A close ally of Putin claims 23 soldiers were killed in a single Ukrainian shelling strike. Ramzan Kadyrov, the ruler of Chechnya and a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced on Thursday that 23 of his men had been killed and 58 others injured in an artillery attack by Ukraine this week.
Kadyrov: 23 soldiers killed and 58 injured in one strike
Given that pro-Moscow forces have rarely acknowledged significant battlefield defeats since the war began, Kadyrov’s remarks were unexpected. Kadyrov claimed the event happened in the southern Kherson region in a Telegram statement.
There is a full list of the dead and injured, and 23 soldiers were killed and 58 were injured, he said. “All rescue efforts at the scene have been concluded,” he added.
Chechnya, a province in southern Russia with a plurality of Muslims, is ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, who identifies himself as a foot soldier for Putin and claims to have deployed thousands of soldiers to participate in the conflict.
Yes, we suffered significant losses that morning, but Chechens were engaged in jihad, and if they were to perish in the holy war, it would be an honor and a source of great delight for every real Muslim, he remarked.
Kadyrov rarely confirms his forces’ losses
Reports about “Kadyrovites” killed in the Russia’s war in Ukraine have appeared in the media since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but Kadyrov rarely confirmed high losses.
This week, Ukrainian military channels reported that a large group of Chechens had been killed in one strike – numbers ranging from fifty to one hundred were mentioned. Kadyrov did not comment on this information until October 27. Earlier, he had called for “wiping Ukrainian cities off the face of the earth.
It turned out that one of Kadyrov’s soldiers had helped the Ukrainian military by showing the location of the invaders’ deployment in a TikTok video. The location was identified as a school in the Kherson region.
