On August 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Chechnya, where he was welcomed by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov before touring the special forces academy and addressing volunteer fighters training for deployment to Ukraine.
Though the Kremlin and Chechen authorities have not provided details about the visit’s purpose or timing, it coincided with Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into Western Russia, now in its third week. According to the Associated Press, citing Russian state media, Kadyrov claimed to have “tens of thousands” of reservists prepared to fight against Ukraine.
During the visit, an image of a large line-up of military personnel circulated online with captions such as: “Kadyrov reported to Putin that a reserve of several tens of thousands of trained fighters has been formed in Chechnya, ready to enter the special operation zone on the president’s orders”. Other users commented, “This monstrous army of fully trained Chechen reservists was presented to Putin yesterday as a surprise”.
The above post can be seen here. (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the claim, and found it to be misleading.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the viral image, the NM team traced an article in EuroWeekly News, titled: “WATCH: 20,000 ‘elite fighters’ gathered in Chechnya to wish Vladimir Putin happy birthday.” The article, featuring the same image, was published on October 7, 2022.
Several media outlets had covered Putin’s birthday celebrations in Grozny, Chechen’s capital, on October 7, 2022. Russian news agency TASS reported that more than 20,000 military personnel from the Chechen Republic had participated in the festivities. Yahoo News also released satellite footage of the event.
Therefore, the viral image is unrelated to Putin’s recent visit to Chechnya or the ongoing Ukrainian offensive in Russia, and misleading.
