MOSCOW (Reuters) – The speaker of Russia’s parliament said a senior Chechen commander was alive and well on Wednesday, following reports he had been killed or wounded in Ukraine.
The commander, Adam Delimkhanov, is a member of parliament as well as heading the Chechen division of the Russian national guard. He is widely seen as the Caucasian region’s second most senior official after its leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
“I’ve just spoken to him. He’s alive and well. Not only that, but he wishes you all good health,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, told lawmakers.
Russia’s TASS news agency quoted another Chechen commander as saying Delimkhanov was in Chechnya, not Ukraine, and media reports he had come under fire in Ukraine were all “fakes”.
Delimkhanov, a former Chechen separatist who switched sides to Moscow along with much of the region’s present leadership, has taken a prominent role in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, commanding Chechen forces in Mariupol in the conflict’s early days.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Gareth Jones and Peter Graff)
