Ukraine war: Chechens fighting for Kyiv say Russian troops are ‘like cattle for slaughter, leaving the ground covered with corpses’

Published

3 years ago

December 22, 2022

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In a bunker below the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut, a jihadi commander with a half a million-dollar Russian bounty on his head, joins his men in prayer.

Of the allies Ukraine has gathered in its war with Russia, among the most shadowy and deadly are the Chechens.

They are some of Vladimir Putin’s oldest enemies and among the hardest to film up close.

They are all marked men, wanted by Russia. Their movements are shrouded in secrecy. But Sky News gained access to their secret base near the frontline in one of Ukraine’s most savage battles.

During the time we spent filming them they shared insights into their foes that are worth listening to in the West.

We drove in fast on back roads to evade Russian spotters calling in artillery strikes. As we entered Bakhmut we passed gutted buildings and gaping craters, the sound of shelling was close and regular.

Inside the bunker we met some of the longest serving veterans of this war. The Chechen Sheikh Mansour Battalion has been fighting Russia in Ukraine since 2014. Their enemy’s tactics haven’t changed since this war began, they say.

“They’re sending forward troops like cattle for slaughter,” Chechen fighter Idris told us. “Leaving the ground covered with corpses. They do it every day they have no pity for their own people.”

It is the same kind of fighting Russia used in their homeland in the 1990s. From safe cover, commanders send conscripts in waves hoping to grind down their enemy with little care for their men.

Chechens have been fighting for an independent country since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After victory in the first Chechen war they were defeated by Russia, and Vladimir Putin installed a puppet leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, propping him up with billions of dollars in support.

He combines brutal repression with self-promotion on social media that veers from the sinister to the preposterous.

His Chechen forces fight on the side of Russia in this war. His Chechen enemies on the other. The conflict has given Chechen separatists a new arena for their struggle against their enemy.

Commander Muslim Cheberloyevskii leads the Sheikh Mansour battalion, one of their most active fighting units. He gives very few interviews but made an exception for Sky News. Before joining his men in Bakhmut we spoke to him on a video link to his secret location elsewhere in Ukraine.

“There can be no options here,” he said. “Russia must lose, and it must end there. If we do not defend Ukraine today, everyone will lose.”

The man who has fought Putin’s forces longer possibly than any other commander, used the interview to warn policy makers in the West they are not doing enough to defeat him.

“I think more support is necessary. The West provides support by portions, they are limited. Munitions are quickly used, they are not enough on the battlefield. If we had more, we could win quicker.”

In the bunker under Bakhmut there was the same message. Base commander Mansour has spent two decades fighting the Russians, eight of them spent in jail where he was tortured.

“I have no pity for them at all,” he said of his enemy. “Because God gave everyone a brain for thinking. If he’s not thinking he shouldn’t walk on the earth, he belongs below the ground.”

The history behind Chechnya’s battle with Russia

The Chechens have been fighting the Russians in their mountainous Caucasian homeland on and off since the days of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century. They pride themselves on their fighting spirit and warlike ability. As Muslims many of them regard their struggle with Moscow to be a jihad, or holy war.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, they fought in the mid-1990s to try and win independence and defeated Russian forces despite their enemy’s superior numbers and weapons.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russian forces retook control of Chechnya in the second Chechen war. The Russians used a pulverise and conquer strategy reducing most of the capital Grozny to rubble. They have applied the same tactics in Ukraine in cities like Mariupol.

Chechnya is now ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechen separatist turned Russian puppet, and his clan. He has used billions of dollars in Russian aid to fund a security state noted for brutal repression and over the top social media propaganda.

After years spread far and wide, Chechen freedom fighters are regrouping in Ukraine drawing in supporters from across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. When the war ends there, they hope to take their fight to Russia back home and win back their homeland.

And he warned Western leaders not to fall for Putin’s enticements to negotiate an end to this war.

“Even when they agree to negotiate and sign some documents, they do not follow them, they act treacherously.”

They are a sabotage unit, using weapons, some improvised, to strike the enemy in their trenches. Commander Mansour showed us a homemade rocket propelled grenade fashioned from a fire extinguisher packed with plastic explosives.

On a work bench nearby a suicide vest was being constructed. They wear them should Russians take them prisoner. The base is mined, they said, to blow up if the enemy should overrun it.

In an outbuilding, Deputy Commander Mansour showed off what he called his “Devil’s machine”, a rocket launcher improvised to fire converted mine clearance shells.

On his phone he shared video of the device in action at night. A fiery launch followed by a pause then a huge explosion in the distance lighting up the sky with a mushroom cloud of fire. The fighters shout Allahu Akbar: God is great.

They fight here hoping one day to take their holy war back to their homeland. Kadyrov is unpopular but well-funded and protected by thousands of well-armed security forces. When the war is over though they say they will continue fighting Russia, hoping to topple him.

Asadullah, a Ukrainian who converted to Islam and joined the battalion speaks for many of them.

“If today the war ends in Ukraine, and we win, for us it will not end,” he said.

“We will fight till that time when we destroy that empire of evil totally.”

For now though, that is a very long way off. We left their bunker and drove again at speed out of Bakhmut to a backdrop of artillery fire. Their enemy is destroying another Ukrainian city block by block in a grinding war of attrition no one looks close to winning.

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

9 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

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Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

21 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

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1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.