I wonder if the presumably Islamic makeup if Kadyrovs troops makes them less welcome in some areas by locals and less likely to succeed?
—”I wonder if the presumably Islamic makeup if Kadyrovs troops makes them less welcome in some areas by locals and less likely to succeed?”
Your question covers a lot of ground and also places it near the center of the Stans, oil&gas and the Muslin component of the Russian Federation.
And Turkey wants to reassemble the Ottoman Empire.
Like Putin wants... SAME THING ONLY DIFFERENT.
A major fracture line, once held together by the power of the Russian Army, and those days are gone.
It is well understood that Putin prefers pur sang Orthodox Russians.
NB; not many military funerals in the Moscow/St Petersberg area.