The Baisangur Benoevsky National Guard battalion, originally created for the war in Ukraine, has been placed under the personal control of Adam Kadyrov, the 18-year-old son of the head of Chechnya. As Novaya Gazeta Europe found, the unit, unlike the Sheikh Mansur battalion formed at the same time, has barely taken part in combat and remains in Grozny — despite being created as an elite formation with good equipment, new barracks, and its own training grounds. The Sheikh Mansur battalion was formed as a volunteer unit of the Defense Ministry, taking anyone willing to join without restrictions based on health or criminal record, and by December 2023 it had already ended up at the front. The Benoevsky battalion, by contrast, was formed with strict requirements for candidates — and stayed in Chechnya.

Bekhan Chalayev, the brother of Zamid Chalayev, a security official close to Ramzan Kadyrov, has been appointed commander of the battalion. The unit is overseen by Adam Kadyrov: he regularly visits the fighters, is friends with the commander, and all the battalion’s vehicles bear the license plates “DUSTUM 95” — the call sign of the head of Chechnya’s son, previously used by his father. Over the entire existence of the battalion, Novaya Gazeta Europe found only two mentions of its trips to the front: in spring 2024, a group of 20 fighters led by Chalayev was sent to Zaporizhzhia region (but there is no confirmation they took part in combat), and in August 2025 the servicemen again visited the combat zone — this time without their commander. Since November 2023, Ramzan Kadyrov has said nothing either about the battalion’s combat use or about plans to send it to the front.

At the same time, the battalion’s fighters signed contracts for terms starting from one year and received federal payments of 195,000 rubles. The publication notes that such money was due to those who entered service in order to take part in combat operations, but not to those who remain at their permanent deployment location.

Adam Kadyrov is a two-time Hero of Chechnya. He was previously appointed head of his father’s security service and curator of the Chechen Interior Ministry. In October 2024, his name was entered into the Russian Book of Records as the youngest head of security for the leader of a federal subject — he was 16 at the time. Since the start of the war, according to Current Time’s calculations, he has received more than 20 awards, including the National Guard medal “For Combat Distinction” and Rosenergoatom’s gold medal “For Merit in Improving the Safety of Nuclear Power Plants” (for what merits, it is not specified).

Kadyrov Jr. gained widespread notoriety in September 2023, when he beat Nikita Zhuravel, who had been arrested for burning the Quran, in the Grozny pretrial detention center — and it was after this that he began to be actively decorated with awards.