From Russian torture chambers to fighting in Kursk region: story of Muaz, volunteer from Caucasus
Muaz is from Nalchik in the North Caucasus. Persecuted by Russian security forces, he spent more than eight years in prison, where he was tortured. After his release, he fled to Ukraine and volunteered to take up arms when the full-scale invasion began. He fought in the Kyiv region, near Bakhmut, and in the Kharkiv and Kursk regions, and now commands a team in the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment.
The Caucasus, persecution, and Russian prisons
– My name is Muaz. I am from the occupied Caucasus, from the city of Nalchik.
– When did you convert to Islam?
– In 2012. It was a conscious decision. I came to it on my own. Nobody "recruited" me, as they like to say in Russia.
– What is the name of the list they put people on when they convert to Islam?
– They say, "We’ve got you on our radar." In other words, if you convert to Islam, you immediately go on a list. Their appointees, the imams, report you. The DUM, or Spiritual Administration of Muslims, is made up of their appointees. Like the Russian Orthodox Church. There is the Russian Orthodox Church, and there is the DUM. And they say, "Aha, this young man has converted to Islam." Imagine that! Why has this young man converted to Islam?
He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t do anything wrong. He prays, which means he could be influenced by propaganda against Russia. And that’s it. Someone like that becomes undesirable. They start persecuting him.
They will summon you to the police station for no reason at all. At first, they will try to win you over, saying everything is fine, you’re allowed to pray. They see that you understand exactly what is going on, and then the real persecution begins. They might beat you at the station or tell you outright, "Either go into the forest, meaning get out of here, or we’ll kill you." Well, there isn’t much choice. There’s no point sitting at home waiting to die like a sheep. So many people went into the forest.
– What is your current status in the Russian Federation?
– A terrorist. I am on terrorist lists, facing charges of treason and spreading "false information" about the army. I don’t know what false information I have spread about the Russian army. I only tell the truth. In this case, I really am being honest and telling the truth.
I talk about what I saw, starting in the Kyiv sector, when we were digging up mass graves of civilians, where women had their hands tied behind their backs and had been shot to make sure they were dead. It was all in photographs and videos. By the way, we still have all those photographs and videos on our phones. We told them, "You came here and killed civilians." And they said, "No, the Ukrainians killed them to frame us." So, apparently, I’m speaking badly of them. That means false information, treason, and some other charge they’ve brought against me. Let them charge me under every article in the world. I couldn’t care less.
– Why were you charged with terrorism? What year was that?
– It was 2014. Young brothers from our village who shared my beliefs wanted to resist the Russian occupation regime, and they did. They decided to attack security officers. As it turned out, there were too many officers. A firefight broke out; two were killed, one escaped wounded, and I was the fourth one in the village. So they simply lumped me in with the others, so to speak, and put me in prison. First, they tortured me. I signed a statement saying I had been with them, even though I hadn’t.
I was at home on the day of the attack. I was in my own home. That was it. But they imprisoned me on terrorism charges. At the time, I was working, running a small fruit stall, you could say. I sold fruit and vegetables. I went to a neighbouring area. Someone had asked me to bring something. I delivered the fruit there and was driving along the highway when it was time to pray.
I remember thinking: I won’t wait until I reach the village. I’ll stop and pray quietly by the roadside, without bothering anyone. I stopped, opened the boot, stood beside it, and began to pray. Towards the end, I sensed that someone had pulled over. I even thought, "Couldn’t they find anywhere else to stop along this entire highway, apart from next to someone who is praying?" When I finished, they suddenly pulled away and drove off. All I saw was a Priora driving past. I drove into town. There, some brothers I knew told me that someone they didn’t recognise had been hanging around my car. Someone had walked around it, looking at it and peering underneath. I thought they must have planted something on me already.
