Religious, Ideological Motivation and Protection of Collective Identity

One of the most common motives for becoming a foreign fighter is a political ideology, including radical religious discourse (Öztop Reference Öztop2022, 555; Bou Nassif Reference Bou Nassif2021). Ideology serves foreign fighters as the reason, even a moral obligation, to fight in an armed conflict on the global level (Sheikh Reference Sheikh2016; Juergensmeyer Reference Juergensmeyer2005; Wiktorowicz Reference Wiktorowicz2005; Borum and Fein Reference Borum and Fein2017; Hafez Reference Hafez2009; Hegghammer Reference Hegghammer2010; Gerges Reference Gerges2005; Sageman Reference Sageman2004). Some fighters cross borders and take up arms to defend a group or community with whom they share an identity; for example, tribe, clan, ethnicity, or the Muslim world (ummah) (Jørgensen Reference Jørgensen2023). Others may feel more strongly compelled to defend a political “cause” (Borum and Fein Reference Borum and Fein2017, 250). Such “adherence to the ideology” is taken to mean the idea of collective identity, which in turn is rooted in either ideology or ethno-religious belonging (Frenett and Silverman Reference Frenett, Silverman, de Guttry, Capone and Paulissen2016, 68; Ahmed and Pisoiu Reference Ahmed and Pisoiu2014).

Alex P. Schmid and Judith Tinnes drew attention to the influence of religion and emphasized that a common point of many jihadi foreign fighters is that they are either second-generation children of Muslim immigrants or recent converts to Salafist Islam. In addition, while they indicate the main pushing factors such as “reaction to traumatic experiences of violence,” “personal identity crisis,” and “unresolved political conflicts and perceived absence of solutions by state actors,” they also rank the main pulling factors, such as the existence of an extremist ideology, the presence of a charismatic leader, and the lure of adventure (Schmid and Tinnes Reference Schmid and Tinnes2015; Öztop Reference Öztop2022, 555; Jørgensen Reference Jørgensen2023).

Foreign fighting has been mostly associated with Islamism or jihadism when the participation of foreign fighters has been religiously sanctioned as an individual duty, by defending coreligionists against foreign aggression (Warren Reference Warren, Romaniuk and Webb2016, 58; Rekawek Reference Rekawek2023). However, there are many examples of ideologically motivated foreign fighters outside the jihadi milieu, such as the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) or far-right and far-left foreign fighters in Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014. Russian foreign fighters on the Ukrainian side were motivated by strong anti-Putin and anti-Kremlin sentiments, while Russian foreign fighters on the secessionist side were often motivated by ultra-nationalist imperialism and anti-Western political Orthodox beliefs (Rekawek Reference Rekawek2020).

For Muslim foreign fighters, the powerful ideological discourse is the protection of Muslims under threat (Malet Reference Malet2009, 2013). They often characterize themselves as protectors of ummah against non-Muslim aggression (Sageman Reference Sageman2011; Jørgensen Reference Jørgensen2023). Solidarity with the jihadists and civilian victims of the conflict encourages transnational members who share an identity with the group under threat to help fight the oppressor as their participation in the conflict is vital for the group’s survival (van San, Reference van San2015; Malet Reference Malet2009, 99–100). Such motivation is also linked to the necessity to protect the local civilian population from the repressions and brutality of incumbent regimes—“to help the weak” (Zelin Reference Zelin2015; Bakker and de Bont Reference Bakker and de Bont2016; Jørgensen Reference Jørgensen2023). For instance, going to the conflict zone to help the Syrian civil population and combat the Assad regime has been used as an exculpatory narrative and a motivational factor among foreign fighters, and as a recruitment strategy by ISIS (Jørgensen Reference Jørgensen2023).

Foreign fighters are often lured by jihadi preachers and local belligerents’ recruitment messaging, playing on the “identity” of the prospective fighters. This messaging would be aimed at and crafted especially for people marginalized in a given society (Malet Reference Malet2020). Dass and Singh (Reference Dass and Singh2023) note that the role model of charismatic personalities was the primary factor for mobilizing Malaysian jihadists to fight in Syria and Iraq. Rekawek notes that in Ukraine, recruitment efforts successfully targeted the “marginalized”—individuals who were often seen as outcasts by the majority of their fellow citizens. Additionally, both right-wing and left-wing extremists from the West traveled to Ukraine to participate in the conflict. (Rekawek Reference Rekawek2023).

