Translated material
Looking for a Hero
The Chechen authorities have put the commander of the Vostok battalion, Sulim Yamadayev, on the wanted list.
The commander of the Vostok battalion, Hero of Russia Sulim Yamadayev has been put on the federal wanted list. This was reported yesterday by the press service of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov following his working meeting with the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic Ruslan Alkhanov. Thus, the conflict around the Vostok battalion, which broke out last April and then gradually faded away through the efforts of the federal authorities, has entered a new phase.If until now Sulim Yamadayev and his battalion were accused by the Chechen authorities of all sins - murders, kidnappings and simply poor leadership of the entrusted unit - albeit publicly, but unfounded, now they have provided a documentary basis for these claims. True, even after this, the legal status of the Vostok commander, taking into account some legal nuances, remained not entirely clear, which made it unclear whether anyone was really looking for him.
According to the press service of the head of Chechnya, posted on his official website, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, Ruslan Alkhanov, reported to him about the beginning of the search for Sulim Yamadayev. “At the moment, there is material indicating his involvement in kidnappings and other serious crimes,” the minister noted. To this, as the report says, Mr. Kadyrov said: “He is a criminal, and the criminal must be punished for what he did. It doesn’t matter what position or last name a person has, what his merits are and how many medals he has.”
The message also said that the Gudermes interdistrict department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office (SKP) was looking for Mr. Yamadayev in the framework of a criminal case initiated on May 4. No details of the case were given, only that it was a case of the murder of a local resident.
The security services of Chechnya confirmed this data, but no one in the military structures and federal law enforcement agencies said anything about this. As a result, Mr. Yamadayev's legal status remains unclear. The fact is that a person can be put on the wanted list only after charges have been filed in absentia. In theory, Sulim Yamadayev can only be charged by a representative of the military prosecutor's office, since he is a military officer with the rank of colonel - the Vostok battalion he heads, stationed in Gudermes, is part of the 42nd motorized rifle division of the Ministry of Defense and, moreover, is directly subordinate to the GRU .
As a result, the message about putting Mr. Yamadayev on the wanted list was presented, at least for now, as another move by Ramzan Kadyrov in his purely political confrontation with the Vostok commander, which began quite a long time ago and escalated last spring. Sulim Yamadayev and his brothers (there are four of them in total) have positioned themselves as an independent influential force in the republic since the last Chechen campaign.
The Vostok battalion, staffed by Chechens, remained one of the few special services in the republic not under the control of local authorities. The conflict of interests came to light in April of this year, and the reason for this was an incident during which a column of Vostok employees on the road did not pass Mr. Kadyrov’s motorcade. After this, the battalion was accused by Mr. Kadyrov’s administration of involvement in various crimes (including murders, kidnappings and arms trafficking), and the leadership of Vostok accused the leadership of the republic of “blockading” the unit, kidnappings and murders his fighters.
A few weeks after the leadership of the Ministry of Defense went to Chechnya to resolve the conflict, passions seemed to have subsided. Only Sulim Yamadayev's younger brother, Badrudi, was put on the wanted list (he was charged with failure to comply with the rules of parole from the colony, where he was sent for attempted murder).
However, it appears that Mr Kadyrov has decided not to back down. Now Sulim Yamadayev was virtually cut off from his unit. Employees of the Gudermes prosecutor's office, of course, will not be able to look for him outside the republic, but in their city they may well detain him at the gates of the battalion.