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Inside the Akhmat Battalion Where a Russian General’s Family Got Comfort Over Combat

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Photo of Roman Kohanets
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A fighter wears an Akhmat Special Forces patch during a public appearance by the Russian unit. (Photo: open source)
A fighter wears an Akhmat Special Forces patch during a public appearance by the Russian unit. (Photo: open source)

General Apti Alaudinov, one of Russia's most visible military spokesmen who publicly urges ordinary Russians to join the war effort in the name of the Fatherland, has placed at least a dozen of his own relatives in a comfortable Akhmat battalion in the rear, complete with saunas, feasts, and gaming consoles, far from the front line, according to an investigation by Vot Tak.

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The independent outlet published its findings on June 8, drawing on the unit's own social media, leaked records, and interviews.

The arrangement lays bare a double standard: Alaudinov demands that ordinary Russians, including conscripts, die at the front, while his own relatives sit out the war in comfort.

A summer camp in the rear

The unit is the Vakha Battalion of the Akhmat Special Forces, stationed in a pine forest near Borisovka in the Belgorod region, dozens of kilometers from the fighting, Vot Tak found. Its commander, Vakha Saaev, is Alaudinov's cousin, the investigation established.

Posts on the battalion's Telegram channel, examined by the outlet, depict conditions more akin to a summer camp than to a combat unit. Fighters live in heated rooms for one to five people, with washing machines, showers, a sauna, televisions and gaming consoles. The kitchen is so well-stocked that surplus food is donated to a nearby monastery.

A sauna and a room with a television and a gaming console at the Vakha Battalion base. (Source: SpN “AKHMAT” Battalion “VAKHA”/Telegram)
A sauna and a room with a television and a gaming console at the Vakha Battalion base. (Source: SpN “AKHMAT” Battalion “VAKHA”/Telegram)

The men visit local cafés and celebrate holidays on a grand scale, according to the report. One New Year's "humanitarian aid" delivery left gifts and sheep carcasses under the Christmas tree.

A battalion of relatives

Vot Tak identified at least 12 of Alaudinov's relatives who have served in the Akhmat Special Forces, most of them under Saaev, alongside at least seven of the general's former Interior Ministry colleagues.

Ethnic Chechens make up only about a quarter of the wider unit, which recruits volunteers from across Russia for rare four-month contracts that do not automatically renew. "These are all my guys, whom I consider family," Alaudinov stated of the unit.

Only one cousin has been reported killed, the outlet noted. Across all Akhmat formations—about 55,000 fighters since 2022—the independent monitors have confirmed just 417 deaths, a toll one of its editors attributed to rear-area deployment rather than combat. Their own side nicknamed the Akhmat units "TikTok troops," a reference to their heavy social-media presence and their early disappearance from the front.

Apti Alaudinov, Ramzan Kadyrov, and Alaudinov’s brother Abdul Alaudinov pictured together. (Source: Kadyrov_95/Telegram)
Apti Alaudinov, Ramzan Kadyrov, and Alaudinov’s brother Abdul Alaudinov are pictured together. (Source: Kadyrov_95/Telegram)

The public face

Alaudinov's public posture has drawn scrutiny to his own household. After conscripts captured at the border ended up in Ukrainian hands, he turned on their parents, asking why they and their children "matter to this country at all."

Critics quickly pointed to his adult son, Akhmed, whose lavish wedding and foreign cars—including a Ford Ranger, a BMW, and a Mercedes G-Class—sat awkwardly alongside that message, Vot Tak reported.

The relative safety of these rear-area Akhmat formations has not held everywhere. In late May 2026, a Ukrainian HIMARS strike hit a training ground used by an Akhmat special battalion in the Kursk region, killing dozens.

Earlier in the spring, a months-long Ukrainian intelligence operation built around an agent recruited inside one such unit had inflicted the heaviest Akhmat losses of the full-scale war—41 killed, 87 wounded, and more than 100 missing.

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