No Ukrainian POWs held in Chechnya – former spokesman for Chechen battalion fighting on Ukraine's side
Islam Belokiev, a former spokesman for the Sheikh Mansur Chechen Battalion fighting on the side of Ukraine, has stated that the words of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov about Ukrainian prisoners of war in Gudermes are a lie.
Source: Belokiev in a comment to Kavkaz.Realii, a local project of Radio Liberty on the Caucasus
Quote: "There are no Ukrainian prisoners in Chechnya. They are held in other regions, and Kadyrov's men sometimes go there for filming stuff. Only sometimes they can be temporarily brought to Chechnya for a staged video, and then immediately taken back."
Details: Belokiev said that Kadyrov wanted to protect his important facilities from Ukrainian drone strikes by announcing that he was holding prisoners of war in Chechnya.
However, he added that this brought up the question: was the UAV that attacked the university really launched by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, or could the attack be carried out by opponents of the current leadership of the republic inside Russia?
Earlier, Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster, citing sources in the Ukrainian security services, reported that the drones could have been launched from the territory of Ingushetia or Dagestan, autonomous republics that de jure are parts of the Russian Federation. An investigator from InformNapalm (a Ukrainian volunteer initiative aiming to inform Ukrainians and foreign readers about the Russo-Ukrainian war), who wished to remain anonymous, said such a scenario was hypothetically possible, given the tensions in the Caucasus over the struggle for the Wildberries marketplace between Kadyrov and his entourage, on the one hand, and the ruling clans of neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia, on the other.
Background:
- Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reported a drone attack on the Russian Special Forces University in the city of Gudermes in Chechnya on 29 October.
- On 30 October, Kadyrov claimed that Ukrainian prisoners of war were being held at a university in Chechnya which he said was attacked by a drone on 29 October, and had been killed in the attack.
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