Chechen warlord Kadyrov to send his sons to fight for Russia in Ukraine

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, announced that he was sending three of his teenage sons to the frontline in Ukraine.

"It's time to prove themselves in a real fight, I can only welcome this desire," Kadyrov wrote on Telegram, posting a video of the young boys -- aged 14, 15, 16 -- firing missiles in a shooting range.

"Soon they will go to the front line and will be on the most difficult sections of the contact line."

He said Akhmat (16), Eli (15) and Adam (14) have been trained for combat "almost from their youngest years" and urged that the message is not a prank.

The video showed his sons smiling in combat, wearing camouflage clothing and dark glasses, on tanks, guns strapped to their waists, shooting rocket launchers and machine guns.

Kadyrov, a former warlord who leads the Muslim-majority Chechnya republic, has been one of Russia's most vocal supporters of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.