According to official statistics, 40,000 Chechen soldiers and 19,000 volunteers from other regions, who were trained in Chechnya, were sent to the war with Ukraine. However, these figures are far from reality, as people are counted not by their heads, but by their contracts, Novaya Gazeta Evropa reports.
"The focus here is on the following. Ivan from Rostov went to the war as a volunteer from Chechnya five times, and in the reports of the "Russian Special Forces University" in Gudermes it is written that not one, but five volunteers were sent to the war. Because Ivan concluded not one, but five four-month contracts," the publication writes.
According to "Novaya Gazeta", the flow of new volunteers to Chechnya decreased even in the winter and has now almost dried up. Other regions finally killed the competition with their huge one-time payments.
