Special topic

Ukraine’s unfulfilled promise: why are Caucasian volunteers still without Ukrainian passports?

The first Caucasian volunteers appeared in Ukraine in the first months of Russian aggression, in the summer of 2014. Two units were formed at that time: the Sheikh Mansur battalion, led by Muslim Cheberloevsky, and the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, led by Isa Munayev.

The Chechens, Dagestanis, Kabardinians, and Karachay people were coming mainly from European countries and Turkey, where they had been living after the Second Russian-Chechen War.

Despite their small number – a few dozen people – they were valuable personnel for Ukraine because they had extensive combat experience and knew our enemy’s tactics well. At that time, the Ukrainian authorities gave all of them residence permits for one year.

As Muslim Cheberloevsky testified in his interviews, the military command assured him that the residence permits would be extended, and that those who wished to receive them would eventually be able to obtain Ukrainian passports. However, a year has passed, and the issue of extending the residence permits for Caucasians has been stalled.

For the first three years, they were not very concerned about it: they rarely left the front line, and their documents are not checked at the “zero” point. 2019 was a landmark year for the Caucasians. The process of volunteer units joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine began. Dudayev’s battalion was led by Adam Osmayev after the death of commander Munayev. Most of the fighters left Ukraine or ceased combat activity. Sheikh Mansur’s battalion, which fought as part of the ‘Ukrainian Volunteer Army’ of the ‘Right Sector’, left the contact line and surrendered its weapons.

In the autumn of the same year, a fighter from Sheikh Mansur’s battalion, Timur Tumgoev, was extradited to Russia at the request of the FSB. There, he was tortured and sentenced to 19 years for terrorism.

In 2021, the Chechens received another stab in the back: several soldiers of the unit, along with the commander, were included in the sanctions list of the National Security and Defence Council by presidential decree. The promise of legalisation in 5 years was finally forgotten. And then the great war began. In the first days of the siege of Kyiv, Caucasians defended the capital with weapons. And later, in the hottest spots of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

The arrival of Abdulhakim Shishani (Rustam Azhiyev), a veteran of the Second Chechen War and the war in Syria, to Ukraine in 2022 gave hope for a change in the situation with documents. He set a condition for his participation in the war against Russia: a Ukrainian passport. And this condition was fulfilled. Abdulkhakim is an iconic figure for many Caucasians. The head of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in exile, Akhmed Zakayev, hoped that hundreds, maybe thousands of Caucasians from Syria, Turkey, and Europe would follow Shishani to Ukraine. However, those who have been fighting since 2014 have not been given documents. And this means more to many who want to fight than the authority of a popular commander.

It is important that now the traditional reference of MPs and officials to the lack of the necessary legal framework no longer works. After all, in 2016-2021, the Verkhovna Rada amended the Laws “On Immigration”, “On the Legal Status of Foreigners and Stateless Persons”, and “On Military Duty and Military Service”, which allowed foreign volunteers to sign contracts and join the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine, as well as obtain Ukrainian citizenship after three years of service. In January 2023, the Rada extended the right to obtain citizenship to foreigners who had served less than three years in the Armed Forces due to injury.

As explained by a veteran of the Sheikh Mansour volunteer battalion on condition of anonymity, the norms of Ukrainian law and the real situation of volunteers differ significantly.

“When you have to fight, the lack of valid documents is not a problem. They issue a military ID card, a combatant’s certificate. But when you need to obtain citizenship or a residence permit, you have no valid identity documents,”

– said the volunteer from Chechnya.

He noted that the problem of legalisation concerns soldiers of units that are part of the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine, as well as volunteer battalions. Some have only expired Russian passports, while others have only documents from the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

Thousands of citizens of Russia, Belarus and Georgia, including those from the North Caucasus republics, are currently fighting in Ukraine. There are six Chechen units alone. There is also a Dagestani battalion named after Shamil, and negotiations are underway to create an Ingush unit. The peculiarity of Muslim volunteers is that a significant number of them want to fight, but are not ready to join the official structures of a non-Islamic state due to religious beliefs. However, there is no massive receipt of Ukrainian documents among those who joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the National Guard. Among those who, in addition to Rustam Azhiyev, received Ukrainian citizenship is Adam Osmayev, commander of the Dudayev battalion.

Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence Yegor Chernev is one of those who was approached by volunteers from the Caucasus to help resolve the situation with their Ukrainian documents. The MP has not been able to help so far.

“There are people who have served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine for three years or more. According to the current legislation, this is enough to get a passport of a citizen of Ukraine. However, for this, you need to have a valid identity document. And many people have expired Russian passports. And there is no way to extend them, even outside Ukraine at the Russian consulate, because they can be detained there. The result is a vicious circle,”

– Chernev said.

He added that lawyers, including employees of the State Migration Service, are working to solve the problem of legalising volunteers in Ukraine.

Author: Anvar Derkach.

Photo: https://t.me/adam1ua.