is generally proving his value to Putin. The elite conflict among security elites could flip on him, but his propaganda victories should keep that at bay.

None of this is to say his safety is guaranteed. In the coming weeks, several trends should be closely watched to see how Kadyrov’s luck holds — the clearest of which is the continued invasion. For now, continued war means continued opportunities for propaganda, one of his favorite activities. This is representative of his regime, prioritising flash over substance. But while Tushaev may not have been killed, the abundance of Kadyrov’s trusted advisors in the field increases the odds of this happening to his allies. Were a number of them to perish, he could quickly find himself isolated.

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Then there are the worsening socioeconomic conditions in Chechnya. According to the region’s authorities, there is “no deficit of sugar”, one of the key economic benchmarks; according to reports, the AKF is now handing out sugar to some families. No doubt Kadyrov will keeping a close eye on this: socioeconomic concerns have proved to be the only mobilising grievance for the Chechen public in the current repressive atmosphere. This previous expression of dissent was led by women, who may also now have sons fighting and dying in Ukraine. Women have already led protests elsewhere in the North Caucasus, making this a distinct possibility in Chechnya.

Added to this is the fact that the entire North Caucasus region now faces mass economic disruptions from the new sanctions regime. While experts have noted the region’s potential resilience to the sanctions’ effects, their repercussions on the federal budget are not yet clear. The fate of the federal subsidies, upon which the North Caucasus relies, is still undecided.

The final threat to Kadyrov is the reshuffling of the elite hierarchy. While Kadyrov is currently edging out federal security officials, his advantage may not hold in the long run. Anticipating this, he is trying to earn federal recognition as the North Caucasus’s most important leader. Yet the Kremlin has worked to establish Sergei Melikov, head of neighbouring Dagestan, as a regional counterweight to Kadyrov — as most non-Putin officials in the Kremlin are wary of his influence in this corner of Russia. Whether he poses a significant threat to Kadyrov is still unclear: at a recent national security meeting, Kadyrov took the opportunity to, quite literally, shunt Melikov to the side. Elite jockeying is, after all, an art of longevity.

It was proof that, for now at least, Kadyrov remains in a strong position. But the consequences of Russia’s latest incursion into Ukraine are still coming into focus. The fate of the war has yet to be decided and the full effects of sanctions have not been felt. When the dust finally settles, Kadyrov may not be standing where he thought he was.