🚨🇷🇺 Over the past three weeks I signed my Russian Ministry of Defense contract and passed an intense and grueling military training course covering everything from trench warfare and reconnaissance to combat medicine and explosives. I am HONORED to have passed all the qualifications and tests to join the elite Russian Ministry of Defense AXMAT Spetsnaz unit as the FIRST American and Western citizen ever accepted into the unit. I have also made history as the first ever elected US official to join a foreign military, in this case, the Russian military, while still holding political office. On the day I departed the training camp, I was honored to be taken to personally greet the commander of AXMAT Spetsnaz, Hero of the Russian Federation, Hero of the Chechen Republic, Hero of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and Hero of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Lieutenant General Apti Aronovich Alaudinov. I want to personally thank President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; Leader of the Chechen Republic and General of the Russian Army, Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov; Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Andrey Removich Belousov; Lieutenant General and Commander of AXMAT Spetsnaz, Apti Aronovich Alaudinov; and all the amazing and professional instructors from PMC Wagner Group, other Spetsnaz units, VDV, and other units of the Russian Ministry of Defense. АХМАТ СИЛА — РОССИЯ МОЩЬ БОГ ЕДИН — АЛЛАХУ АКБАР!