Thousands of men from Chechnya are willing to offer assistance to Russia’s armed forces, the southern republic’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has pledged, as Moscow’s military conducted the second day of its attack on Ukraine.
On Friday, 12,000 local volunteers amassed on the central square of the regional capital, Grozny. Kadyrov informed the publication ‘Chechnya Sevodnya’ of their rally, which was organized in order to show their support for the Kremlin and their readiness to aid its objectives.
“These are volunteers who are ready to leave for any special operation at any time in order to secure our state and our people,” Kadyrov told the outlet, adding that no troops would be deployed until the “Supreme Commander in Chief” Putin gave the go-ahead.
According to the Chechen minister of national policy, Akhmed Dudayev, the aim of the congregation was to demonstrate how prepared the troops were to follow orders and defend their homeland.
“It was a check of the personnel”, Dudayev clarified to RBK, “A check of the readiness of the personnel to carry out any orders of the supreme commander-in-chief, the country’s president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”
In a speech he gave to the assembled servicemen in central Grozny, Kadyrov demanded that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky apologize to Putin.
“Taking this opportunity, I want to give advice to the current President Zelensky so that he calls our President, Supreme Commander Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and apologizes for not doing so sooner. Do it in order to save Ukraine. Ask for forgiveness and agree to all the conditions that Russia puts forward. This will be the most correct and patriotic step for him,” the leader declared.
Moscow instigated a “special military operation” in Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday morning, with the intent to demilitarize and “de-nazify” the country, after alleging that Kiev’s government had been responsible for eight years of genocide in the country’s war-torn Donbass region.
As the second day of the offensive draws to a close, much of Ukraine’s military has been crippled, with airports, communication centers, defense infrastructure, and military bases damaged in a series of Russian air strikes.
On Friday, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Kiev had “disappeared” after choosing Warsaw as a place to hold negotiations with Moscow.
“Zelensky said he was ready to discuss Ukraine’s neutral status. Initially, Putin said that the purpose of the operation was to help the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, including through the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. And this, in fact, is an integral component of neutral status,” Peskov explained.