According to media calculations, in August 2022 — before mobilisation had been announced — Muslim regions of Russia were among the regions with the biggest number of casualties in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In the top ten, Dagestan was at the top of the list, Bashkortostan came fourth, and Chechnya — tenth. Tatarstan ended up after the Yekaterinburg region, at 12th place.
Furthermore, considering the inaccessibility of information on Chechnya, it would be naive to rely only on public data. With the number of people Ramzan Kadyrov was able to mobilise for the “special military operation”, his losses should be significantly heavier. Although it should be noted that not all people recruited for Kadyrov’s military units are Chechnya natives.
One way or another, “ethnic-Muslim” component is quite visible among the soldiers on the Russian side in general and among the people being killed in this war in particular. And if there is no point in talking about the motivations of people forced to mobilise, when it comes to volunteer fighters who went to the war, one of the reasons for going, among dire financial circumstances and dependence on local authorities, was ideological indoctrination.
The paradox here is that during ideological preparation for the “special military operation” Vladimir Putin and other advocates for the “Russian world” constantly appealed towards “defending Russians and Orthodox Christians” and the idea of “one nation”, which Ukrainians and Russians allegedly make up — both are Slavic people and Orthodox Christians. However, the people who are being convinced to fight in this war are neither Slavic nor Orthodox, which requires a lot of creativity from propaganda aimed at Muslim audience.