The term Kadyrovtsy is commonly used in Chechnya to refer to any armed, ethnically-Chechen men under the control of Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, although nominally they are under the umbrella of the National Guard of Russia.

[12][13] The Kadyrovites have been criticized as being Ramzan Kadyrov's private army, and have been accused of committing widespread human rights abuses such as kidnapping, forced disappearances, torture and murder.

[12] Technically still a personal militia, the Kadyrovites functioned as an unofficial part of the Chechen Republic's state police, without legal status in either the republican or federal government.

[20][21] By 2006, the total number of Kadyrovites, who by then included the PPSM-2, the Oil Regiment, and so-called Anti-Terrorist Centers (commanded by Muslim Ilyasov), was no longer being disclosed.

[22][23] On April 29, 2006, Ramzan Kadyrov officially disbanded his security service, saying on television that "These structures are no longer existent, and those calling themselves Kadyrovites are impostors and must be punished in accordance with the law."

Some of the Kadyrovite gunmen were completely integrated into Chechen government power structures, while others, estimated to number at least 1,800, continued serving in semi-legal paramilitary formations.

Observers have considered that their recognition and legalization as a law enforcement unit was implemented by the Russian government to redeploy some federal troops in Chechnya to the neighboring state of Dagestan, where an Islamist insurgency had not been contained.

In 2016, after a series of reforms, most of the Russian internal military and paramilitary troops were placed under the command of the newly created National Guard of Russia (also known as the Rosgvardiya).

[26][27] As part of Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war, Kadyrovite police units were deployed on the ground in Aleppo to "preserve order" and engage in civic outreach.

[35] On the same day, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said that the Alpha Group of the SBU had ambushed a convoy of Chechen troops in Hostomel and killed the commander of the 141st motorized regiment Major General Magomed Tushayev.

[40][41][42] In April 1, Ukrainian media reported that Chechen troops executed conscripted soldiers of the Luhansk People's Republic who refused to fight.

[13] On 29 April, Ukrainian intelligence alleged that a unit of Buryat soldiers and Chechen troops exchanged fire on the village of Kyselivka in the Kherson Oblast.

[47] The National Guard of Ukraine released a video appearing to show fighters from the Azov Regiment, based in Mariupol, greasing bullets in lard (salo) to be used against Chechen troops as an insult, in reference to the prohibition of pork in Islamic law.

[53][54] Human rights activists working in Chechnya have accused the group of being heavily involved in kidnapping, torture and murder to cement Kadyrov's clan rule.

In October 2006, a German human rights group, the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), that had branded Kadyrov a "war criminal", alleged that up to 75 percent of recent incidents of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping in Chechnya were committed by Ramzan's paramilitary forces.

[55] The Memorial group investigator stated in its report: "Considering the evidence we have gathered, we have no doubt that most of the crimes which are being committed now in Chechnya are the work of Kadyrov's men.

One consists of concrete bunkers or pillboxes, where kidnapped relatives of armed Chechen fighters are held hostages while the second prison in Tsentoroi is evidently located in the yard—or in immediate vicinity—of the house of Ramzan Kadyrov.

On March 1, 2007, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group rights organisation, stated "Kadyrov is to blame for kidnappings of many innocent people.

[19] In June 2005, Beslan Gantamirov, the former Chechen Prime Minister, accused the SB of "abductions and murder even of the FSB employees" and "gangsterism in the territory of all the North Caucasus".

In April 2006, Mikhail Babich, another former Prime Minister of Chechnya and then Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the Russian State Duma on Defense, called the armed formations of Kadyrov "an absolutely illegal structure".

[64] According to human rights group Memorial as well as Anna Politkovskaya, the Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya Idris Gaibov had orchestrated the atrocities by Kadyrovites in the outskirts of the Chechen village in the Kurchaloy on July 27–28, 2006.

[71] Shortly after the Beslan hostage-taking raid in 2004, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov suggested the practice of taking rebel leaders' relatives hostage.

[72] On April 28, 2006, security forces loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov fought a fist fight and then a gun battle with the bodyguards of then-pro-Russian president Alu Alkhanov.

Up to two men were reportedly killed and four injured in the clash at the presidential administration complex, sparking fears of a broader power struggle between pro-Russian Chechen groups who controlled the republic.

On June 4, 2006, President Alu Alkhanov said he would prefer his republic be governed by Sharia law and suggested adapting the Islamic code, as it is championed by Kadyrov, He also dismissed reports of conflicts with Ramzan.

In August 2006, rebel commander Isa Muskiev said the FSB and Kadyrovites lost five men killed in the shootout, one of them shot by Sadulayev personally, and three fighters escaped.

The killing of Sheikh Abdul Halim was trumpeted by leaders of the Russian-backed official government of the province, claiming that the separatist forces there had been dealt a "decapitating blow "from which they will never recover.

The Goretz (Mountaineer) detachment of the Kadyrovites was a spetsnaz unit of the FSB headed by Movladi Baisarov, a close ally and chief bodyguard to Akhmad Kadyrov.

The Kadyrovites ended up backing down in that confrontation when another Chechen warlord, Said-Magomed Kakiev, head of the Spetsnaz GRU unit the Special Battalion Zapad, came down on Baisarov's side.

At the same time, he told Kommersant that he was not hiding from anyone in Moscow and was expecting to return to Chechnya soon to become the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of law enforcement.