Russia deploys feared Chechen unit to police Ukrainian nuclear town

All nine pumped-up men in the video sport beards, beanie hats, and khaki uniforms with no name tags.

One has a walkie-talkie, another, a gun, and behind them are jeeps and silver minibuses. Most of the men are about to leave. One wants to be photographed.

“Take a picture instead of filming,” he tells the invisible cameraman in Chechen.

The camera turns to another man who is checking his smartphone. The cameraman says, “This comrade is staying.”

The man with the phone looks like he’s in charge. He winks, smiles and responds: “I’ll be leaving later.”

They look relaxed as if they are back in Chechnya, the predominantly Muslim province of 1.5 million in Russia’s North Caucasus region, where Ramzan Kadyrov, a former separatist strongman who now calls himself Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “soldier”, is their boss.

The men were, however, filmed some 1,200km northwest from home, next to blocks 3,4 and 5 of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest nuclear facility – in the Russia-occupied part of southeastern Ukraine.

The video was made available to Al Jazeera by a Ukrainian law enforcement agency, which identified the man with the phone as Colonel Makhmud Khusiyev, a 43-year-old former wrestler.

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