Kadyrov-run military training centre in Chechnya to receive massive boost in state funding

The Russian Special Forces University, a private military training centre founded by Chechnya’s Kremlin-installed leader Ramzan Kadyrov, is to receive an unprecedented 5 billion rubles (€55 million) in state funding over the next two years, Novaya Gazeta Europe has learned.

The significant rise in state investment for the institution, which readies those who have voluntarily enlisted in the Russian military for deployment in Ukraine, is a strong indicator of the Kremlin’s continuing determination to funnel as many newly trained troops to the frontline, where the Russian military continues its slow but steady capture of Ukrainian territory at extraordinary human cost. 

According to a draft budget submitted by the Russian government to the country’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, at the end of September, some 2.5 billion rubles (€27.3 million) will be allocated annually to fund the centre’s operations in both 2026 and 2027. 

The sum far exceeds the institution’s current income — which in 2024 totalled 451 million rubles (€4.9 million) — and comes just weeks after the Russian government earmarked 38% of the country’s federal budget for national defence and law enforcement over the next three years.

Founded by Kadyrov in the city of Gudermes in 2013 and renamed the Vladimir Putin Russian Special Forces University during a visit from the Russian leader in 2024, the institution originally offered paid courses in combat skills and training for the security staff of major state-owned enterprises including Russian Railways and energy giants Gazprom and Tatneft. It also trained Chechen special forces ahead of their deployment to Syria in Russia’s 2016 intervention in the country’s civil war.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the centre set up a recruitment office for volunteers to enlist in the Russian military, with as many as 19,000 soldiers reported to have undergone training at the facility before being sent to Ukraine between 2022 and 2024.

Since its establishment 12 years ago, the centre has been funded primarily by Chechen oligarch Movsadi Alviev, a close ally of Kadyrov and major sponsor of the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, a nominally charitable organisation that has been accused of functioning as a slush fund for the Kadyrov family and which is under Western sanctions for its alleged involvement in the forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

Since April 2024, Ramzan Kadyrov’s 17-year-old son, Adam  Kadyrov has been charged with running the “university”, despite him already holding several public positions in Chechnya, most notably secretary of the republic’s Security Council.