Akhmat At The Front: What Apti Alaudinov Reveals About Russian War Doctrine

Lieutenant General Apti Aronovich Alaudinov sits forward in his chair and draws a sharp line.

“We fight people who fight us with weapons. We do not fight women, children or elders. That is the difference between the Russian and Israeli armies in Gaza,” he says, voice measured but hard. The setting is Dmitri Simes Junior’s New Rules podcast. The cameras are rolling, the studio is quiet, and Alaudinov, deputy head of the main military political directorate of the Russian defence ministry and commander of the Akhmat special forces integrated into the Russian armed forces, settles in to describe how he believes Russia is fighting its war.

Decorated as a Hero of Russia, a Hero of the Chechen Republic and a Hero of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and long associated with Ramzan Kadyrov’s security structures, Alaudinov speaks not as an analyst but as a serving commander. His Akhmat units have operated across the Donbas and around Svatove and Kupiansk. He sits at the junction of field command and political supervision.

Who Apti Alaudinov Is And Why His Voice Matters

Apti Aronovich Alaudinov was born in 1973 in Gorny in Stavropol Krai in a Chechen family that backed Moscow during the first Chechen war. His father and several relatives died fighting on the federal side. After studying law at Chechen State University he joined the republic interior ministry, moved into organised crime work, and eventually rose to deputy interior minister and head of the Chechen police. From there he became part of Kadyrov’s inner security circle.

As the Akhmat formations were folded into the formal Russian armed forces, Alaudinov took command of Akhmat special forces. In 2024 he was promoted to deputy head of the main military political directorate. That dual role means he both directs Chechen units at the front and helps run the army’s information and morale system. When he talks about drones, attrition and missiles, he does so as someone who has both political and operational responsibilities.

Active Defence Around Pokrovsk And Kupiansk

Simes begins with the question that preoccupies analysts. If the focus is on Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, what is actually happening on his slice of the front.

Alaudinov starts with the length of the front. The line of contact, he says, runs for more than one thousand kilometres. Across that entire length, Russian forces are engaged in what he calls active defence. Troops hold fortified positions, launch local attacks, and keep Ukrainian units reacting and shifting.

The main effort is clearly around Pokrovsk. He describes the city as the central node where Ukraine has concentrated its best forces to halt the Russian advance. Russian command has deliberately chosen this axis. Take Pokrovsk, push through into operational depth, and the broader agglomeration, in his telling, will begin to unravel.

While regular army formations push on Pokrovsk, Akhmat units under his command are positioned on adjacent sectors. Their function, he says, is to keep the entire front engaged, attacking, probing and forcing Kyiv to stretch reserves instead of stacking them on a single point.

Western talk of a slow Russian advance is misleading, he claims. Only Russia is advancing at all. Ukraine remains on the defensive everywhere.

The Slow Grind And Russia’s Attrition Story

Behind the talk of Pokrovsk lies a simple idea. War is arithmetic. Alaudinov tells Simes that modern war is decided by attrition of manpower and equipment measured over many months. The question is not who can stage a spectacular breakthrough for television. The question is which side can keep going when the other side’s pool of men and machines is exhausted.

In the picture he paints, Russia has chosen a slow and steady tempo not because it cannot move faster but because it is preserving its personnel and ammunition for a long war in which the North Atlantic alliance may still raise the stakes. Ukraine, he claims, cannot match that approach.

He puts numbers on the table. Ukraine, he says, is losing around forty thousand men per month at the front. Mobilisation brings in only about twenty five thousand a month. Each month the Ukrainian army shrinks by fifteen thousand men net. Under that arithmetic, he tells Simes, the end state is clear. Ukraine is being ground down faster than it can regenerate, while Russian forces slowly capture new settlements and force Kyiv to funnel new brigades into already exhausted sectors.

How Drones Have Changed The Battlefield

The conversation then pivots to drones. Alaudinov says unmanned aviation has become the central tool of war in Ukraine. Drones, he argues, now inflict most of the damage for both sides. Artillery still matters and tanks still exist but old tank columns no longer decide campaigns in the way they once did.

A tank that costs millions can be destroyed by a small first person view drone carrying an explosive charge and priced in the hundreds. Behind every war stands economics, he tells Simes. An army that tries to answer every incoming missile with a missile of equal cost will destroy its own finances. The answer is to use cheap systems wherever possible to destroy expensive ones.

