Putin instructs Kadyrov to kill Zelensky - WSJ

The Wall Street Journal quoted representatives of the Ukrainian intelligence service and the Security Service of Ukraine as saying that Putin had instructed Kadyrov to occupy government quarters during the invasion of the Ukrainian capital and kill the Ukrainian president

The paper said that three weeks before the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin summoned Kadyrov to Moscow. Together they "worked out a strategy" and discussed how Zelenskyy would be killed. Already on 25 February 2022, Kadyrov's men entered Ukraine in three columns of armoured vehicles.

Ukrainian intelligence reports that the Kadyrovites had about 1,500 personnel - "the best special units, the best fighters". The first of the three groups of "kadyrovites" was almost completely destroyed on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital. The other two groups were forced to regroup. They stopped the offensive before reaching Kyiv. After defeating the "best of the best", Kadyrov instructed a covert mobilization to begin.

WSJ journalists write that Chechen officials and religious leaders went to gyms and gambling clubs, and offered up to 300,000 rubles per month for participation in a full-scale war against Ukraine. They recruited "the most vulnerable". This category included men with debts, criminal records or those thought to be gay, and threatened them with prison.

Today, most of "Kadyrov's fighters" act as so-called barrier troops. Their task is to prevent Russian soldiers from leaving the battlefield. Kadyrov's fighters are also brutally torturing locals on the occupied territories, robbing, raping and drinking.

The publication notes that Putin and Kadyrov now have a "special" relationship and stresses that the Kremlin leader communicates with the head of Chechnya personally, rather than through aides, as is the case with other Russian governors