On 26 February, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Head of the Chechen Republic, announced that Chechen military forces had been deployed to Ukraine, saying that Putin "took the right decision and we will carry out his orders under any circumstances."[1] The same day, the Russian state media outlet RT published a video of what it described as 12 000 Chechen soldiers gathered in the main square of Grozny, the Chechen capital, preparing to go to war in Ukraine.