Socio-Economic Factors

A considerable number of researchers argue that socioeconomic factors are critical. Studies supporting this argument include Edwin Bakker’s and Roel de Bondt’s analysis of the characteristics, motivations, and roles of foreign fighters in the war in Syria and Iraq through a comparison between the Belgian and Dutch cases, Kartika Bhatia’s and Hafez Ghanem’s conclusion that education and unemployment affect support for violent extremism, John C. Amble’s and Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens’s extensive study on jihadist radicalization in East Africa, Kwesi Aning and Mustapha Abdallah’s analyses of socioeconomic and political dynamics as sources of Islamic radicalization and violence in Ghana, and Gabriel A. Acevedo and Ali R. Chaudhary’s suggestion that young American Muslims with low socioeconomic status have become more radical than before (Öztop Reference Öztop2022, 554).

Poverty and the desire for socio-economic change can be powerful sources for the mobilization of foreign fighters. It is also a source of uncertainty that pushes individuals, after a critical moment, to look for support and a safe network (Metodieva 2023, 26). Numerous studies highlight that feeling depressed and hopeless as a consequence of the real and perceived social and economic inequality, deprivation, and structural inequalities, including discrimination in the job market and higher education, is a strong driving force for engaging in political violence (Coolsaet Reference Coolsaet2015; Reference Coolsaet2016; Bakker Reference Bakker and Coolsaet2011: 140; Sageman Reference Sageman2011). It may result in apathy and a lack of meaningfulness in their lives prior to traveling to fight in foreign countries. Such persons no longer felt they had a future in their residence or home country (Bakker and de Bont Reference Bakker and de Bont2016, 845).

However, Mishali-Ram and Fox (Reference Mishali-Ram and Fox2022) claim that motivation for individuals to become foreign fighters is not connected to objective discrimination in non-Muslim-majority countries. According to them, it implies that some grievances relate to personal circumstances, or that immigrant minorities are more likely to perceive gaps in inequality in wealthier countries. It means that wealthier countries are more likely to produce foreign fighters because high income might increase relative deprivation because this deprivation is based on perceived contrasts. That is, Muslim immigrant minorities may be more likely to perceive a gap between their status and that of the majority in wealthier countries because of the perceived wealth of the majority (Mishali-Ram and Fox Reference Mishali-Ram and Fox2022).

Personal Motivations – Frustrations, Search for Identity, and Sense of Belonging

Personal motives such as frustration, trauma, excitement, discontent, and search for meaning in life might be powerful drivers to foreign fighting. Rik Coolsaet discovered that young people who are discontented with their lives and find it meaningless are more likely to become foreign fighters. Similarly, Aleksandar Nacev and Dimitar Bogatinov emphasized that young people who want to give meaning to their lives gravitate toward conflict zones. The prominent components in both studies are the lack of a sense of belonging and the feeling of exclusion. Furthermore, several studies have illustrated that personal trauma can be a motivational factor. An analysis of German foreign fighters by Dorle Hellmuth indicated that people who experience a traumatic event at some point in their lives are more prone to developing new identities and thoughts, and this may enable them to become foreign fighters (Öztop Reference Öztop2022, 554).

Personal-level motives such as sensation-seeking, the sense of communal belonging, and being part of a fighter fraternity are important contributing factors to violent mobilization in general and foreign fighters’ mobilization in particular (Nussio Reference Nussio2017; Dawson and Amarasingam Reference Dawson and Amarasingam2017; Bakker and de Bont Reference Bakker and de Bont2016). Personal motivation is frequently driven by the lack of life-embeddedness resulting in the willingness to satisfy the need for belonging and identity. People suffering from uncertainties about their identity are often driven by these identity-uncertainty factors (likewise, Slootman and Tillie Reference Slootman and Tillie2006 71; Bjørgo and Horgan Reference Bjørgo and Horgan2009). Frustration and unhappiness with personal life circumstances and other motives, such as seeking contribution to a deeply meaningful political or religious cause are also important motivational drivers for foreign fighting.

