Alaudinov, the new Chechen Prigožin

The commander of the Akhmat battalion continues to spread videos and messages for his 300,000 followers. Since the beginning of the clashes in Kursk everyone in Russia has been quoting him and inviting him more and more often on various war propaganda talk-shows.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The commander of the Chechen Akhmat battalion, the 51-year-old general-major Apti Alaudinov, is well known in the war chronicles of the past two and a half years as one of the main protagonists of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As the leader of the Kadyrovtsy, the fighters most loyal to the head of the Groznyj republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, he is considered the ‘armed wing’ of the president, whose health condition is often compared to possible successors, of which Alaudinov is one of the most repeated names.

For some time now, the leading role of the ‘Chechen butchers’ seems to be expanding to more complex dimensions, especially in the context of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kursk region, where Apti has been sent to organise the defence and reconquest of villages that have come under Kiev's control.

Formally, Alaudinov resigned from the army, while retaining command of the Akhmat, and in early September launched a provocative question on his Telegram channel: ‘Why is the enemy still in the Kursk region?’, suggesting that the blame lies with the ineptitude of the other military leaders. In this, the Chechen general retraces the footsteps of the late head of Wagner Company, Evgenij Prigožin, who had turned against the leaders of the Russian army, whom he judged to be imbecile.

In his messages, Alaudinov lists the Ukrainian forces deployed in Kursk (200 tanks, 400 armoured vehicles, 12,000 soldiers to begin with), speaking against the background of the green flag with the golden star of the battalion dedicated to Akhmat Kadyrov, the former Chechen president who was the victim of an assassination attempt and father of the current leader, concluding that ‘all this must be destroyed and exterminated as soon as possible’.

Since the beginning of the clashes in Kursk, he has been the main public source of information on what was happening, and continues to spread videos and messages for his 300,000 followers; everyone mentions him and invites him more and more often on various war propaganda talk-shows.

His increasingly active presence is not only limited to information on the events of the war, and the media has revived the hypothesis that the Kremlin is preparing him to replace Kadyrov, who is only a few years younger than him, but whose future is increasingly uncertain, despite the fact that the Chechen president continues to flaunt the frequent ‘restorations and cuts’ to his ailing health, and that he is able to remain in his post without hesitation.

The Akhmat commander received the title ‘Hero of Russia’ in April, and was appointed deputy head of the administration for military-political affairs of the Moscow Defence Ministry, resigning from the occupation corps in the Ukrainian region of Lugansk.

The new hero comes from a family exterminated in the war in Chechnya at the beginning of the Putin regime, an exponent of the ‘federalist’, i.e. pro-Russian, wing of the Caucasian republic, much more so than Kadyrov himself.

After a rapid career he became a member of the Groznyj government, only to fall into the shadows around 2020, retiring to private life in Moscow. The invasion of Ukraine offered him the chance to redeem himself, putting together in the Akhmat fighters not only from Chechnya, but from all parts of Russia, at first as a group of volunteers and then integrating into the Russian army in June 2023, immediately after the Prigožin uprising.

With his new role as a military and media player in the Kursk clash, Alaudinov is appealing to a wider audience, also trying to involve as many volunteers as possible in the mobilisation.

Many Russians feel nostalgia for a commander as unscrupulous and popular as the leader of Wagner Company was, and the question is to what extent the new Chechen idol of the most extreme militarists acts on his own behalf, from Grozny or Moscow, or whether the Kremlin finds it necessary to have a pawn capable of playing different roles in the strategies of the war.

• Russia
• Chechnya
• Alaudinov
• Kadyrov
• Prigožin