Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov have inspected Chechen troops and volunteers preparing to fight in Ukraine in Putin’s first visit to the North Caucasus region since 2011.
The surprise trip comes as Moscow fights to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region two weeks after they crossed the border in the largest invasion of Russia since World War II.
“As long as we have men like you, we are absolutely, absolutely invincible,” Putin told soldiers at the Russian Special Forces University, a training school in Chechnya’s Gudermes, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website.
“It is one thing to shoot at a shooting range here, and another thing to put your life and health at risk. But you have an inner need to defend the Fatherland and the courage to make such a decision.”
Kyiv’s incursion across its northern border has been an embarrassment for Putin and his army, even as Russian forces continue their steady advances on the front line in eastern Ukraine.
Kadyrov, a key Kremlin ally who has been sanctioned by the United States, told Putin at a separate meeting that Chechnya had sent more than 47,000 troops to Ukraine since the start of the war, including about 19,000 volunteers.
Kadyrov has often described himself as Putin’s “foot soldier”.
While Putin has rarely visited Chechnya in recent years, the region has shaped him as a politician.
As newly-appointed prime minister in 1999, Putin launched the brutal second Chechen war against separatist fighters and hardliners in the mostly Muslim territory.
The massive ground offensive, backed by relentless artillery fire and aerial bombing campaigns, killed at least 50,000 people and left the capital Grozny in ruins.
Kadyrov, who Putin made Chechnya leader in 2007, has used money from Moscow to rebuild the shattered territory but rights groups say Kadyrov rules through violence and intimidation.