Search for meaning and identity is meant to fill the perceived “vacuum” of an individual’s identity and to achieve some sense of personal fulfilment. It is linked to the need to consolidate a self-perceived identity and a relational meaning to perpetuate this identity. Frenett and Silverman claim that fulfillment of foreign fighting is “inherently related to self-identification—feeling that you share and understand the problems or experiences of someone else; and the act of identifying yourself as a particular kind of person” (Frenett and Silverman Reference Frenett, Silverman, de Guttry, Capone and Paulissen2016, 71–72). Such a search for identity and meaning in life within the personal context is not inherently political, but personal. This craving for purpose can be strengthened among those who feel that their life currently holds no purpose or power to change things (see the above reference).

Many foreign fighters participate in wars because they seek recognition and esteem from others through their group affiliations. Some of them are attracted to the group because of the prospects for excitement, a sense of adventure, fame, glory, and the chance to be part of something exciting and exclusive and to project themselves on a world stage. These foreign fighters pursue a particular lifestyle, marked by a strong presence of various specific subcultural elements such as music, clothing, and symbols with a ‘jihadi is cool’ attitude, animated by Rambo-style violence (Ahmed and Pisoiu Reference Ahmed and Pisoiu2014; Coolsaet Reference Coolsaet2016).

However, personal motivation may also stem from deviant behavior, including personality disorders and the hope to evade prison sentences (Coolsaet Reference Coolsaet2016). People with serious psychological problems, sometimes having a serious criminal background, regularly go to battlefields in foreign countries. It might be, in some cases, encouraged by a domestic country in order to get rid of problematic, hard-to-handle people (Rácz Reference Rácz and Reckawek2017, 68).

Revenge in the cultures of honor

While both grievance and revenge are common, the latter may be culturally determined. A by-product of grievance, revenge is more likely to incur violence in honor cultures in that it is embedded in the local socio-cultural norms. In the cultures of honor, an offense, be it physical—in the form of a fatal injury, killing, or psychological in the form of immense humiliation—incentivizes individuals to take violent action to “wash off” the stain to their individual and collective (family, clan, tribal) reputation. Unwillingness or inability to avenge a wrongful deed may lead to individuals and their entire families and clans losing their social status and, relatedly, to social sanctions within their communities. In fact, in the cultures of honor, social sanctions serve as an important source of mobilization in that to avoid loss of status and ostracism, “offended” individuals and their clans routinely resort to violent action to avenge offenses to restore their honor (Sommers Reference Sommers2009; Brown and Osterman Reference Brown Ryan and Osterman2012; Souleimanov and Aliyev Reference Souleimanov and Aliyev2015).

Even in cultures of honor, where the institutionalized custom of blood revenge (retaliation by the offended kinship group against the offender and his kinship group) has faded away, the culture of retaliation (retaliation by the offended individual per se against the offender per se and a loosely defined group associated with the offender) is likely to persist. Using the case study of Dagestani jihadists, Ratelle and Souleimanov illustrate that even in societies where the custom of blood revenge is gradually disappearing, the culture of retaliation remains embedded in the cultural norms of the populations, prompting individuals to exact revenge against perceived injustices that are often impersonal (Ratelle and Souleimanov Reference Ratelle and Souleimanov2017).

A recently published cross-case analysis of the phenomenon of blood revenge validates this assumption showing that decades following the demise of blood revenge as an institutionalized social norm, the culture of retaliation persists in the cultures of honor making revenge against perceived injustices, personal or impersonal, more likely (Colombo and Souleimanov Reference Colombo and Souleimanov2023). Having said this, in the cultures of honor—which constitute a substantial share, if not the majority, of countries generating foreign fighters—revenge appears to be a more likely outcome of grievance than in post-honor cultures. We thus expect that revenge is likely to be a more potent motivation for foreign fighters in the culture of honor, relative to the foreign fighters coming from post-honor cultures.