Once you’re on their radar, it’s a matter of hours or days. Your time is running out. Sooner or later, they will either imprison you or kill you. You have to be as careful as possible. We checked the car, found nothing, and I drove home. I had a crate of small cucumbers in the boot for pickling at home. On my way home, I saw one of the traffic lights turn red. I looked in the mirror and noticed that two cars, the third and fourth behind me, had pulled out of the traffic and were watching. And my gut told me they were after me.
I sped straight through the red light, and they followed. We drove quite a way around the city, to put it mildly. I tried to lose them, but I couldn’t. They cut me off, dragged me out of the car, and very nearly gave me a serious beating. A bag over my head, hands behind my back. They started putting things into my hands. They forced my fingers open, put something in my hands, and stuffed things into my pockets. And that was it: they found their own attesting witnesses. They already had the witnesses with them. They lifted me up. There were loose 5.45 mm rounds for an RPK in the car. One magazine. An F-1 grenade in one pocket of my jeans, with the fuze separately in the other pocket.
In other words, I’m such a crazy person that I drive around with a fuse in a separate pocket. And all of this became a pretext to, so to speak, detain me. Then I was taken to the Centre for Countering Extremism. This is the main centre in Nalchik. They bring you in through the back entrance. If they bring you in through the front, they have to register you: so-and-so, entered at such-and-such a time. But if they bring you in through the back, officially you weren’t even there. They took me to the torture chamber, into an office, and started torturing me.
There, they beat you, choke you, humiliate you, and use foul language. Then they switched on the electricity, the so-called ‘sharmanka’. Some people can endure it longer; others less so. At that moment, I prayed for my heart to stop. I truly begged the Almighty for my heart to stop, so that I wouldn’t have to endure any more of this.
- What sentence did you get?
- At first they gave me two and a half years, as no one had died on my account. They labelled me a member of an illegal armed group. I served two and a half years in Chuvashia. I was released, was travelling home to my homeland, and six hours later I was detained again. They planted drugs on me again. I’ve never taken anything in my life. Absolutely nothing. No pills, nothing like that – I’ve never taken anything in my life. They didn’t plant heroin on me, but some other drug; they stuffed it into my sock. I was wearing a jacket, and they stuffed a pistol into the jacket pocket. It fires small-calibre rounds. So I’m supposed to be some sort of real saboteur. But nobody asked themselves: I’d only just been released from the camp six hours earlier. Where on earth did I get all this from?
Bloody hell, they shouldn’t have locked me up – they should have found out where I’d got all this from! And that was it. They tried again to pin on me the claim that I’d supposedly wanted to go to Syria and join up with someone there. They gave me six years. I’ve been imprisoned in many places across Russia. The last time was in my own republic. Before that, in the Saratov region, in Kazan, in Orenburg. I served my first sentence in Chuvashia.
In other words, if you’re from the Caucasus and you’ve been convicted of terrorism, they do everything they can to cut you off from home. Not only do they torment you for the entire sentence, but they also make sure you’re as far away from your family as possible. Not everyone can travel three thousand kilometres just for a three-day visit. That’s why they send everyone away, mostly to the Far East or Siberia. Well, as far away from home as possible.
- So they change your place of detention. I take it you were transported all over the Russian Federation?
- Yes. There are special camps for torture. When it comes to Muslims, the Russian prison system is fundamentally designed to break a person. Not to reform them. Nobody ends up there to atone for their crime. People go in there, and they come out embittered and broken. If you look at this whole corrupt system, they break people there through forced confessions and everything else. But you can’t break a Muslim with a forced confession. They realise that.
So what do they do? They keep us in solitary confinement all the time, starve us, and beat us in the camps. In other words, their attitude is biased. Here’s one example. I was imprisoned in Chuvashia, and there were ten of us Muslims in the whole camp. All just like me. That is, all charged under the terrorism article; to them, we’re terrorists. And almost all of us were sent to solitary confinement. So, you’re released, and I go in. And so on, constantly – a merry-go-round. Officially, it’s fifteen days. A person isn’t allowed to stay in solitary confinement for any longer than that. But they’d do two fifteen-day spells, meaning you spend thirty days in solitary. I served thirty days, came out, made my way back to the camp, and had a wash.
