According to these reports, a fight took place between Kadyrov's Chechens and troops from Buryatia, another autonomous republic of Russia, in the Russian-occupied village of Kiselivka in the Kherson region. About 50 soldiers from both sides were reportedly involved. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence wrote that there were deaths and injuries, without giving more precise information.
Several reasons are put forward to explain the fighting. On the one hand, the Chechens are said to have stolen a booty that the Buryats had made earlier.
But above all, it was an ethnic conflict. While the Buryats, who were once part of Genghis Khan's Mongol empire, are fighting on the front line, the Chechens have to wait in the background. Their main task, reports Ukraine, is to motivate their own troops to continue fighting. In other words: shoot down deserters. It is not clear whether this division of roles no longer suited the Buryats or whether they felt they had a better chance of fighting the Chechens than the Ukrainians. In any case, this is one more story that shows how low the morale of Putin's army is.