Historical revenge

The perception of revenge is manifold. In colonial and post-colonial settings, dominating ethno-nationalist narratives often revolve around the notion of grievance or “ancestral hatred.” This is likely to encode the need for revenge as a meaningful—and socially justified—quest for redressing past injustices. As ethno-nationalist narratives centered on the notion of heroic resistance and injustice are passed from generation to generation, so might be the quest for revenge for the misdeeds of the colonizers (Haiven Reference Haiven2017; Rogers Reference Rogers2006).

This results in what we term “historical revenge”—a historically grounded and ethnic community-centered quest for revenge that seeks to redress past injustices using current retaliation. The idea of “repaying the debt” is an integral part of historical grievances. For example, following Russia’s engagement in the Syrian Civil War and the Russo-Ukraine War, dozens of Georgians traveled to these areas to become foreign fighters, to exact revenge against Russia’s colonial support for and continuous occupation of Georgia’s separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Pokalova Reference Pokalova2020; Rękawek Reference Rekawek2023).

Similarly, Turkish Kurds came to fight against Turkey in Syria and Iraq to avenge what they saw as the mistreatment and discrimination of Kurds in Turkey over the last century, and particularly to avenge Turkey’s harsh counter-insurgency in the country’s southeast since the 1980s (Ferhad Reference Ferhad2001; Gunes Reference Gunes2015; Salim 2023).

Personal revenge

In the cultures of honor, revenge has traditionally been linked to personal or kinship-level offenses. Hence it is rather personal, or personally conceived of. Revenge—particularly blood revenge—is triggered by personal or kinship group-related wrongs. In fact, some scholars have pointed to the fact that, in the cultures of honor, personal grievances may be stronger sources of violent action than general—political or social—grievances. Aase Reference Aase2017; Souleimanov and Aliev Reference Souleimanov and Aliyev2017; Souleimanov and Aliyev Reference Souleimanov and Aliyev2015).

Relatedly, revenge is often apolitical. While grievances are known to be politically imbued, avengers often carry out violent action regardless of their political preferences, or even in spite of the latter. Souleimanov and Aliyev (Reference Souleimanov and Aliyev2015; Reference Souleimanov and Aliyev2017) have shown that many Chechen insurgents mobilized during the Russo-Chechen wars did so not because of their political opinions, but despite them. Even those fighters who had previously been indifferent to or even critical of Chechnya’s separatist elites or the quest for independence sought violent action following a fatal injury, killing, or humiliation inflicted by Russian counter-insurgents or their Chechen proxies. This makes foreign fighters’ desire for revenge a possible important factor in the honor culture-based immigrant communities—not least in the second and third generation.

Researching the motivations of ethnic Pashtuns residing in Pakistan’s Waziristan province, Shah, Ehsan, and Malik conclude that it was the socially embedded code of retaliation, not jihad, that ultimately drove Pashtun individuals to travel to Afghanistan to participate in the local war against the Coalition forces and their Afghan proxies in order to restore tribal honor (Shah, Ehsan, and Malik Reference Shah, Ehsan and Malik2019). Hicham Bou Nassif, in his study of Lebanese foreign fighters in ISIS, claims that the suffering of family members at the hands of the Syrian regime or Lebanese state played an important role in terms of generating revenge-driven foreign fighters—in fact, according to the author’s estimates, nearly 40 percent of all Lebanese foreign fighters were driven by a desire to exact revenge (Bou Nassif Reference Bou Nassif2021). Jean-Francois Ratelle observes that retaliation was a motive for rural Dagestanis to be deployed in jihadist armed groups during the Syrian Civil War (Ratelle Reference Ratelle2020). A study by the Canadian Government lists “collective revenge” as an important motive utilized by ISIS for foreign fighter mobilization (World Watch 2016), a motive echoed elsewhere (Analisi di Difesa Reference Analisi2016).

Our taxonomy of revenge is by no means conclusive. We assume that other subsets of revenge exist, such as revenge against perceived discrimination and maltreatment of co-religionists, as observed in the literature on jihadist radicalization and Muslim foreign fighters. The two revenge-centered motivations were identified through the study of the empirical case study of Chechen foreign fighters in Ukraine. Although it is our assumption that other subtypes of revenge exist that need to be identified and conceptualized, the current article represents the first empirically grounded step toward a better understanding of the universe of revenge-driven motivations.

