Russia’s war against Ukraine has taken yet another absurd turn as one of Vladimir Putin’s most devoted cronies took to social media to demonstrate the epitome of Russian military prowess: his three underage sons haphazardly firing off weapons in Ukraine as they are babysit by a top commander.
“Akhmat, Eli and Adam got right up to enemy positions and provided cover fire for advancing fighters,” Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wrote of his sons, aged 14 to 16.
The announcement was accompanied by a three-and-a-half-minute video in which the three teens could be seen standing in a trench as they periodically fire off a grenade launcher and machine gun at invisible “enemies” in the distance. The boys—who can be seen in the footage clearly taking instructions from Zamid Chalayev, the Chechen commander apparently tasked with babysitting them—at times stand at full height when they should presumably be taking cover, sparking some speculation that the “incoming fire” they are so bravely standing against is not incoming at all.
Kadyrov insisted, however, that other Chechen fighters were “pleasantly surprised” by his sons’ performance. And according to him, it was a glowing success: they supposedly “stayed in their positions until they fended off the latest Nazi counterattack.”
While Kadyrov touted the footage as proof he’d kept good on his word to send his own kids into the battlefield, it was instead met with calls for he and his sons to win an Oscar.
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“Did you think we would believe that your three bastards are on the front line with this cheap staging? Show us a real battle and not cheap performances,” wrote Chechen blogger Khasan Khalitov.
Others noted that Kadyrov appeared to have given his sons weapons produced by NATO rather than Russian-made ones.
Meanwhile, Kadyrov’s stunt got a seal of approval from Russian officials, which should perhaps come as no surprise after Moscow spent the past several weeks sending thousands of freed convicts, Wagner mercenaries, and poorly trained draftees into the battlefield.
“Kadyrov is a good father,” said Nina Ostanina, the head of the Russian State Duma’s committee on family issues.
Although Russian law forbids children from taking part in the war, Ostanina told Russian media that Kadyrov would get a pass because Chechen culture “differs with its traditions from our Russian culture.”
“If you can rebuke him for anything, it’s not for this,” she said. “I think he just wants to show by his example so that other dads who call themselves patriots will think about where their overgrown children are.”
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