Then one of the administration staff came up and said: "Get dressed, you’re off to solitary." I immediately started arguing with him: "Why did you let me out then? I’d rather have stayed in there." And there was a member of the operations department there at the time. I said to him: "I’m asking you: what do you want from us? Why are you picking on us? Well, lock us up; we’ll sit it out. Why are you shuffling us about like this?" He says: "Convert to Christianity, and we’ll leave you alone." In other words, to break a person’s convictions, they target precisely that.
They consider themselves Christians, although in reality they are blatant atheists and have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity at all. And they also want to draw others into this. That’s what’s on the surface. As for the rest – torture, abuse, and all that sort of thing.
Release from a Russian prison, escape to Ukraine and the start of the war
- When were you released from prison? When did that happen?
– In 2021, I was diagnosed with an illness, a bad one, so to speak. It qualified me for release on medical grounds. In other words, I was entitled to leave the prison camp because of my illness. They no longer had the right to keep me in prison. I was released. Literally three or four days later, the summonses to police stations and the threats started again. I went to Moscow for treatment. While I was there, four brothers close to me were killed. First they tortured them, then they killed them. It was utterly savage. They gouged out their eyes and filled their mouths with expanding foam. It is a very well-known case that happened in our republic in 2021. I was fifth on the list.
What we saw in Bucha also happens in the Caucasus. It’s just that when it happened in the Caucasus, it was considered Russia’s internal problem. Nobody paid any attention. But now, unfortunately, Ukrainians have seen what happens and what kind of "comrades" and "neighbours" the Russians are. I realised there was no way I could go back. I considered Georgia, but that wasn’t an option because the route went through South Ossetia. A corrupt country that rolled over for the Russians.
Somehow, a route opened up, an illegal route into Ukraine. I paid guides about $1,500 and crossed over here without knowing anything about what was happening in Ukraine. For the most part, I didn’t go anywhere. I lived in one neighbourhood, tried to find work here and there, to do something, to earn enough to put food on the table. But I understood that eventually I would need to sort out some paperwork. From around December, we were part of a Muslim community. There were Crimean Tatars and many brothers from the Caucasus. We tried to stick together. One of the Crimean Tatars, Abuisa, who held a senior position in the Krym Battalion at the time, introduced us to a representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. He told us plainly that Russia would most likely attack. "If you want, you’ll have a chance to take revenge." I immediately decided that I would not leave if anything happened. Many others from the Caucasus made the same decision.
So, on 24 February 2022, I was at home. Someone called me in the morning and said, "The war has started." I grabbed a backpack, threw my things into it, locked the door, and didn’t return to the apartment until two months later.
The Kyiv region, Bakhmut and the first close-quarters firefight
– Tell us about those events. Which unit did you fight with?
– At first, it was the Krym Battalion. They were volunteers too, serving entirely on a voluntary basis. In other words, we were not part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so to speak. But there was someone with us, although "handler" isn’t the right word here, someone who helped us get through checkpoints. After all, we had weapons, some had no documents, and most had Russian passports. He helped us so we could move around.
From the first day, from 24 February until the end of the Kyiv operation, we were in the sector facing Belarus. The checkpoint: Motyzhyn, Severynivka. We operated there as a reconnaissance and sabotage team. Mostly, we went out on reconnaissance.
– When did you first experience a close-quarters firefight with the enemy?
– Do you mean Bakhmut?
– Yes.
– It was Novobakhmutka, the fire station. The Russians had captured the fire station, which stood on high ground, and an operation was being planned. The KORD special forces unit was there. And, if I’m not mistaken, if my memory serves me right, one of the Special Operations Forces units was there too. But I don’t know which one. And our team. The three teams moved in and encircled the fire station. There were about 20–24 people inside at the time, and the Russians had already spread out around it. Our task was to cut off enemy access to the fire station.
– Was this in late 2022?