While motives for becoming foreign fighters are rarely monocausal and involve a spectrum of push and pull factors, we expect revenge to be one of the dominant motives for prospective foreign fighters coming from honor culture-based backgrounds. We also expect the two subtypes of revenge to be particularly relevant in the immigrant communities, not least in the second and third generations, as these motivations draw on the notion of historical experience with colonial powers, and direct family-level experience with an injustice inflicted upon family members.

Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion

The first Chechen battalion was founded and commanded by Isa Munayev, former military commandant of Grozny during the First Chechen War and an Ichkeria field commander during the Second Chechen War. Munayev died in a battle at Debaltseve in February 2015 and was succeeded by Adam Osmayev as commander, who joined the battalion in November after his release from pre-trial detention due to his alleged (and presumably fabricated) assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin during his visit to Ukraine in 2012 (Sergatskova Reference Sergatskova2019). The deputy commander since August 2022 is Muslim Madiyev, who has experience from the First Chechen War.

Sheikh Mansur Battalion

This battalion splintered from the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion in October 2014 and is commanded by Muslim Cheberloyevskiy (unconfirmed real name Umkhan Avtayev, or Razhabdibir Gusinov). The battalion joined the Voluntary Ukrainian Corps—Right Sector (Dobrovolchyi ukraiinskyi korpus “Pravyi sektor,” DUK PS) and was named after Sheikh Mansur, an 18^th century Chechen military hero, religious leader, and staunch opponent of the expansionist Russian Empire of Catherine II the Great (Rácz Reference Rácz and Reckawek2017, 67). The battalion has been active also after Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Separate Special Purpose Battalion of the Ministry of Defense of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (OBON)

OBON serves as part of the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine and most of its members fought against Russia in the first and second Chechen wars (1994–96 and 1999–2009, respectively). The OBON’s creation was announced by Akhmed Zakayev, a preeminent representative of the Chechen opposition in exile (Hussein Reference Hussein2023). Zakyev also invited Rustam Adzhiev to Ukraine to command the resurrected Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria with OBON as the main (and probably the only) part of that armed formation (Doukaev Reference Doukaev2022). Adzhiev came to Ukraine in October 2022 with a group of Chechen and Syrian war veterans. Before he arrived in Ukraine, Adzhiev commanded the Latakia-based Ajnad al-Kavkaz group between 2013 and 2019.

This article is a proof of a concept study, in that it demonstrates the empirical relevance of revenge-centered motivations by using Chechen foreign fighters as an illustrative case. This is done by leveraging sources such as statements, public speeches, and media interviews with commanders and fighters from Chechen voluntary units in Ukraine. Units like the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, which relies on donations, often use media interviews to gain visibility. Consequently, since they are of interest to the media, there is ample primary data available from these interviews. Numerous interviews with Chechen volunteers, especially commanders and deputy commanders, reveal their motives for joining the Ukrainian side in the fight against the Russian invasion.

Conducting interviews with these fighters is challenging under war conditions. With no secured access to the battlefields to carry out interviews with Chechen foreign fighters, the authors have had to rely on available open source data. The latter relates to confessions expressed in secondary-source interviews carried out by journalists, where participants acknowledge that revenge, whether personal or historical, impacted their decision to join the war against Russia. For that purpose, the authors have carried out research into all available Russian and English-language sources that have, up to the moment of submitting this article, brought to the general audience interviews with Chechen foreign fighters self-deployed in Ukraine, fighting against the Russian military.

The article frequently employs direct quotations to provide first-hand evidence that revenge motivated individual Chechen fighters to militarily aid Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion. By using these available firsthand confessions, the article seeks to derive insights into why revenge acts as a vehicle for these individuals to engage in combat. The present article, as a single-case study, aims to explain specific outcomes, selecting Chechen foreign fighters as an illustrative case where the outcome of interest occurs. (referencing Levy Reference Levy2008; Goertz and Mahoney Reference Goertz and Mahoney2006). Being the first-ever piece of research into revenge as a motive for foreign fighting, this proof-of-concept article paves the ground for more academic work on the under-researched phenomenon

