Kadyrov And Akhmat Organized Arms Smuggling Into Russia: Scheme Uncovered
- 8.01.2026, 13:02
Hackers broke into the phone of a Russian major.
The Akhmat-Vostok battalion, which is run by Chechnya's head Ramzan Kadyrov, has "defeated" the Russian group Española and led the flow of smuggled weapons into occupied Crimea and the Russian Federation, investigators have found. The scheme involves a serviceman of the "Storm" unit, whose transactions were reached by Ukrainian hackers. Where do smugglers get "free" weapons from and how does the scheme, which was arranged by the Kadyrovtsy group Akhmat, work?
Hackers penetrated the cloud storage and phone of Russian Major Evgeny Dmitriev, and thus established all the details of the arms smuggling scheme, according to the International Intelligence Community's InformNapalm. The information was collected by Ukrainian hackers from the group "256 Cyber Assault Division." It turned out that Dmitriev and other commanders of the "Storm" group of the Russian Armed Forces were taking weapons from Russian soldiers and sending them to storm Ukrainian positions without rifles and assault rifles. The "surplus" thus obtained was sent to Crimea, while accomplices from Chechnya and Dagestan "turned a blind eye" to the transportation of prohibited items, the investigation said.
The InformNapalm piece first explains how the "Akhmatovites" defeated the "Espagnolites" and gained control over the flow of weapons. Then it explains how weapons were taken from Russian Armed Forces units from under Robotino and Orekhovo (Dunayevtsy is the base point). Investigators gained access to the cloud on the Russian resource. The files belong to Dmitriev - platoon commander of the unit "Storm V", which is part of the 291 Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment from North Ossetia (grouping "Dnepr" of the Russian Armed Forces). It is noted that Dmitriev entered the Russian army from prison, but was rarely in combat: the cloud is a photo from the rear, not from combat positions. At the time of publication of the article, the Russian did not notice the hack, and so everyone can see his intimate photos, bank cards and service documents on the presence of weapons.
Kadyrov and the Russian Armed Forces Storm - details of the investigation
Russian commanders came up with various ways to get "goods", the investigation says. These included being sent to an assault without weapons with the words "you will get a rifle in battle," inflated weapon losses, trophies from the battlefield or theft from adjacent units. Dmitriev set up the smuggling scheme from the summer of 2024: that's when contacts with the Kadyrovtsy members of the Akhmat-Vostok regiment appeared. It is explained that thanks to the Kadyrovites, the major hoped to gain protection from FSB inspections, and the smuggled packages would not be checked at the checkpoints manned by Kadyrov's underlings.
The hackers established that the main smuggling accomplice was military officer Nazib Radzhabov from the Akhmat-Vostok battalion. Kadyrov's battalion does have influence in the occupied territories: the commander of Akhmat-Vostok, Vakha "Askhab" Khambulatov, is a former security guard of Ramzan Kadyrov, has received awards from the Chechen head more than once and has been caught up in scandals, but has never been punished.
Rajabov or his trusted man came to pick up the weapons packages. At the same time, they assured that they could get anything through the checkpoints, even nuclear weapons. The article gives an example of one of the smugglers' deals: when Dmitriev's platoon received 10 AK-12s, four were reported, and the guest sold the rest "left."