As the Russia - Ukraine conflict enters 3rd week, the situation is becoming brutal.
According to the UN, 3 million are displaced and half of them are children.
Civilian deaths are rising and some Ukrainian cities have now been reduced to rubble.
As the hostilities ensue, two groups one pro-Ukraine and another pro-Russia
have come into focus - these are the Azov battalion and Chechen fighters.
They are potentially two of the most lethal forces available to Ukraine and Russia.
Both are thought to have committed war crimes before the conflict and have a menacing influence.
While Chechen are equipped mainly with
Russian equipments, the Azov battalion has western weapons and training.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how the Azov battalion & Chechen fighters
are impacting the Russia - Ukraine conflict? Let's get into the details.
Azov is a far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit whose members are ultra-nationalists
and accused of harboring neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.
The group has a strength of around 1000.
The battalion was initially formed as a volunteer group
in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine gang (founded in 2005)
and the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) group (founded in 2008).
The unit was led by Andriy Biletsky who served as the leader of both these units.
The battalion fought on the front lines against pro-Russian separatists
in Donetsk, the eastern region of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin referenced the presence of such units
within the Ukrainian military as one of the reasons for launching his
so-called “special military operation … to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine”.
Viewers may note that a few months after recapturing
the strategic port city of Mariupol from the Russian-backed separatists,
the unit was officially integrated into the National Guard of Ukraine on November 12, 2014.
President Petro Poroshenko had stated at that time,
“These are our best warriors, our best volunteers".
The unit received backing from Ukraine’s interior minister in 2014. This was mainly because the
government had felt that the own military was too weak to fight off the pro-Russian separatists
and need the support of the Azov battalion.
The group had received funding from oligarchs – the most known being
Igor Kolomoisky who is a billionaire businessman and the former Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
Interestingly in 2015, Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment at the time
said that 10 to 20 % of Azov’s recruits were Nazis.
The unit has denied it obey to Nazi ideology as a whole, but Nazi symbols such as the
swastika and SS regalia can be seen in the uniforms and bodies of Azov members.
The Chechens are one of the largest ethnic groups that may be traced back thousands
of years to the North Caucasus' highlands. While their presence dates back centuries,
their struggle for independence and autonomy has defined much of their recent history.
Moscow fought two wars with separatists in Chechnya,
a mainly Muslim region in southern Russia, after the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
But it has since poured huge sums of money into the region to rebuild it
and given Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov, who is a Chechen strongman, a large measure of autonomy.
Kadyrov is the son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov who switched sides in the Second
Chechen War offering his service to Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia
and becoming Chechen President in 2003.
He is one of the most outspoken advocates of not just initiating
a military operation against Ukraine but also supporting annexing the entire country
in the weeks leading up to Putin's declaration of war.
A few days ago, Chechen television channel Grozny posted a video on its Telegram social
media channel that showed Kadyrov in a darkened room in military uniform discussing with Chechen
troops a military operation they said took place 7km (4.3 miles) from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
According to reports, he deployed 10,000 soldiers to Ukraine, including his three sons,
one of whom is 14.
But not all Chechens are on their government’s side.
Heavily armed fighters have joined the war on the side of Ukraine
and pictures have circulated on social media showing Chechen fighters wearing
yellow armbands which are used to identify Ukrainian forces.
Both of these groups are battle-hardened and are well equipped.
The deployment of Chechens is seen as an intimidation tactic by President Putin.
Russian channels have been broadcasting footage
leveraging the presence of Chechen soldiers in Ukraine.
Initially, Russia may have thought that it could gain a quick victory
but this has not worked out that way.
The actual help the Chechens are able to provide to the Russian can only be accessed
after the end of the conflict. The need for the deployment
of these foreign fighters in itself puts a question mark on the
effectiveness of the Russian Army when it comes to urban warfare.
Even in places where Chechen fighters have scored gains, Ukrainian security forces
have halted their attacks to an extent. Earlier, a group of Chechen assassins
sent to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “eliminated”
after their plot was foiled, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
In the attack, Ukrainian forces killed top Chechen general Magomed Tushayev, head of the
141 motorized regiment of the Chechnya National Guard.
A video posted on Twitter seemed to suggest that Azov fighters of
the National Guard greased the bullets with lard to be used against Chechen.
This conflict is opening a can of worms and the fact remains the way these two groups
perform on the battlefield will have a large impact on the overall conflict.