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"The president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has recently made a rather interesting statement. Kadyrov has declared that the Chechen mercenaries have been involved in hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh," reads the article in the “BigCaucasus”, which also contains Kadyrov’s record on the LiveJournal’s service: "The Chechen mercenaries were involved in the armed forces of both sides (of the conflict) in Nagorno-Karabakh war."

The “BigCaucasus” notes that immediately after the statement of the president of Chechnya, the MFA of Nagorno Karabakh gave a rather deployed comment on the situation. “The statements that Chechen mercenaries fought for the Karabakh Armenians are absolutely untrue. Unlike Azerbaijan, no mercenaries of any nationality have ever fought on the NKR side,” the statement of the MFA of NKR read.

“Numerous facts testify that in 1992-1993, about 3.000 Afghan mojahedins, as well as Chechen detachments headed by Shamil Basayev fought against the Karabakh Army. In early July 1992, the Chechen mercenaries in Nagorno Karabakh amounted to about 300. In July 1993, Chechen-Press Agency reported about Chechens՛ participation in the military activities in Nagorno Karabakh, which was confirmed by the first losses among them,” the MFA of Nagorno Karabakh reports.

Maj. Gen. Astvatsatur Petrosyan the commander of the "Eagles bombers" squad told the “BigCaucasus” about the details of participation of Chechen squads in the Karabakh war. "Chechens fought in Karabakh, but not on the Armenians’ side. When they were taken hostage they presented themselves as Russians or representatives of other nationalities. They would not have fought for the Christians," the general said.

He also noted that a detachment of Cossacks from Transnistria fought on the Armenians’ side for a short time, but losing 7 people in one of the battles in September 1992, they confessed that it was very difficult to fight in Karabakh.

There were moments during the fighting in Karabakh when the Armenian and Chechen troops were to fight against one another.
"During the fight of 1992, we saw about 70 militants at Karmaravan city, who were fighting for Azerbaijan. They stood out by the black uniform that they were wearing on. When we shot down their armor and took some of them as captives, it turned out that those were Chechen mercenaries who were fighting in Karabakh for the Azerbaijani Armed Forces," he said.

The captivated Chechens confessed that they were promised to be given salary at a rate of 15 thousand rubles, with the prospect of rising to 40,000.

Petrossian is one of the three generals who have developed and successfully carried out an operation to free the fortress city of Shushi. He leads a simple life; he speaks of war only when the journalists ask him to do.

The general reminded that the Azerbaijani side also used the Russian and Tatar militants to carry out sabotage in the rear of the Armenian forces. "During the war, a detachment of 15 people, mostly Russian and Tatar, had, reportedly, expressed desire to fight on our side. However, we quickly figured out that this was a well trained team sent by Baku aimed at carrying out sabotage in the rear of our troops. We have figured out and quickly neutralized them," the general said.

As A. Petrosyan told, Shamil Basayev was in Karabakh twice - in 1992 and 1994. "Both Basayev and Dudayev were professional soldiers, who had finished the school of the General Staff of the USSR. Basayev participated in the Karabakh not just as an envoy of Soviet KGB. This structure functioned against the Armenians during the war. Basayev was in Azerbaijani training center. He was well trained; he was involved in coaching and training the troops of Azerbaijani AF. He was not involved in the fights personally," said the general, noting that in 1992 the Armenian units surrounded, and then occupied the Azerbaijani training center, and Basayev managed to move to Georgia.

As stated in the material, in those days the media wrote that the Chechen rebels had left the war stage after suffering significant losses. In 2000, Basayev gave an interview to ANS Azerbaijani TV Company, admitting his involvement in the Karabakh war: “We came to fight in Karabakh not for trophies, but for the idea of jihad“. However, Basayev told, “when we arrived at the scene and saw the situation, we realized that there was no sign of jihad”.