– Yes, early 2023. Probably 6 January 2023. I distinctly remember 6 January 2023. There was a fence there. We took up defensive positions and held the line, and there were holes in the fence. I started moving to the side to look through and see what was happening because a battle was going on. You feel drawn towards it anyway. We were sitting there like a fifth wheel while a battle was raging a hundred metres away. I felt drawn towards it, perhaps to help somehow. I approached a hole but couldn’t see anything. The next breach had been caused by an impact. Out of habit, I kept my rifle raised. And I stepped around the corner with it.
Right opposite me, five or six metres away, seven at most, stood a katsap. He was a Wagner fighter. He froze. He didn’t even understand what was happening. I simply fired a burst, and he fell. But we made a very serious mistake by not taking the body away or dragging it into the bushes somewhere. Because the operation failed for reasons beyond our control. We cleared our section, but the attack in the centre failed. One team went around and cut off access from the woods on one side; we came in from another patch of woods, but the centre failed. We had to withdraw.
But we had made a path that nobody knew about. There was a minefield, and we ran through it. So we could have used that route to get in next time. But we had killed that fighter, and he was lying beside the mined fence. They knew there was a minefield there and assumed nobody would come that way. The next day, in aerial footage from a Mavic flying over the area, we saw that they had already dug positions. They had taken up positions on that side.
So we made a mistake by not hiding the body. We stayed in Bakhmut until the very end. We were almost the last to leave. We fought urban battles, taking part in the fighting inside the city itself. Then there was the "road of life", Khromove.
Kraken was conducting clearing operations there at the time. Kraken had only just arrived and was engaged in fighting, while we operated a little off to their flank. In 2024, two members of our team were seriously wounded. Arab was wounded; his leg was shattered. And my brother from Dagestan lost a leg near Klishchiivka. That was when we moved to the Kharkiv sector. So we also fought in the Klishchiivka sector.
The Kharkiv region. Evacuating civilians through a minefield
– During that same Kharkiv operation, we were told about a village called Strilecha. They explained that half the village was a grey zone and the other half was under Russian control. We were on the very edge. There were civilians on the other side, up to five people. Two of them were definitely waiting for the Russians, passing on positions. It was already clear that they were working for the Russians.
An excerpt from the conversation with civilians during the operation:
– Come out.
– I’m coming, I’m coming.
– How many in the house?
– Let… my wife. Let my wife come out. Do you have any soldiers here?
– No. Come in and look. Come in, in the cellar there’s…
– Get dressed. You’re being evacuated.
– Right. We’re being evacuated. Yes.
– To Russia?
– To Russia. To Russia.
– Our daughter is in Russia.
– When did you last see our men?
– Oh, your men were here. I even gave them some there a week ago. Uh-huh. They were sitting here. All our men, this isn’t…
– No, no, I mean all…
Muaz continues:
– We planned a small operation involving disguises, so to speak. We changed completely into Russian uniforms and put on their armbands. Through the battalion, we arranged for our troops not to look towards the village at all, so we wouldn’t come under friendly fire. We thought the operation through. Four of us went in and began sweeping the area. We walked past Russian positions, and they didn’t suspect a thing. Just their own men walking past, GRU. And, excuse me, with a face like mine, I’m one of them as far as they’re concerned. That was it. We made it through and reached the civilians. Instead of a maximum of five people, there were nine.
Our route in was through a minefield. The whole area was littered with OZM mines. We wouldn’t have made it any other way, along the road. We would definitely have been exposed because that side was Ukrainian-held. Instead, we came out of the woods on the Russian side, from the direction of the Russian minefield. We went in, collected nine people, and began leading them out through the same minefield.
The first man in our team made it through, and the civilians followed him. Then an OZM mine went off. Two of my men were seriously wounded. Their legs were shattered, and they suffered wounds to the abdomen and groin. A fragment hit me in the neck. My body armour was torn apart. Unfortunately, we lost one civilian.
But we got everyone else out.