Historical revenge

Historic grievances might serve as an explanation of the ethnic revenge of the foreign fighters considered to be oppressed by the primordial and eternal enemy. In cultures of honor, such as in the Chechen one, historical injustices are remembered and can be passed down through generations, fostering a desire for retribution. Historical revenge is fueled by the imagination of a homeland oppressed, occupied, or conquered by the eternal enemy as part of the identity and self-consciousness. This specific revenge-centered motivation involves a long history of conflict. Meanwhile, bloodshed caused by this enemy against the community and wars in the new battlefields, other than their homeland, provide the window of opportunity for revenge (Muraskaite Reference Muraskaite2020). Chechens have a long history of conflict with the Russian state and have roots in mass-scale atrocities and scorched-earth tactics of the Tsarist army during the Caucasian War (Shafee Reference Shafee2015).

Historical narratives and collective memory play crucial roles in shaping the identity of cultures of honor, and acts of foreign aggression or occupation are often seen as deep insults that demand redress. In the Chechen case, Russian General Alexei Yermolov has a special place in historical revenge against Russia. He epitomized Russia’s brutal and indiscriminate violence against Chechens through cruel tactics, such as the extermination of entire villages, forced deportations, and resettlement (Shafee Reference Shafee2015). Traditionally viewed as the mastermind behind 19^th-century Russian military expansion in the Caucasus, Yermolov effectively conducted a 19^th-century version of total war, aimed at leaving the local population with no choice but to submit to Russian rule. His implementation of mass reprisals and the principle of collective responsibility against civilians was a critical moment in the history of Russian-Chechen relations (Elkner Reference Elkner and Wheatcroft2002, 203–211).

In Chechen narratives and historical memory, which serve as the source for historical revenge, Yermolov is seen as the “executioner of the Chechen people,” even more so than Stalin, Beria, and Yeltsin (Elkner Reference Elkner and Wheatcroft2002, 206). Elkner (Reference Elkner and Wheatcroft2002, 212) notes that Yermolov’s legacy continues to haunt both Chechnya and Russia. In Russia, his reputation is experiencing a resurgence within nationalist circles (Uzzell, Reference Uzzellundated). In Chechnya, Yermolov is regarded as the architect of genocidal practices against the Chechen nation that must be avenged. Fighters in the Sheikh Mansur Battalion speak of settling a 400-year-old blood feud, stating: “In tsarist Russia, General Yermolov stole everything from us. But we survived him. Stalin died. Putin will die. We will outlive these people,” according to a fighter named Mansur (Feng Reference Feng2022).

The interaction with Russia as a colonizing imperialist power is seen as the never-ending fight for independence and revenge for the tragical imprint left on Chechens throughout history with several most significant milestones: Yermolov’s conquers, Stalin’s deportation of the entire Chechen population in 1944, and the recent independence war which started in the early 1990s and was suppressed by Putin’s regime in 2000s. In Chechen collective memory, the mass resettlement of the 19th century and the tragic consequences of the 1944 deportation are very much alive. The same applies to their fight against Russian/Soviet rule. The recurrence of two themes—Russian oppression and Chechen resistance—holds a significant place in Chechen history and memory (Shafee Reference Shafee2015).

The name of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion itself refers to historic grievances, named after a legendary religious and military Chechen leader who fought the Russian Empire in the 18^th century (Query and Farell Reference Query and Farell2022). Sheikh Mansur aimed to thwart Russian Empress Catherine the Great’s imperial expansion into the Caucasus during the late 1700s. He is remembered for uniting the Caucasus against the increasing Russian presence and, when pursued by Russian troops, declared a holy war against the Empire (Kossov Reference Kossov2023).

Chechen foreign fighters, driven by historical grievances of dispossession and suppression by Moscow resulting in revenge as a motivation to fight, repeat the narrative of a 400-year-old ongoing war against Russian imperialism (Gall Reference Gall2023; Krykunenko Reference Krykunenko2022). For them, Russia is the first and eternal enemy (Losh Reference Losh2015). Muslim Cheberloyevskiy, the commander of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, often tells the media, “We have been at war with the Russians for centuries, for 400 years” (Magomedov Reference Magomedov2022).

