Said - Magomed Kakiyev Said - Magomed Shamaevich Kakiyev ( , also spelled Kakiev ; born 22 February 1970 ) is the leader of the GRU Spetsnaz Special Battalion West ( " Zapad " ) , a pro - Moscow Chechen military force . Inside Chechnya his men are sometimes referred to as the " Kakievtsy " . Unlike the other Chechen pro - Moscow forces in Chechnya , Kakiyev and his men are not former rebels and during the First Chechen War were one of the few Chechen militants who fought on the Russia n side . Kakiyev has been declared a Hero of the Russian Federation four times , has twice received the Medal for Courage and was awarded two specially engraved guns from the Russian Ministry of Defense . He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Army . He has been engaged in violent power struggles for overall military authority with the president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov and Sulim Yamadayev . Early years . Said - Magomed finished Grozny vocational school in 1989 and went to serve in the army . He was assigned to Nagorny Karabakh where he witnessed at first hand the devastating aftermath of the Soviet Union collapse . In the war , he acquired the rank of Major . He came home to a Chechnya in turmoil . Dzhokhar Dudayev had started a rebellion against Soviet , later Russian rule , but the Northern part of Chechnya where Kakiyev hailed from was not so enthusiastic about the secession . After allegedly witnessing atrocities , Kakiyev joined the opposition against Dudaev . In 1993 he was seriously hurt when a hand grenade meant for Dudayev exploded in his own hands . He lost a hand , an eye and his nose and had to have his face reconstructed beyond recognition , at a hospital in Moscow ' s Arbat Street . After the operation , Said - Magomed briefly studied at Alma Ata University and returned to Russia to take a tax police training course . Later years . In 1994 - 1995 , Said - Magomed returned to Chechnya to fight on the federal side in the First Chechen War . The most formative event in his life was the Dagestanskaya Street massacre on August 6 , 1996 , when 30 opposition fighters and militia officers defending the city mayor ' s office were shot and killed despite promises of free passage through the city . Kakiyev , who was the commander of the OMON unit , managed to escape . Kakiyev has consistently blamed Doku Umarov and Ruslan Gelayev for the Dagestanskaya massacre . At the end of 1996 , Aslan Maskhadov declared him an outlaw and put a price on his head : whoever killed him would receive the title of Hero of Ichkeria . Kakiyev had to take his relatives into hiding and live in Moscow for almost three years . When in September 1999 , the Russian army entered Chechnya after the Chechen incursion in Dagestan and the Moscow apartment block bombings , Said was able to return to Northern Chechnya . With some of his fellow anti - Maskhadov rebels , he formed an armed detachment and entered Grozny . Kakiyev claimed his unit was the first to hoist the Russian flag in Grozny . During the battle of Komsomolskoye , forces commanded by Kakiyev managed to surround forces commanded by Ruslan Gelayev ; Kakiyev was also involved in hunting down Gelayev during the winter of 2003 - 2004 . Present . Kakiyev , who became a devout Sufi Muslim after his two escapes from death , is believed to be one of the more effective and disciplined of Grozny ' s commanders , and resents any suggestion of subordination to Ramzan Kadyrov or Sulim Yamadayev , themselves both powerful commanders loyal to Grozny . In recent interviews , he went so far as to put the Kremlin policy of amnesty for all defecting rebels into question . Though he has increased his power base with support from people who are tired of both the war and corruption , his unit " Zapad " , unlike other pro - Moscow factions , still does not include defector s . From at least June until September 2008 , including the 2008 South Ossetia war , Kakiyev ' s Zapad troops were present in Abkhazia and South Ossetia .