We got both the civilians and the Russian supporters out, so to speak. They were very surprised. They had thought we were Russians taking them to Russia. When they saw Ukrainians, they were a little bewildered.
– Why did you decide to take that risk for civilians?
– Because what else could we do? Who else would we do it for?
Who are we here for, if not ordinary people? For land? A metre of land gives me nothing. But I know that this elderly woman, this elderly man, or this child is innocent. We saw it in the Caucasus, we saw it in Syria, we saw it in Afghanistan. Wherever the Russians go, civilians are killed. They are still fighting in Africa.
What the hell business does Russia have in Africa, sending its Wagner men there and killing civilians? It is the same here. So what do we need that extra metre of land for, one way or the other? It gives us nothing. People are what matter to us. Especially since most of them were elderly. Well, I don’t know. We couldn’t have left them behind. I think that would have been wrong.
The Kursk operation
– When did you and your team enter the Kursk region?
– A week later. We were in Sloviansk at the time, operating in Toretsk. What was there to do in Toretsk? You could explore the mines, lay mines somewhere, blow something up, approach somewhere and cause some damage. That is our work. But when we heard about the Kursk operation, it was a dream come true: to go back into Rashka with weapons! What person from the Caucasus wouldn’t want to do that? We all dreamed of getting in there.
The Nur team enters the Kursk region once again. There is no sign of those notorious border guards, Wagner fighters, and other scum shouting that they have already won. If you look at the map, Sudzha is on the right, and we went left, towards the railway, where the advance on Korenevo had stopped. Yes, we moved out that way.
If I’m not mistaken, the 95th Brigade was there. The 95th did take part there. We were introduced to one of the 95th Brigade’s battalions and operated in their sector. We would go in, carry out a mission, and come out.
One thing I remember was a settlement we had partially encircled. Ukrainian forces had partially encircled it. There were woods directly adjoining the village. We were told that there were Kadyrov fighters, marines, and remnants of Wagner in those woods, or rather in the village itself. They had stayed there and were putting up fierce resistance. You have to give them credit. They really did resist very effectively. There were attempts: the Special Operations Forces tried to get in, and the battalion itself tried to assault it. But they fought back hard.
One day, we went in on reconnaissance. I don’t know why we took so many weapons with us. Almost everyone had a grenade launcher or an AT4, something heavy like that. The men holding the positions there told us, "There’s most likely a machine gun in that house."
We had equipment, and the distance was about a kilometre. We looked and saw a pillbox in the window. An actual pillbox. Inside the house. Later, we learned from intercepts that Kadyrov fighters had been there.
An excerpt from combat footage
The account continues:
– We simply worked along the road. The house faced a field. Three hundred metres of open ground, then the woods began. They didn’t expect anyone to get that close. We simply went through the woods, came out into the field and fired directly at the house. We burned it down completely. There was nothing left of it.
An excerpt from combat footage
The Sumy region, the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment and drone warfare
– When did you join the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment?
– Before that, we worked with the 117th Territorial Defence Brigade. We also operated with them as a counter-sabotage team, helping in the Sumy region. The Sumy region is an ideal place to move around. Especially since Senezh was operating there at the time. Senezh would come in, terrorise people, wipe out positions, and withdraw. They were trying to intimidate people. Through people we knew, we joined up with the 117th Brigade there too. Good men, real fighters. Whatever people say about the Territorial Defence Forces, those men really can fight.
We began countering them. They would come in, and we would look for them. We would go in, and they would look for us. After one of our successful fishing trips, so to speak, they themselves acknowledged losing two men, two Senezh fighters. They published their first and last names. We went in and laid mines, and a Senezh team hit them. Two of their men were killed. They acknowledged it themselves on their channels.
We were operating in the Sumy sector when winter came. In the woods, in winter, a Mavic will spot you in five seconds.
