Chechen unit accused of blowing up Belgorod apartment block

Chechen unit accused of blowing up Belgorod apartment block

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In the western Russian city of Belgorod, fighters of the Akhmat Chechen unit participating in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine set off an explosion in a two-storey apartment block. One of the soldiers of the unit was reportedly killed and four others injured.

The incident was reported by the ASTRA Telegram channel, which cited comments from the owner of the house where the explosion occurred, as well as sources from the region’s emergency services. However, there has been no official confirmation of ASTRA’s version of the incident.

The building’s landlord, identified only as 59-year-old Elena S., reportedly told ASTRA that she had hosted the Akhmat fighters herself on a ‘voluntary basis’ — she only charged them for utilities. Elena said that she met the soldiers by chance and let them in ‘out of the goodness of her heart’. She refused to answer any further questions from journalists.

According to ASTRA’s sources, an unspecified type and amount of ammunition stored by the soldiers exploded in the house. A fifth person, a police officer who had travelled to the scene, was also injured in the detonation.

Around 40 residents from 17 neighbouring houses were evacuated, and two other private houses were damaged. The local authorities did not name the cause of the explosion and fire, nor did they corroborate ASTRA’s accounts regarding injuries and a fatality.

‘According to preliminary information, there are no dead and injured. This is the main thing! [...] The causes of the fire are being established. The incident is not related to the shelling of the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine]’, Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov wrote on his Telegram channel.

Officials also did not address the claims that Chechen Akhmat fighters were responsible for the incident.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the Chechen Akhmat unit has gained notoriety for reportedly focusing more on filming themselves than actually performing combat duties, earning the online moniker of TikTok soldiers. According to military experts and eyewitnesses, Chechen soldiers often remain on Ukrainian territory already captured by Russia, where they take videos purporting to show ‘combat’, but in reality are of soldiers shooting at already destroyed houses and performing fake rescue missions.

The Akhmat unit is also known for its involvement in a number of notable conflicts, which have been reported on by both Russian state media and pro-war propagandists.

In one incident, Chechen military officers in the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol beat up Russian military police at a checkpoint because officers asked to see their documents. None of the participants in the incident were punished.

In August 2024, Chechen fighters staged a shooting in the town square of Valuiki, Belgorod Oblast, filmed it, and uploaded it online. Although the footage was widely distributed, those involved in the incident once again went unpunished.

On 31 May 2024, Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov announced the redeployment of Chechen fighters to Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the full-scale war. The following month, he proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Chechen units should be sent to Belgorod to fight sabotage groups.

On 13 June, Kadyrov reported that the West-Akhmat battalion would go to Belgorod, where they would be involved in preventing sabotage.

Pro-war Russian blogger accuses Chechen ‘Akhmat’ fighters of torture

Yegor Guzenko, the author of the Telegram channel Thirteenth, has claimed that he was tortured by Chechen fighters.

OC MediaElizaveta Chukharova