In 2014, there were initial reports of Chechen volunteers who joined Ukraine's side to fight in the Donbas region.

The other battalion was named after Sheikh Mansur, an 18th-century Chechen military commander and Islamic leader who resisted the Russian imperialist expansion into the Caucasus.

These battalions were led by Muslim Cheberloevsky [ru] (Umkhan Avtaev) and Isa Munaev, both of whom had participated in the two Russian-Chechen wars.

After his death, Adam Osmayev, previously accused of attempting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, became the battalion commander.

[5] On February 26, 2022, Akhmed Zakayev stated that many of the 300,000 Chechens living in Europe expressed their desire and readiness to fight for Ukraine.

[5][6] Several Chechen politicians and supporters of the ChRI living abroad, including Dzhambulat Suleymanov, Musa Lomaev, Anzor Maskhadov, Hussein Iskhanov, Khasan Khalitov, Akhyad Idigov, Musa Taipov, and Mansur Sadulaev, also supported Ukraine and participated in media coverage of the conflict.

In May 2022, Maskhadov and Suleimanov visited Ukraine on a diplomatic mission and held meetings with Ukrainian politicians, journalists, and Chechen volunteers from the Sheikh Mansur battalion.

[10] "I believe that the Kremlin agents, which are infiltrated into Ukrainian power structures and authorities, are conducting a special operation to destabilize the situation within the state, with the aim of further expanding aggression and a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

[21]Musa Lomaev, a former representative of the ChRI government in Finland, has stated that many Chechens who participated in the second Russian-Chechen war and the civil war in Syria, as well as Chechen emigrants living outside of Chechnya, are continuing to flow to Ukraine as volunteers.

[22] Anzor Maskhadov, the head of the "International Movement for the Liberation of Chechnya" organization, reported later that month that another group of 100 Chechen volunteers had recently left Europe for Ukraine.