Just as America sacrificed thousands of soldiers from racial minorities such as African Americans and Latin Americans in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the "Israeli" occupation sacrifices Druze and Africans in its war in Gaza, a report revealed that Russia has exploited Muslims from its Islamic republics, sending them to the slaughterhouse of the war in Ukraine.
A report from Radio Free Europe on September 25 revealed that Russia is placing Muslims from Islamic republics like Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chechnya, and others ahead of its Christian soldiers in the frontline of the ongoing war with Ukraine.
The report confirmed that regions populated by non-Russian ethnic groups, especially Islamic republics, are paying the highest price in this war, where poverty is exploited to attract soldiers, and the residents are forced to volunteer due to the lack of resources or weak income.
Statistics of casualties show that the majority of Russian soldiers killed are Muslims. By September 26, the number of Russian army deaths from the Republic of Bashkortostan, with a population of 4 million, reached at least 3,026 soldiers, while the number of Muslim casualties from the Republic of Tatarstan reached 2,740.
On August 15, the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz revealed that "Israel" is recruiting African asylum seekers in its war on Gaza with false promises to reduce the number of Israeli casualties. An investigation by the "Israeli" newspaper showed that the "Israeli" military establishment is exploiting African asylum seekers by recruiting them for its military operations in its aggression against Gaza in exchange for false promises of granting them residency, which explains why these casualties' names are not included in the official statistics of the Zionist army's dead.
Similarly, African Americans and Latin American minorities in the U.S. have complained about the military's focus on recruiting them compared to the white population, which explains why most of the U.S. army's casualties in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan are from minorities or African Americans.
Why Muslims?
According to Radio Free Europe, the number of Russian army casualties—both dead and wounded—has reached half a million in the past 30 months, based on Western estimates, surpassing the number of Soviet soldiers killed during the entire 10-year Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The report emphasizes that regions populated by non-Russian ethnic groups, especially Islamic republics, are paying the highest price in this war, where poverty is exploited to recruit soldiers, and the residents are forced to volunteer due to limited resources and income.
The majority of the killed soldiers are from the republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in central Russia, both of which enjoy autonomy within the Russian Federation and have a Muslim majority.
This toll was partly confirmed by a separate count conducted by BBC Russia / Mediazona, which confirmed 2,705 deaths in Bashkortostan and 2,259 from Tatarstan in the Ukraine war.
In contrast, only 135 deaths were confirmed from Moscow, despite its official population exceeding 13 million.
Tatar political analyst Ruslan Aisin explains that Moscow's reliance on making Muslims bear the brunt of the war in Ukraine stems from the Putin government's desire to pacify discontent among ethnic Russians in major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg by reducing the burden of casualties among them and shifting it onto Muslims.
Chechnya as well
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin's loyal ally, has also taken advantage of the war in Ukraine by sending large forces, of which hundreds have been killed. Ironically, Chechen fighters opposing Moscow, who call Kadyrov a traitor, have joined the fight against Russian and pro-Kadyrov Chechen forces alongside Ukrainian forces!
While Kadyrov's forces poured into Ukraine, the Chechen battalions of "Dzhokhar Dudayev" and "Sheikh Mansur" resumed fighting against Russian and Kadyrov's forces, just as they did in the 2014 war in Donbas.
Adam Osmaev, a Chechen leader living in exile, leads the "Dzhokhar Dudayev" battalion, named after the first president of Chechnya in the 1990s. This battalion is one of two groups of Chechen volunteers openly fighting the Russian-backed separatists and Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014.
The other Chechen unit fighting Russians in Ukraine is the "Sheikh Mansur" battalion, which operates in southeastern Ukraine under the command of Muslim Chibirloevsky. Most of its members fled Chechnya after the Chechen war in 2003 or were forced to leave due to Kadyrov's oppressive rule over the years.
The "Dzhokhar Dudayev" brigade, under the leadership of opposition general Isa Muniev, had already participated in combat against the Russians in Ukraine in 2014, alongside the "Sheikh Mansur" battalion, and they have returned in the current war to fight the Russians again, facing off against their own Chechen counterparts loyal to Kadyrov.
Since Russian President Putin's successful occupation of Chechnya in 2000, consolidating control over its government through force and handing power to Russian collaborators from the Kadyrov family, Chechens have been split between those loyal to Moscow and those opposing its rule.
Among the prominent opponents feared by Moscow is Akhmed Zakayev, leader of the separatist Chechen government in exile, who has formed volunteer brigades from Chechens living abroad to fight alongside the Ukrainian government to repel the Russian invasion.
During the Second Chechen War, which broke out in 2000 as Putin came to power, the Chechens split into two camps: one led by Ramzan Kadyrov that laid down arms and surrendered to Russian influence, and another that decided to continue the war for independence from Russia.
Kadyrov did not stop at aligning with Russia but became a warlord obedient to the Kremlin's orders. He began pursuing Chechen resistance cells, vowing to uproot the rebellion and hunt down every opponent of Russian influence both inside and outside the country.
Over time, thanks to Russian military and intelligence support, Kadyrov tightened his grip on the country, squeezing the opposition, most of whom fled abroad. They found their opportunity to fight back with the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, battling Putin and Kadyrov simultaneously.
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