After that, we moved to the Donetsk sector. Serebrianka. We fought in Serebrianka, unsuccessfully for us, so to speak. Three trips, three of our vehicles burned out. We were evacuating the wounded and helping there, and we got surrounded. On one occasion, we managed to get out, thank God. We were based in Sloviansk.
After that, our story with the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment was really about trust. We joined because we trusted the commanders here. We have known these commanders since 2022. Some since 2022, others from a little later, but we know them. We had the opportunity to work with practically any organisation in Ukraine, with any brigade that knew us. But we chose the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment. Precisely because of that trust. I know the commander and understand that if something happens, he won’t abandon us. He will help us, get us out and do everything in his power. I began developing the team’s long-range strike capabilities. We went for training, and the men learned to operate long-range, strike and reconnaissance drones.
The 33rd Separate Assault Regiment gave us opportunities to learn things I wouldn’t have been able to learn elsewhere. Yes, we know how to fight in the woods and move around there, but this is specifically about new equipment. For example, my team has a Vector aircraft worth €300,000. That says something. It is about trust. They entrusted us with €300,000 worth of equipment, and we operate it.
– As a commander, do you understand that your unit needs to transform?
– Yes, of course. A unit needs to develop exponentially. When instructors speak, the first thing I ask is when they last saw combat. Yes, I could become an instructor myself, roughly speaking. I have some basic experience and could demonstrate a few things. But the war changes every month. What was relevant a month ago may be completely irrelevant now. We used to fly Darts on certain frequencies. That’s over: now we have to update the firmware and fly on different frequencies.
The war is evolving, and people have to develop too. Infantry is essential. You cannot win a war without infantry. Someone has to hold the trenches. But now, most things are decided in the sky.
– What combat missions are you and your men currently carrying out in the Kupiansk sector?
– Strikes deep behind enemy lines. Our latest strike targeted UAV operators. We burned out their position. That was about 13 kilometres behind their lines. Before that, we struck artillery twice; there were howitzers there. We mostly target buildings where they concentrate their forces. We try to cut them off in depth.
There are different zones along the front. Mavics and FPV drones operate at the front line. Further back, our large fixed-wing drones operate, then strike drones. And further, and further, and further. Now, if things work out and the Almighty wills it, we want to learn to operate drones with a range of 140 kilometres. That will be a whole different story.
Motivation, wounds and the future of the Caucasus
– Do you have to do anything to motivate your fighters?
– No. They are already fully motivated. As I see it, someone who volunteers of their own accord… There are men who have gone AWOL. I took in a man who had gone AWOL. He hadn’t liked his previous brigade, so to speak. Everything depends on the commander. If the commander is out of his mind, the unit will suffer too. He really was having a hard time there. He went home. Then he contacted us, contacted me. We knew each other. He said, "I want to fight, but I want to fight properly." Welcome. We took him in. He has now completed his training. He flies Darts in my unit and is a team commander. He has been fighting for five months now.
– Have you been wounded?
– Yes, shrapnel wounds. We set off an OZM mine. Two gunshot wounds, then shrapnel wounds again. Four wounds in total and about six blast concussions, two of them severe. I was bleeding from my nose, my ears and even my eyes. The last concussion was really severe. I considered myself a casualty and wanted to pull out, but another man in our team was wounded, and we had to get him out. So yes, I have been wounded, but that comes with the territory, as they say.
– When should the war end for you personally?
– Either when I return home to the Caucasus or after Russia breaks up. I would also be happy to stay in Ukraine. I like Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Most people here are very good and decent. I’m not talking about the state; I’m talking about the people. The people are very good and decent. And I like the natural surroundings here. Transcarpathia is much like the North Caucasus, roughly speaking.
As for returning to Russia, I would only go in on a tank or with a weapon in my hands. And see it through to the end.
But none of Russia’s neighbours will have peace as long as Russia remains intact. Nothing will change just because Putin drops dead. The entire power structure has to fall, completely. From the military to every other institution, everything has to collapse. That will only happen when it begins falling apart from within.
If the Caucasus erupts, Ukraine will be able to breathe easier.
