Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence said it had placed an agent in the circle around Apti Alaudinov and monitored conversations of the command staff of the Chechen Akhmat battalion for three months. The claim was made in a press release by the HUR.
Ukraine’s account
According to Kyiv, in early 2025 the Ukrainian side established contact with a serviceman from Akhmat. HUR says that person installed a listening device in a room used for command meetings of the battalion.
Ukrainian intelligence says this gave the Armed Forces of Ukraine access to information about the unit’s plans and capabilities. It also claims that, as a result, the battalion suffered its heaviest losses since the start of the full-scale invasion.
A video released by Ukraine includes fragments of meetings in which, HUR says, Akhmat commander Apti Alaudinov is taking part.
“Most of our artillery crews and tank crew do not even know how to fire properly. <...> In essence, they have not fought even once in four years,” he allegedly said.
After that, according to the Ukrainian version, the agent from among the battalion’s fighters was safely transferred to territory controlled by Ukraine.
Akhmat’s response
Alaudinov described the statement by “Ukrainian LGBT people” and “storytellers” as the result of the “work of artificial intelligence.”
“I only have one question. If you were listening to me for two months, why did you do nothing about my work?” he said.
Context
Earlier, Z-bloggers and Ukrainian media had referred to the Akhmat unit as “TikTok troops” because of its active self-promotion on social media and in pro-Kremlin media. In August 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine crossed the border in Russia’s Kursk region, which Akhmat fighters were supposed to guard. At first, Alaudinov denied the scale of what was happening, and later said that Ukrainian forces had “bypassed” his unit’s strongholds.