Chechen Warlord Known For Anti-Gay Purge Killed in Ukraine

A Chechen warlord, known for brutalising and persecuting LGBTQI people, was killed Saturday, February 26, while fighting in Ukraine. 

According to Illia Ponomarenko, a defence reporter for the Kyiv Independent and backed up by spokesperson for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Magomed Tushayev was killed during the battle at Hostomel Airport, an international cargo airport outside Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. 

Magomed Tushayev, one of Ramzan Kadyrov’s top warlords, has been killed in action in Hostomel.
🇺🇦Ukraine’s elite Alpha Group is reportedly fighting Chechens in the airfield. pic.twitter.com/bPHgBPK8sL

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) February 26, 2022

On Saturday a video appeared online of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Head of the Chechen Republic and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stating that Chechen troops have entered Ukraine and bragging about their superiority on the battlefield.

Kadyrov said, “As of today, as of this minute, we do not have one single casualty, or wounded, not a single man has even had a runny nose.”

He went on to dismiss Ukrainian reports of Chechen and Russian casualties. 

Directed Violence at the LGBT Communities

According to the Los Angeles Blade, Tushayev was involved in the persecuting, rounding up, and torture of LGBTQI people in Chechnya. 

One incident includes the kidnapping of an LGBT activist Ibragim Selimkhanov in May 2021. Selimkhanov was abducted from a subway station in Moscow and forcibly taken to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. In Grozny, he was interrogated by Chechen operatives on his LGBT activist connections before being put on surveillance with his mother. He eventually escaped to Moscow.

Tushayev was Head of the 141st Motorized Regimen of the Chechen National Guard and was Kadyrov’s right-hand man.