Baku analysts treat video about Chechens and Karabakh war as fake

Azerbaijani journalists were unable to identify the area in the video about the possible participation of Chechens in the battles for Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has a strong army; it needs no Chechens' help, Ramzan Mollaev, the head of the local Council of Refugees from Chechnya, is sure.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that after the start of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 27, Elkhan Suleimanov, the head of the Chechen Ministry of Public Health, has publicly supported Azerbaijan.

After analyzing the video clip about Chechens in Karabakh, Mekhman Aliev, Director of the "Turan" News Agency, called it a fake.

Tofig Dadashev, an observer for the Azerbaijani Centre for Extreme Journalistic Investigations, has ruled out any participation of Chechens in battles on the side of Azerbaijan. He has noted that the country's border with Russia had been closed since March due to the pandemic; and the arrival of people from Chechnya is impossible.

Besides, he treats Chechens' sympathy to Azerbaijanis as natural. "They are neighbours and have the same religion. In the 1990s, during the war in Chechnya, many Chechen residents preferred to send their families to Baku," Mr Dadashev has noted.

Earlier, Russian experts did not exclude Chechens' involvement in Karabakh fighting, recalling their role in the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict.