“They pointed at some woman and said I’d been caught red-handed”: How Chechen security services honeytrap men into going to war

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A hunt for “volunteers”

Since the first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Russia’s Chechen Republic, has been showcasing his fighters' purported successes on the battlefield. Many of the heroic battles turned out to be staged, earning his units the moniker “TikTok troops.” Yet this does not stop Kadyrov from regularly increasing their numbers. Over the 3.5 years of the war, nine units have been formed in Chechnya, and each of them required “volunteers.”

Although most of these units are stationed in the rear and in border areas, Kadyrov proudly reports to the federal government that tens of thousands of Chechens are joining the fight every year. In July 2025, he announced that since the start of the invasion, the Chechen Republic had sent 60,000 fighters — 22,000 of them “volunteers” — to the conflict zone.

Although these figures are likely overstated — with the count based not on individual people, but on renewed contracts, as Novaya Europe notes — Chechen units still need regular reinforcements. As a result, the hunt for so-called “volunteers” has been an ongoing process in the republic.

“Coercion to sign contracts began at the end of 2022. We started noticing that in every district of Chechnya, directives were issued specifically to search for so-called ‘targets,’” says Said-Ali Abubakirov, head of the political opposition movement NIYSO. According to Abubakirov, in leaked group chats obtained by the opposition, security agents referred to future volunteers as “candidates.”

When Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes in October 2024, Kadyrov even claimed that Chechnya had 84,000 men “willing to go fight.”

At the time, as human rights activists recall, police stations, traffic police regiments, and other units were instructed to recruit 25 to 50 “volunteers” each. Some agencies even exceeded these quotas, NIYSO confirms. According to the activists, law enforcement officers used group chats to trade potential recruits among themselves.

Abubakirov states:

“They literally sell people there: ‘I have a few people for 100,000 rubles, a few for 200,000…’ Even the chiefs argue among themselves: ‘how come our department didn’t find a single guy in a day, or a week?’ They have their own regulations, their own quotas to meet. And when they exceed the quota, they start treating it as a business, literally selling extra people. I saw it in so many words: ‘I found a candidate. I can sell him to another officer so he can meet his quota.’ Total madness.”

Honeytraps

Whereas previously Chechen security services picked “candidates” from among minor offenders — guilty of drug use, traffic violations, or public consumption of alcohol — they have now moved on to overt entrapment, mainly through schemes involving women. It all starts with a phone call, or a sign of attention on social media, or what seems like a chance encounter on the street.

Muhammad (name changed), the youngest son in his family, left Russia at the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, but even three years later, he is afraid to show his face. He contacted journalists after Chechen security forces detained his brother, 43-year-old Anzor (name also changed), in the fall of 2024. Anzor had lived in Chechnya with his wife, worked in private home construction, never spoke on political topics, and, according to his brother, was very cautious.

“Around September of last year, a girl texted my brother on Instagram. They started exchanging messages, possibly of a romantic nature,” Muhammad recounts. He recalls that she was Chechen, not very religious, in her early thirties.

Their correspondence continued for several weeks until the girl admitted to Anzor that she was married: “My brother stopped communicating with her and asked her not to write anymore. But the girl insisted on continuing the conversation. She complained that she was unhappy in her marriage.” According to Muhammad, one day his brother went out to buy groceries with his mother and a male relative and never returned. Plainclothes men grabbed Anzor on the street, shoved him into a civilian car, and drove away.

“Later, my brother was accused of allegedly seducing a married woman,” Muhammad says.

Such cases are becoming more frequent in Chechnya with each passing month, NIYSO activists report. And the entrapment scenarios are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

The activists recount the story of a man named Musa (name changed), who contacted the organization for help. Musa claims that in March 2024, he was traveling from Grozny to his native village and agreed to give a couple of young hitchhikers a ride. The girl sat in the back, while her companion took the front seat.

Shortly after Musa picked them up, the car was stopped by the police. “The man in the front seat got out and moved into a civilian car parked nearby. The police approached and asked to see our documents — mine and the girl's. They told us to step out of the vehicle and began the search. They found some pills in the pocket of the back of the driver’s seat. I had never seen them before and started denying everything, saying they weren’t mine, but the girl began to cry and said they were ours, that we were going to an apartment to have fun,” Musa wrote in his appeal to NIYSO.

