On March 2, the ASTRA telegram channel reported that a criminal case had been opened in Chechnya against Muslim Madiev, the deputy commander of the Chechen battalion named after Dzhokhar Dudayev, who has been fighting on the side of Ukraine since 2014.
The case under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Public calls for terrorist activities”) was opened on February 13. The reason was Madiev’s interview with the North Caucasus Front channel, published in September 2022.
Muslim Madiyev is a military figure, an active participant in the Russian-Chechen wars of the 1990-2000s, was an ally of the Chechen field commanders Ruslan Gelayev and Doku Umarov, and has participated in hostilities in the Donbass since 2014. Now he is a military adviser, commander of the sabotage and reconnaissance group “Adam” as part of the battalion named after Dzhokhar Dudayev. He can be called one of the ideologists of the Chechen resistance. He often gives interviews to various media, including European ones, and in November 2022 took part in a round table on the prospects for the deoccupation of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, held in Kyiv.
In an interview with the North Caucasus Front channel, which served as the basis for initiating a criminal case, Muslim Madiev, in particular, said that the Chechens want to restore their independence: “If we defend Ukraine today, it will be easy for us to defend Ichkeria tomorrow.”
Speaking about the Russian military, he noted: “The main secret is that they do not spare their cannon fodder. They have plenty of it. They drive forward and that's it. After the fighting in 1995 [in Chechnya], they didn’t even take their corpses. The dogs ate these corpses. They have practically no pity and humanity... Russia purposefully hit the civilian population and destroyed peaceful houses, as it is now destroying in Ukraine. We won the first war, but did not finish it. We gave them a break, they gained strength and returned. You can’t leave it unfinished.”
In September 2022, Kadyrov’s men took away several relatives of Muslim Madiyev living in Chechnya. This happened after Madiev gave an interview to the opposition telegram channel 1ADAT (recognized as extremist in Russia). According to the publication "Kavkaz.Realii", after the so-called "conversations" all the detainees were released. Maybe they still realized that persecuting the enemy’s relatives is an undignified form of revenge?
In Ukraine, from the very beginning of the war, two Chechen battalions have been fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces - named after Sheikh Mansur (commander Muslim Cheberloevsky) and named after Dzhokhar Dudayev (commander Adam Osmayev). Both were created in Denmark in 2014. In July 2022, a Separate Special Purpose Battalion (OBON) of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was also created as part of the International Legion of Ukraine.
In total, today, according to data from various sources, five Chechen units are fighting on the side of Ukraine.
  In August 2022, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, in his telegram channel announced a blood feud against supporters of the unrecognized republic of Ichkeria, who are participating in the war on the side of Ukraine.
“We will always, throughout our lives, persecute and destroy you; for every brother we kill, we will kill you in the thousands. Revenge will be cruel. Wherever they are, we will pursue them,” Kadyrov wrote. He also promised to pay a million dollars for information about the whereabouts of the commanders of the Ukrainian battalions Osmayev and Cheberloevsky.