Fighters from Chechnya are on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine. Pro-Kyiv volunteers are loyal to the late Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev. They form the “Dudayev Battalion” and are the sworn enemies of Chechen forces who back Russia and joined in the siege of Mariupol
longman inside ukraine tonight. reporter: tonight, reports of a dramatic escape by an american nuclear scientist from russian-occupied ukraine. you can see john spor in the white t-shirt being escorted by a local ukrainian security detail just outside mariupol yesterday. spor, who is from texas, had been living in mariupol for several years before the russians invaded last february. after going into hiding during the brutal siege, he says russian-backed chechen fighters went to his house twice and ransacked it. they were hunting me. there s no other way to say it. reporter: his rescue was organized by project dynamo, a tampa-based group run by u.s. veterans, who say spor was considered a high-value target because of the sensitive nature of his work, particularly in laser-guided weapons systems. project dynamo claims spor was able to pass through more than 30 russian checkpoints in eastern ukraine, and was then driven nearly 20 hours straight across the rest of the country and int
the city has been the main focus of russia s recent offensive in the east of ukraine, as our correspondent joe inwood reports. explosions. this is the battle for severodonetsk, but from the russian side. in the distance is the azot chemical plant, said to be the last holdout of ukrainian forces. a team from chinese state television joined chechen fighters as they tried to capture the destroyed city. we are very close to the industrial zone of the plant, the commander says, and we are confident that we will take control of it. but the ukrainians say they are still fighting and have not given up on severodonetsk yet. that s despite massive artillery barrages that have turned a once bustling city into a wasteland. translation: the last day and night before were very hard. this night was relatively calm.