After the Kremlin denied having ground troops in Syria, the Russian leadership was surprised by Ramzan Kadyrov’s statement that Chechen special forces were fighting in the Middle East against the Islamic State (IS). A trailer for a program produced by the Russian federal TV channel Rossiya 1 (Russia.tv, February 7) states that “Chechen special forces obtain information about the structure and the number of terrorists in the Islamic State and identify targets for Russian airstrikes” (Kommersant, February 8). Last October, Kadyrov did ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to dispatch his men to Syria to fight the Islamic State (RIA Novosti, …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation