🚔 New publication klaxon!
A new publication has just hit the shelves that might be of interest to you! It's a book chapter entitled The Kadyrovtsy: A Private Army in Chechnya and Beyond. I contributed a small part to it, but the main work was done by Cerwyn Moore and Annamária Kiss.
Here's the abstract:
This chapter introduces some of the literature on auxiliary military forces, paramilitary groups, and private military forces to locate the kadyrovtsy, Chechen security forces loyal to the Kadyrov family, as a semiofficial armed actor operating with impunity due to patronal protection under the political conditions specific to post-Soviet Russia and the North Caucasus. Their historical origins and consolidation as the core element of the Chechen security forces is discussed in detail, presenting the underlying network, including institutional and personal links, that connect the kadyrovtsy. Subsequently, the chapter considers the nature of the links between the Kremlin and particular Russian military and security institutions on the one hand, and the Chechen security forces and more narrowly the kadyrovtsy on the other. The final part of the chapter deals with some of the external operations of the kadyrovtsy, beyond Chechnya, reflecting how they have expanded further since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The chapter is published in the new Palgrave Handbook of Non-State Actors in East-West. If you work in an institution, you might already access — but if you don't, just let me know and I'll see if I can help ;)
In other news, it's August, which means that a lot of you are on holiday and would like to avoid the world as much as humanly possible. Which is fair! Therefore, unless something really major happens (other than the first invasion of Russia since WWII...), I'm not going to publish for a couple of weeks. I should be back in your inbox in early September!
In the news
🚔 Apty Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat spetsnaz “volunteer” unit, reported that one of his detachments would deploy to Kursk Oblast to help repel Ukraine’s invasion. Some Telegram channels have accused Akhmat spetsnaz of failing to hold their positions in the face of the offensive. The “I want to live” (khochu zhit) project run by the Ukrainian military published footage of what it said were more than 20 captured Akhmat personnel, of which three were reportedly from Groznyy.
🚨 Russia declared a counterterrorism operation (kontreterroristicheskaya operatsia, KTO) in Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk Oblast in response to Ukraine’s invasion.
🪖 A former fighter with the Wagner private military company (PMC) who was arrested after returning from Russia’s war on Ukraine has reportedly killed his cellmate while awaiting trial.
🪖 A court in Voronezh has sentenced a Kyrgyzstan native who fought with Wagner to 16 years for murdering two people. Yaroslav Shekhovtsov, a former head of Wagner’s medical service, killed two fellow fighters during Wagner’s “march of justice” in June 2023. Shekovtsov claimed it was self defence after he refused to participate in Wagner’s uprising.
💣 Dagestan should institute an award for ‘how not to report on terrorism,’ because the local Interior Ministry have probably already come up with the winning entry. A Telegram channel reportedly run by the ministry’s press service claimed the authorities were looking for 41-year-old Ali Demilkhanov, a native of Chechnya, for opening fire on police during a document check. The report claimed that Demilkhanov has been seen in a niqab and appealed for information. What the press service forgot to mention — and the Interior Ministry later needed to clarify, after media reported it as a new attack — was that the incident occurred in 2017! The authorities do have precedent for getting it wrong on Demilkhanov: In 2016, the Chechen Interior Ministry reported that he had been killed. Excellent work all round.
🪖 Christopher Faulkner considers Wagner’s recent setback in Mali and argues that recent successes may have led to overconfidence. He also notes that discontent within the Malian military over French counterterrorism support contributed to coups in 2020 and 2021, suggesting the potential for such tensions to be replicated with regard to Russia.
💣 The Interior Ministry in Kabardino-Balkaria claims that it has discovered a cell of an unidentified international extremist organisation, organised by three local residents. It is unclear if the people have been detained.
Visual reference guide
Some of you are only interested in one of the topics that I cover. That's cool! Use the emojis to quickly see which topic a story relates to — so you only need to read the material that matters to you.
🪖 — Private military companies
💣 — Terrorism & insurgency
🚔 — Chechen security services
👺 — The Chechen elite
🚨 — Other security-related issues