Chechen сommander vows to join war in Palestine

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The commander of one of Russia’s Chechen military units has vowed to travel to Gaza to fight against Israeli forces.

On Monday evening, Zamid Chalaev, the commander of the 2nd Special Police Regiment named after Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov, posted a video on his Telegram channel purporting to show Palestinian snipers firing at Israeli soldiers. In an accompanying caption, Chalaev said, ‘We will be joining soon; it is only a matter of time’.

Chalaev’s comments were not the first from Chechen military commanders vowing to travel to Gaza to fight, though previous statements of this kind have not been followed by action.

Shortly after the Israel-Gaza war began, Chechen military officer Hussein Mezhidov, the current commander of the Akhmat Kavkaz regiment, also announced his plans to travel to Palestine. In Instagram stories posted in November 2023, he shared images of Palestinian soldiers along with the caption, ‘Brothers, I am coming [to help] you’.

Chechen officials have repeatedly commented on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, expressing support for the Palestinian people and criticising Israel’s actions.

Two days after the Hamas incursion into Israel on 7 October 2023 that sparked the current war, Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov called on Muslim world leaders to form a coalition to protect Palestinians. He stressed the need for joint efforts to prevent the bombing of civilians under Israel’s pretext of fighting militants.

‘I appeal to the leaders of Muslim countries — create a coalition and call upon those you call your friends, Europe and the entire West, to stop bombing civilians under the pretext of eliminating militants’, Kadyrov said.

On 17 October 2023, Kadyrov urged Israel to stop escalating the conflict and warned against provoking Muslims worldwide into taking retaliatory measures in response.

‘If the Israeli regime thinks that Palestine is alone and can be treated however they wish, they are deeply mistaken’, Kadyrov said at the time.

Three days later, Kadyrov described the fighting in Gaza as a genocide against Palestinian Muslims.

‘The images we see daily clearly show that each of us is witnessing an outright genocide of Palestinian Muslims’, Kadyrov declared

On 29 October 2023, Kadyrov likened Israel’s actions in Palestine to fascism.

‘In its brutality towards Palestine, Israeli fascism today is in no way inferior to, if not worse than, Hitler’s’, Kadyrov claimed.

On 29 October 2023, mass protests erupted at the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, triggered by the arrival of a flight from Tel Aviv. Hundreds of protesters stormed the airport, screening passengers and demanding an entry ban for Israelis. Buildings and vehicles were damaged during the unrest, and security forces were not immediately able to restore order. Later, Daghestani authorities called the incident a provocation, and the Russian Investigative Committee opened criminal cases over the riots.

On the same day, Chechnya’s Minister for National Policy, External Relations, Press, and Information, Akhmed Dudaev, urged an end to anti-Israel protests in the North Caucasus.

‘We do not have the right to project the actions of Israel’s criminal leadership onto all Jewish people’, said Dudaev.

But in March 2024, Kadyrov censored a quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin, removing any mention of Jews. The censorship affected a post related to the President’s annual address to the Federal Assembly.

On 2 October 2024, Chechnya officially registered Palestinian national-cultural autonomy as a legal entity. Since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, Chechnya has been accepting Palestinian refugees and issuing them Russian passports.

At the same time, the publicly stated foreign policy positions of Chechen leaders still appear to be constrained by the guiding views set by the Kremlin.

In December 2024, commenting on the overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Chechen Akhmat commander Apti Alaudinov urged Syrians to fight not against Assad — who is backed by the Kremlin — but instead against Israel.

Elizaveta Chukharova •

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Liza was born and raised in Vladikavkaz and now lives in Prague. She has previously worked for RFE/RL, ASTRA, Belsat, and others. She is currently completing her Master's degree in Russian Studies at Charles University in Prague, specialising in the study of military and inter-ethnic conflicts in the North Caucasus. In her free time, Liza shoots feature films, writes about cinema, and travels — she has visited exactly 50 countries and is not going to stop there.