At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, photos of the wars in Chechnya circulated on social media, with some observers drawing parallels between the two conflicts. As reports of Chechen troops being deployed by Moscow to the battleground emerged, the historical links between what was happening in the post-Soviet space in the 1990s and what is going on today seemed even more apparent.
Al Jazeera spoke to Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a Chechen dissident and survivor of the two Chechen wars, about the conflict in Ukraine and the accuracy of historical parallels. Abdurakhmanov is a prominent blogger and critic of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. He left his country in 2016 after he faced threats from Kadyrov’s cousin, Chechen politician Islam Kadyrov.