Another complaint was filed by Ilyas (name changed), a student at one of Grozny’s engineering vocational schools. At the end of 2023, he lost his wallet, borrowed money for a ticket home from a stranger at a bus stop, and later transferred the amount to him in a banking app using his phone number, following up with a thank-you note on WhatsApp. In response, however, Ilyas received several disconcerting messages from a girl.

“She kept using my name, acting as if we had known each other for a long time, and asked when we could meet again, even though I had never seen her before. She kept sending voice messages and tried to get me to talk. I didn’t reply and assumed that the guy had simply given me the wrong number,” Ilyas said.

As Said-Ali Abubakirov explains, even underage girls can be involved in such schemes, and they may not fully grasp what is happening. “These are mostly young girls who can easily be lured with money. Some may know what is going on, while others may have only received hints. Sometimes they are told, ‘We are checking the man.’ In any case, the girl doesn’t need to know the whole plan and may not even realize what she has been drawn into.”

A woman reached out to NIYSO, saying that security forces had detained her 16-year-old daughter, beaten her, tortured her with electricity, and forced her to implicate herself on camera. They then blackmailed her into messaging multiple men in an effort to entrap them.

A date with a policeman

Once the compromising material is collected, the target may be watched for several days before the “detention” takes place. Often, this involves plainclothes individuals unceremoniously shoving men into a civilian vehicle before driving away.

Muhammad is convinced that Anzor was being watched and that the security forces were waiting for the right moment:

“They knew where he lived. As I see it, they'd been tracking him, keeping him under surveillance for a day or two. My brother’s wife recalls noticing the car that was used in the abduction parked outside their house on several occasions.”

Ilyas, the engineering student, was approached by plainclothes men the day after the incident with the wallet at the same bus stop, and at around the same time of day. They invited him for a “talk” in their car, showed him a police ID, and demanded that he unlock his phone, after which they demonstratively found the girl’s voice messages.

“I said that I didn’t know her, but they were putting on a show, detailing my alleged ‘relationship’ with this girl. Then they drove me to the Grozny City shopping mall, brought a woman to the car, and claimed she was the wife of their colleague. They said that I supposedly had a relationship with her and that we'd been caught red-handed. After that, the threats began: either they would hand me over to her husband’s relatives, who would kill me and bury me in a place where no one would find me, or I had to sign the papers they were giving me, and they would cover up the case,” Ilyas recounts.

According to NIYSO, the most common kidnapping scenario is a “caught in the act” setup. “The girl sends photos. A date is arranged. But when the man shows up, there are law enforcement officers waiting with a prepared story — for instance, that the girl is underage,” explains Said-Ali.

The “volunteers quota”

Men who are “caught in the act” are taken to a local police station, where they are offered the chance to get out of trouble by signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense. Those who refuse are sent to the basement, where they are subjected to intimidation and torture until they agree, NIYSO activists report.

Muhammad confirms their findings, saying that Anzor was kept for more than a week in the basement of the local police station. He was also tortured: “They attached wires to his fingers and earlobes, connecting them to some handheld device that generated electricity. Every time he refused to sign the contract, they shocked him again. He was also kept in isolation,” Muhammad recalls. “They made him believe that the woman's relatives were intent on killing him and that the only way to survive was to go fight in Ukraine. They presented it as a way to stay safe in the rear: ‘Go, we’ll help you. We don’t want any killings. We want to save your life.’ They were playing the ‘good cop.’”

According to human rights activist Abubakirov, Chechen security forces often demand ransom from the relatives of kidnapped men: “Any person brought in for questioning without any serious charges can be used to extort money from their relatives. They say: either we send him to Ukraine, or you pay. What is there to do? The relatives start raising money from friends and acquaintances, wherever they can, and pay it.” According to activists, the demands can range from 300,000 to 700,000 rubles ($3,600-$8,400).

However, in Anzor’s case, the security forces were not after money, his brother says. They wanted to send him to the war. It was only through distant connections and a hefty ransom that Anzor was freed from the local police station.

“Right now, meeting the recruitment quota is more important for them than collecting ransom. An acquaintance who works in a police precinct says they are making money off people they send to the front as well, submitting claims for payments under their own names. Meanwhile, they still meet the recruitment targets set by the Kremlin,” Muhammad explains.