Russia, he says, has adapted to that reality. Rather than send long armoured columns into open ground, Russian forces now rely on drones and artillery to detect, fix and destroy Ukrainian units. Only once a sector has been worn down do infantry and armour move forward in strength. He cites the so called course operation and the road that became known as a road of death as an example. Roads were cut, convoys were destroyed and logistics throttled before ground forces pushed in.

Drones As A State Level Equaliser

Alaudinov does not stop at tactics. He says drones equalise power between states. He recalls the old line that God made some men strong and others weak and then says drones now do something similar for countries. A state that leads in drone production and use can blunt the advantage of a state that has more tanks or planes.

He insists that at this stage, even though Ukraine receives drones and electronics from across the North Atlantic alliance, Russia has the advantage. In his words, Russia now fields a layered system. Long range drones for deep reconnaissance, strike drones with varying warheads and ranges, and the ability to hit moving targets. Two years ago, he says, Russia was at the start of that development. Now he describes Russian unmanned aviation as ahead not only of Ukraine but of the unmanned systems the alliance has chosen to bring into the conflict.

Hypersonic Missiles And Carrier Groups

From drones, Alaudinov reaches for another example of what he sees as a strategic equaliser. He points to Russian hypersonic weapons such as Kinzhal and Zircon. The famous carrier groups of the United States navy, he says, once moved near a country and dominated it by air power. Now those carriers, in his terms, are tin cans. One Zircon or one Kinzhal, he claims, can sink any carrier.

Mercenaries, Ukrainian Soldiers And Barrier Troops

Simes asks about foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine, many of them former North Atlantic soldiers. Alaudinov portrays them as men who expected a simple expedition like past interventions in Afghanistan or Africa and instead found themselves in an industrial war. Russian forces killed them in bunches, he says. They do not check passports. Anyone on the other side of the line is simply an enemy combatant.

When Simes asks whether these foreign fighters are more effective than Ukrainian soldiers, Alaudinov’s answer is unexpectedly respectful. After the Russian army, he says, the strongest soldiers are Ukrainians. He ranks them above foreign volunteers in fighting spirit.

In the same breath he paints a severe picture of Ukrainian mobilisation and discipline. Men are seized off the streets, thrown into trenches and then held in place by nationalist formations behind them who, he alleges, are ordered to shoot anyone who tries to retreat. He even claims that drones are used to enforce this, striking soldiers who fall back without orders.

Trump, NATO And The Politics Of Support

In the final part of the interview Simes raises politics. What about Donald Trump and his promise to end the war in one day.

Alaudinov is sceptical. Rhetoric in Washington may change, he says, but Russian soldiers at the front still feel the weight of North Atlantic support. Drones, artillery, long range missiles and deep reconnaissance all continue to arrive through European capitals and through alliance channels. Whether purchases are formally booked through America or through European states does not matter at the front line. Ideas from think tanks, targeting data and weapons all still flow to Kyiv.

At the same time he sees a change in how Western media talk about Kyiv. Reports of corruption and criticism of President Volodymyr Zelensky are, in his view, signs that the alliance is preparing to install new leadership after a ceasefire or negotiations. In his reading that would be used to regroup and retrain Ukrainian units while locking Russia into a frozen conflict.

A Window Into The Russian Command Mindset

Taken as a whole the interview is not a neutral description of the war. It is a wartime narrative from a serving lieutenant general with a key position in both Chechen forces and the army’s political directorate. He presents Russia as deliberate, methodical and patient. He presents drones and hypersonic missiles as weapons that break former Western advantages in armour and sea power. He presents Ukraine as bleeding at an unsustainable rate under coercive mobilisation. He presents the alliance as running a live fire experiment that cannot change the eventual outcome.

The gray boxes tell their own story. Russian official numbers freeze the cost for Russia while enlarging the cost for Ukraine. Russian doctrine and procurement decisions confirm the central place of drones and attrition. Russian leaders talk openly about hypersonic systems as the answer to carrier groups. Inside that framework Alaudinov’s voice is more than a personal view. It is a concentrated statement of how a large part of the Russian command wants this war to be understood by its own citizens and by its opponents.

References