30 Facts About Ruslan Gelayev

Ruslan Germanovich Gelayev was a Chechen military commander and prominent military figure of the Chechen resistance against Russia.

Albeit a controversial figure, Gelayev was commonly viewed as an abrek and a well-respected, ruthless fighter.

Ruslan Gelayev's operations spread well beyond the borders of Chechnya and even outside Russia and into Georgia.

Ruslan Gelayev was killed while leading a raid into the Russian Republic of Dagestan in 2004.

Ruslan Gelayev was born in 1964 in the village of Komsomolskoye near Urus-Martan, 10 years after his parents had returned from the Stalinist deportation of Chechens into Central Asia.

Ruslan Gelayev lived for several years outside Chechnya in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, held various jobs and, at one point, served in the Soviet Army.

Ruslan Gelayev fought as a volunteer for the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus militia, which had been initiated by Russian intelligence, serving under Shamil Basayev.

Together with the Chechen Battalion, Ruslan Gelayev took part in the Battle of Gagra, which marked a turning point in the war.

Previously, on 6 March 1996, Ruslan Gelayev had led a surprise raid on Grozny, seizing large parts of the city for two days and inflicting serious losses on Russian forces, before leaving with more than 100 civilian hostages.

Ruslan Gelayev went on a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and took the name Hamzat.

Ruslan Gelayev became the first deputy defense minister in charge of security forces, including personal command of the Sharia Guard.

Ruslan Gelayev maintained links with both Maskhadov and his rivals, in particular with Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Salman Raduyev.

At the start of the Second Chechen War in late 1999, Ruslan Gelayev commanded a force of some 1,500 fighters in the siege of Grozny, charged with defense of the south-western sector of the city.

At that point, the notorious Chechen warlord Arbi Barayev contacted Ruslan Gelayev, promising him aid and transportation to a safe area.

When Ruslan Gelayev's forces arrived at the specified meeting place, where buses were supposed to be waiting to evacuate their wounded, they were ambushed by a large number of Russian troops.

Ruslan Gelayev escaped, but with only a fraction of his men, and many of demoralized survivors decided to give up the fight.

In 2003, Ruslan Gelayev publicly denounced Kadyrov's claims as "blatant lies" from a "despicable traitor".

In 2001, Ruslan Gelayev decided to rebuild his forces in the remote Pankisi Gorge across the Georgian border.

Ruslan Gelayev wrote a note warning Kuzmina's captors that if they did not free the woman, they would become his deadly enemies.

Ruslan Gelayev earned admiration from senior Georgian politicians, despite the failure of the attempt during which at least 40 people were killed.

From his bases in Pankisi, Ruslan Gelayev organised a series of cross-border hit-and-run attacks into Russia.

Many Dagestani and Kabarday fighters split from Ruslan Gelayev and returned to their own republics, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, launching the local insurgencies there.

In September 2002, Ruslan Gelayev personally led an incursion into the Russian republic of Ingushetia, capturing the villages of Tarskoye and Galashki, but his fighters became surrounded, took large losses and were dispersed.

Ruslan Gelayev himself was severely injured and for a time being was out of action.

However, according to the Kavkaz Center version, Ruslan Gelayev fought against a larger group of Russian troops and was killed after his arm was shot-off by heavy machine gun fire from a helicopter.

The corpse was positively identified by the FSB, but was not released to his relatives because Ruslan Gelayev was classified as a terrorist by Russian authorities.

Ruslan Gelayev's family has since been campaigning for the release of his remains or disclosure of what happened to the body, including attempts to buy it back.

Ruslan Gelayev's eldest son, Rustam, was born in 1988 in Omsk, Russia, where his father lived during the 1980s when he was married to a local ethnic Russian woman Larisa Gubkina.

Around 12 August 2012, the 24-year-old Rustam Ruslan Gelayev was reportedly killed by an artillery attack during the Battle of Aleppo.

Kommersant cited a relative of Ruslan Gelayev as saying Rustam had been only studying in Syria and was killed on his way to Turkey while fleeing from the war.