Part of the grievances and historical revenge-seeking stems from memories of the recent war for independence, which many Chechen foreign fighters experienced, which is not finished for them. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and reinvasion in 2022 allowed them to hop back on the train and continue the unfinished business. Revenge-seeking as the mechanism for foreign fighting could be projected into the urge to avenge the suffering, deaths, and oppression of ethnic Chechens during the two Russian-Chechen wars in the 1990s and 2000s.

The Chechen Wars were among the bloodiest of all wars in the post-Soviet area. The two wars triggered huge refugee movements, and almost half of the Chechen population was affected by displacement. The mass media portrayed the horrible picture of the Russian aerial bombardment of Grozny and other cities in Chechnya. Human rights organizations reported numerous cases of arbitrary killings, detention, and torture. The dominant reason for the ongoing conflict between Russia and Chechnya was the history of four centuries of struggle of the North Caucasian people against Russian dominance (Shafee Reference Shafee2015). In this way, Isa Munayev, former commander of the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion, killed in 2015, talked about the unfinished war of Chechens against Russia:

In June 2014, Munayev posted a video message accusing Russia of the genocide of Chechens during the Chechen wars (Chizhova Reference Chizhova2015). Rustam Adzhiyev explained revenge as his motivation to fight to Al-Monitor in October 2022: “We go to Ukraine to fight the Russians who killed and committed the most heinous crimes against our people in the 1990s” (al-Kanj Reference Al-Kanj2022). Muslim Madiyev, deputy commander of Sheikh Mansur Battalion, recalls that:

The Chechen veteran is sure that the Russian soldiers did this on instructions from Moscow (Ivanov Reference Ivanov2022). Muslim Cheberloyevskiy said on this topic of historical revenge:

In another interview, Cheberloyevskiy added:

Personal revenge

Another source of revenge-seeking in the culture of retaliation is the personal experience of suffering and killing of relatives and friends that must be avenged against the same enemy on other battlefields. In cultures of honor, personal slights and injuries are taken very seriously, often compelling individuals to seek vengeance to restore their honor. Such motivation is regularly expressed by individual Chechen foreign fighters fighting against Russia on the Ukrainian side. A Chechen fighter with the call-sign Makhno, from the Separate Special Purpose Battalion (OBON), said that in both Chechen wars, Russian forces were responsible for the torture of prisoners and executions: “Whatever they were doing here [in Ukraine], they did it to our relatives at home first,” Makhno said. “Each of us has had relatives and neighbors killed. We know this system better than anyone else. And that’s why we’re fighting here” (Khurshudyan, Dixon, and Morgunov Reference Khurshudyan, Robyn and Morgunov2022).

Many Chechen foreign fighters experienced brutal and harsh treatment by the Russian forces against their families that had to be revenged in this war. Some of them lost their relatives and friends, which only strengthened their willingness to avenge their deaths. Isa Munayev, former commander of the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion said at the press conference in 2014 in Odesa: “I tell you as a father of killed daughters, as a son of a murdered father. I could tell you many other things, but I won’t, it’s my pain, it’s my loss. They [Russians] must be stopped at all costs” (Odeskyi mediatsentr 2014). His successor, Adam Osmayev, had many personal reasons to fight against Russians and their Chechen proxies both before and after the reinvasion in 2022.

Hitmen ambushed and killed his wife Amina Okuyeva while they were driving a car in the Kyiv region in October 2017. It was the second assassination attempt after a Chechen hitman, disguised as a French journalist, tried to kill Osmayev in the car, but his wife reacted quickly and shot the assassin. In his video interview with the Globe, Osmayev said: “It was personal for me before [the killing of his wife]. But now it’s even more personal. A lot of innocent people from my nation have been killed. But when it touched my family, I put a lot more effort into this war” (Mackinnon Reference Mackinnon2022).