“You’ll sign anyway”

In Chechnya, not even money and connections provide men with immunity from being recruited to fight in Ukraine. Despite his cousin's contacts at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ilyas was ultimately forced to sign a contract.

“He said that there was nothing he could do, that I could be taken at any moment, and all I could do was hope that my turn wouldn’t come. But a few weeks later, they grabbed me anyway, and after a brief training camp, we were sent to the special military operation.”

As Anzor told his brother, several other men were kept at the police station with him, all accused of similar “misdeeds.” Muhammad recounts the story: “He noticed a young guy, about 18 years old, and this boy told the older men: ‘Why suffer? Sign the contract! There’s no point in holding out. They will torture you and will get their way anyway.’”

By NIYSO activists’ estimates, the number of Chechen men who have been coerced into signing a contract may already run into the thousands. “Everyone has their own story, ranging from traffic accidents to girls. In the absence of an official draft, today's Chechnya is like a concentration camp with prisoners. You won’t see anything like this in Moscow, Perm, or Makhachkala — not anywhere else,” the NIYSO leader says.

Fight or flight

After signing the contract, men are added to the lists of “volunteers for the special military operation” and are normally sent home, only to be deployed to Ukraine at a later date. This is what happened to Ilyas, who was wounded in the fourth month and returned home — unable to resume studies at the engineering school or to find a job. His cousin suggested he join the police to avoid being sent to the war again. Instead, Ilyas decided to leave Russia. (Musa, on the other hand, left the country without waiting to be sent to the front.)

Until 2024, getting a job with the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the Russian National Guard in Chechnya offered a near guarantee against being deployed to Ukraine. This was the path taken by 29-year-old Mansur, who received a draft notice in 2023 from the military enlistment office at his registered address in the Saratov region. At that moment, he lived in the resort town of Yeysk, working as a beach administrator.

“My acquaintances suggested it — they had joined the National Guard for the same reason. It has a variety of units: the oil regiment, OMON [riot police], and regular servicemen as a separate division. All of this is so that you don’t have to go to the special military operation,” Mansur explains.

He joined OMON and served in an operational platoon that was deployed to cordon off roads. According to him, illegal recruitment for the war in Chechnya is carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

“If someone messed up — for example, was caught driving without a license, drinking, or doing drugs — military enlistment could be used as a way of punishing them. In our religion, drinking alcohol, smoking, and using drugs are forbidden. Since there’s a war, such people are forced to sign a contract. Before, they would face an administrative fine, sometimes a criminal record, or they’d simply get a beating and be sent home.”

After nine months of service in the National Guard, Mansur was transferred to the Ministry of Defense and enrolled in the Akhmat-Chechnya regiment. He had not seen any contract. “No one signed the contract themselves — everything was done for us. Whatever the senior officer says, that’s what happens; there’s no other option. We have our own laws in the Chechen Republic,” he says.

In May 2024, Mansur was sent to guard the border in the Kursk region. By August, he was one of the many Akhmat-Chechnya fighters who, along with regular Russian army conscripts, ended up in Ukrainian captivity after Kyiv’s lightning offensive into Russia that month.

Muhammad left Russia in the spring of 2022, after he'd been summoned to a military enlistment office in another region. “My first thought was: maybe I should stay? My father had had a stroke. But then I realized: what’s the point, if in the end I wouldn’t stay here anyway? Sooner or later, they would take me to the war somehow. I understood that this wouldn’t end anytime soon. And I never intended to die for Putin’s imperial ambitions,” Muhammad recalls.

Muhammad believes he was lucky: at the start of the full-scale war, he had a passport with visas, and he speaks English. He now lives in Europe with his family, is mastering a new profession, and hopes to obtain asylum. However, his chances of securing international protection are no higher than those of other Russian draft dodgers. Muhammad has already received a refusal and filed an appeal with a lawyer. Meanwhile, his brother Anzor went into hiding in another Russian region. “If our parents suddenly need help or something happens to them, he wants to be within reach,” Muhammad explains.

Despite the high risks of forced conscription in Chechnya, NIYSO activists do not encourage potential recruits to leave the republic without a plan, as support for Russian refugees abroad has considerably waned. They may even risk deportation. “But if you’re already on the [law enforcement] radar, you need to leave. If you don’t have a passport, you could travel to other regions or at least to CIS countries using your domestic ID,” Abubakirov says.