Muslim Cheberloyevskiy, commander of the Sheik Mansur Battalion, said to the media that he had to leave Chechnya in the late 2000s, but his relatives refused to leave the country and were tortured (Krykunenko Reference Krykunenko2022). He also said that was the witness of all the horrors of the war first-hand in Groznyi, a city annihilated by Moscow’s forces. “I have buried two brothers, several cousins, and many friends,” he said. “Russia wanted to take us back to the Stone Age” (Losh Reference Losh2015). During the two Chechen Wars, the issue of collective responsibility and mass reprisals came back, reassembling the Chechens’ tragic moments of their history—the horrors of Yermolov’s genocidal campaigns and Stalin’s mass deportations to Central Asia in 1944.

Such memories revived historical grievances that were complemented by a personal motivation of revenge for people whose friends and relatives suffered in Russia’s indiscriminate violence against civilians. The village of Samashki became a symbol of the senseless slaughter carried out by the Russian authorities in April 1995, in which several hundred civilians were killed. According to Elkner, a direct parallel can be drawn to the rationale underlying the methods used in the more recent wars to punish villages suspected of sheltering rebels by Yermolov’s soldiers (Elkner Reference Elkner and Wheatcroft2002, 211). A fighter named Sabakh from the Sheikh Mansur Battalion claimed he came from Samashki and remembers the First Chechen War, which began when he was eight years old:

After a long period of indecision, Sabakh went to Mariupol in 2019 and enlisted. “I’m going to fight against Russia my entire life. I’m going to avenge the Chechens who were killed. I’ll never forgive [Russia], and if I have sons, they’ll continue [my efforts]” (Mikhalchenko Reference Mikhalchenko2022b). Sabakh’s cousin Mansur, the deputy commander in the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, reportedly invited him to join. Mansur was thirteen years old when Russian soldiers destroyed Samashki. Wielding flamethrowers, the Russians burned Mansur’s neighbors alive in their homes, threw grenades into basements, and executed the men:

Wherever Russia wages war in the world, Mansur says, his battalion will follow to fight it. Their only purpose in life now is to take up arms against Russia—wherever that might be (Feng Reference Feng2022).

Another Chechen foreign fighter, Naib (name changed by iStories), was a college student in 1994:

In 2014, Naib left the European country where he was living at the time and joined the war in Ukraine (Mikhalchenko Reference Mikhalchenko2022b). Abu, one of the deputy commanders of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, says he was just seven years old in 1994 when his family’s district on the outskirts of Grozny came under bombardment. “We moved from the village to the city and back to the village, always heading to where it was quiet, where bombs weren’t falling.” He was the youngest of seven brothers, two of whom died in 1996. “We only found their bodies, full of bullet holes” (Reuter Reference Reuter2023).

Aslan Ocherkhadzhiev, a Chechen foreign fighter from the Sheik Mansur Battalion, said he came from Norway to Ukraine to get a shot at the old enemy that crushed his people in the Chechen wars and denied them an independent state (Kossov 2022). “Unfortunately, I had to experience a lot,” Ocherkhadzhiev said of his years in Chechnya. “A lot of death, a lot of mutilated people. I was wounded too.” He says he lost his finger in the year 2000 when he was trying to take down Russian armor. “I saw prisons,” he continues. “When I was in Grozny, I was very ill and they arrested me.” He says he was tortured and forced to confess to terrorism, which he denies engaging in. After spending three years in prison, he was released, then arrested and reimprisoned shortly afterward, for a total of over five years behind bars. Ocherkhadzhiev escaped Chechnya a few years after getting out of prison. Since then, Russia has put out new accusations against him, alleging that he was involved in the murders of police officers and military personnel, which he denies (Kossov 2022).

Aslan Malsagov from Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion comes from the Chechen village of Vedeno. He commented on his personal experience in the following way: “My whole family died. My parents, and my sister, were at their home in Vedeno in 2000. A shell hit the house. My brothers fought together with me. They both died in different years, defending Grozny.” In 2014, his comrade-in-arms, Isa Munayev, came to visit him: “he said he was going to join the new war against Russia. I wanted to go with him; we went to a base near the Dnipro. Muslim Cheberloyevskiy, the present commander of the Sheikh Mansur battalion, was there. I tore up and threw away my Russian passport in front of everyone, so my comrades knew: I’m with them to the end” (Mikhalchenko Reference Mikhalchenko2023).

Fatkhi Barayev, a fighter from the OBON battalion, combines two motivations for joining the fights in Ukraine: